The forecast for the next two days was for Gale force 8 from the south,as such we stayed put safely up the Medina river. Day one was spent exploring Cowes. This was Peter's type of place full of chandlers, it was with great discipline he only bought a few shackles for the boat. The second day, for the first time on the trip we got the bikes ashore and cycled up to Osborne house, spending a fascinating time exploring the house grounds before cycling back to Cowes and having a drink before getting the harbour ferry back to the boat.

Sunday saw a lighter forecast so we left Cowes for Weymouth and headed down the Solent. We had a good sail down the western Solent and achieved a good 8.4Knots close hauled with the toe-rails in the water, but we had gusts of 24 Knots and this was in the sheltered environment as such we decided that once outside the Solent the waves would be bigger and the winds possibly even stronger. So we stopped off at Yarmouth, first picking up a buoy outside for lunch before going into the harbour for the night. Jackie went and explored the shops whilst Pete stayed on board and did a few maintenance jobs,

The next morning we woke to a better forecast and sunnier sky’s so left early heading for Weymouth .We had a good sail and were due to arrive at 13:00Hrs but it seems a shame to waste such good weather considering all the poor weather we’ve had. So we continued on and sailed through the night arriving on Torquay at 05:00am , we tied up and crawled into bed.

Torquay was a great stop off place. We spent several days exploring the town and surrounding areas. We cycled to Painton and Cockington, a fascinating old style thatched village with quaint tea rooms and crafts village. We also took a day trip to Brixham, all whilst waiting for the weather to lift again. The plan was for Nathaniel to join us a sail to Bayona, we purchased a bus ticket for him to come from London to Torquay and delayed our departure to allow him to get down. Unfortunately the night before he was to come down he discovered he'd lost his passport no amount of searching turned it up. So one ticket wasted, we had to plan to sail on our own across Biscay,

We awoke the next morning checked the forecast which looked good for the trip though we would have to get sufficiently south by Thursday as strong winds were due on the channel. Unfortunately the weather Gods had another card to play, the whole of Torbay was covered in thick fog. We prepared the boat, then went for a walk hoping that the fog would have gone by mid morning. We eventually left at about noon with the bay still misty but at least the fog had eased. By the time we were out of the bay we were experiencing 20Kt winds but with the fog was closing in and we were were sailing close hauled at 7Kts with little visibility so decided that this would be dangerous overnight therefore detoured onto Plymouth. Sneaking into the harbour at about midnight motoring past the warships at anchor as they dimly appeared out of the fog was a terrify experience. We picked up a mooring buoy rather than going into one of the marinas. We got up and left early next morning , with no wind and the fog remaining we decided to go to Falmouth. We decided there was no point in trying to leave across Biscay as we would not get far enough south before the strong winds on Thursday/Friday this week.

So we are now anchored in Falmouth tucked up next to a large naval vessel giving us shelter. We will stay here until Saturday when again, we think ,we have a window on the weather to cross Biscay.