We started heading against the flood tide pouring into Carlingford Lough, past Green Castle and on towards Haulbowline light and the Hellyhunter Rock. The names on the Irish side seem far more lyrical somehow!
It was a sunny day and the wind was a steady force 4, I took the opportunity to snatch a bit of video as Dark Tarn romped towards the other side of the Irish Sea.
We were close hauled on the starboard tack and would be for the foreseeable future, this is a less than comfortable angle of heel and has led to the yachting truism that " gentlemen never sail to windward"
Lynne managed to produce a hot Irish Stew which went down very well, however even at this early stage we both seemed to be feeling the cold. Normally I would sit on the top step and keep watch from our " cuddly" but the AIS was showing our piece of the ocean was littered with fishing boats that all seemed to be sailing in circles, I think they refer to it as trawling, it certainly makes life difficult! It meant a constant lookout from the cockpit was required. Lynne was keen to keep me company however the danger then is that we would both be running the risk of getting very cold.
I encouraged Lynne to stay below to keep as warm as possible and put Brideshead revisited read by Jeremy Irons on the stereo to entertain her. Nice job Jeremy!
As darkness fell the sky was alive with stars, but the cold was intense and for the first time in about ten years I resorted to gloves. We were still making very good time but as we approached the southern end of the Isle of Man the wind backed a little east and we could no longer lay the direct course for Gut Bouy off the Ribble. For about 20 miles we were heading for morecambe Bay, after a while the wind died a little but went back southerly and gave me the chance to make back some of the southern miles we had lost.
Lynne was spelling me on watch but we didn't follow a watch keeping routine, just stayed on deck as long as we felt able to tolerate the cold then stopped and dived below to get a little warmer. We both managed a bit of a catnap.
Lynne watched the moon come up and took quite a while to figure out what it was! I was on watch as the sun came up but it brought precious little warmth. In fact the wind was on the increase and as we got within 10 miles of our objective it was getting a little uncomfortable and again started to head us, we rolled away the Genoa and started the engine.
It became obvious that we were hours early at Gut Buoy, ideally we needed to arrive at about two hours before high water to ensure we had enough depth in the river to reach Preston which is 15 miles upriver. I decided to creep the last 8 miles or so at 2 knots and we arrived at Gut 2 hours and 50 minutes before high water. By now I was getting tired however knowing the river quite well I decided we could risk carrying on. The winds were now blowing force 6 and were making the approach to Lytham very uncomfortable Dark Tarn rolling violently from side to side in the heavy beam seas.
The rolling subsided as we were passing the windmill at Lytham but the wind was still very strong, there was also a small yacht which seemed barely in control doing strange changes of direction coming down river. I was quite concerned when I made an obvious turn to starboard ( vessels turn to starboard and pass port to port) and he responded to my starboard move by turning to port again putting us on collision course. I had no more depth in the channel to play with and turned very obviously towards Lytham as the depth dropped under our keel to 2.7 metres. A bit too close for comfort!
We continued up the river without any more drama and Lynne radioed Riverway lock control and they replied that we were expected and the sealock was set and ready for us to go straight in.
We waved at some old friends and Peter Manning was waiting on the dock to take our lines. It had been a very long cold trip but we certainly had a warm reception.
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