Saturday 1 April
So, the promised easy overnight passage of 60M to make landfall on the Isles of Scilly in daylight didn’t materialise. Instead we departed the lovely Helford river at 0815, and once clear of the channel, Mate set a course of 100˚ ESE for an estimated 30 hours at sea to cover 150M to Cherbourg. Conditions were calm at first, so Trevver ran for the first few hours, meaning Jeanny could join him and keep me on course with minimum intervention from my crew. In spite of the forecast, when the wind did fill in it was right behind me, which isn’t my favourite point of sail, but Skipper hauled up my mainsail with a first reef and preventer. He tried the staysail too, but the main blanketed it and it soon got rolled back in. Mate spotted a shower sneaking up behind us, thanks to the giveaway rainbow, and the crew got big coats on just in time to avoid a soaking.
The wind increased a little further, all the way to a F4, building a swell, so I was surfing down 3-metre rollers, sailing properly now with the staysail reset. The crew soon settled into a fairly regular watch pattern, ensuring they both rested below while off duty. We enjoyed several dolphin shows, the best being during one of the Mate’s watches, when a family of four entertained her for an hour and a quarter. The largest, nicknamed ‘Dad’, would roll onto his side parallel with my hull, as if mirroring my silver flank, and look at us; ‘Mum’ and the ‘little girl’ would swim together under the bow, as if Mum was teaching her how to 
play safely with yachts, while ‘bigger brother’ played dare by darting towards, then away from us over and over again. Once he rode the crest of a long roller just in front of us, jumping three times as the wave broke. Magical and humbling.
A quarter moon had risen well before a beautiful sunset heralded a stunning starry canopy overnight.