Hi all,

We were wondering if Cape Cornwall can be considered one of the five great Capes?! If so does rounding it East to West mean that the skipper has to have his ear pierced?! We set out from Milford in a marginal forecast, but thought it would probably be our best chance for a bit to get around the bottom of England. At this time in the season there are more and more South Westerlies barrelling in from the atlantic and western approaches especially with hurricane season in full swing we didn't want to bump into the remnents of one of them coming across the pond.

We left Milford Haven marina in the morning but had to wait a little while at Dale at the mouth of the estuary, so that we would meet the tidal gate at Lands End correctly 20 hours later and 100Nm to our south. We had a meal as the wind battered us on the pontoon, not a great start to a 24 hour trip we thought.... but the forecast was for the winds to drop, so we set off
under a partial headsail only, with Emerald barrelling along at 6 knots, we thought, lets hope it eases!
Ease it did, so we got the main up with a reef in and sailed off into the sunset. Then there were clicks and squeaks all around us as we headed into the Bristol Channel as a family of dolphins came to play with us, including one very young baby. They stayed with usfor hours and hours.

As Mars and Mercury came up in the sky, and the moonlight lit the way south, we had a big smile at each other as we plugged on about 5 knots
under sail, beautiful!

Next morning the wind had died on us a bit, so we fired up the engine to ensure we reached the tidal gate off Lands End, and rounded Cape Cornwall, and the Longships Light pretty much on schedule, with the tide in our favour. Off Cape Cornwall were the tides meet is a turbulent stretch of water, rich in food, and there we saw a HUGE basking shark, and a strange pure white porpoise but we weren't sure what it was.

However the wind was already picking up to a F6 again, so we decided to make a run under engine into Newlyn, to be sure that we got in ok. The skipper managed to berth Em, without too much drama and we were tied up and ready for fish and chips and a beer by 5pm.
All in all a great trip round a notorious piece of coastline, so we were glad to get that out of the way. Only one more obstacle to go.
The Lizard peninsula stood between us and our winter quarters..........
slainte
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PS photo is of us rounding Longships light with Lands End in background.