Friday 16 June
After a better night’s sleep and with an obvious reduction in wind speed, we made a smooth departure at around 0930 and were soon tackling the navigation around the huge expanse of wind farms between us and the Isle of Man. Ben my Chree, the Manx ferry, passed us three times in the course of our passage, and must have wondered if we were ever going to arrive at the Island. Having eventually cleared the turbines, we found ourselves approaching gas platforms, and a guard vessel shadowed me for ages before finally calling my crew on the radio to check our intentions (!)
We finally arrived into Douglas Bay a little after midnight, where the friendly Harbour Control greeted us with a cheerful “Good Morning” and cleared us into Battery Pier. Unfortunately it’s not very long, and was already in use, so I had to be rafted. They were just putting me to bed when a local racing fleet began to arrive, and they were busy and noisy until around 0300, waiting for enough rise of tide to be able to go into Douglas Harbour. After a late supper, or was it early breakfast? my tired crew eventually fell into bed around dawn.