Blue Moon's trip around the UK

This post may be of more interest to sailors, but it is probably their turn.

You may have heard of Mark Fishwick, author of West Country Cruising Guide. I met him once on the Yachting Monthly stand at the boat show, and mentioned that I had read YM pretty much since I learned to read. In return he admonished me sternly for not having a subscription and – stung by this appalling sales technique – I vowed never to have one, so spending a lot of time for years to come scouring the newsagents of Soho for their one copy per month.

Since yesterday I have more reason to dislike the man. I have his book on board, and have studied the chapter on Padstow carefully. The issue with Padstow is that it is the only – and I mean the only – harbour on the North coast of Cornwall that is vaguely safe in northerly or westerly winds (and then only when you’re in).

Fishwick waffles on about how a Padstow harbourmaster once told him that he would get many more visiting yachts if he could change the name of the Doom Bar as it put them off. As he explains, and everyone knows, Doom means Sand – all bars are doom except for the ones (like Chichester) made of gravel mixed with concrete. Which come to think of it is actually concrete.

He then goes on to do exactly what the HM didn’t want and explain how terrifying it is. His pilot contains the phrase “do not attempt it in any ground swell from the NorthWest”. Now yesterday’s forecast was for NW wind, but 3-5 whivch feels pretty manageable to me. Surely Padstow doesn’t close over 20 knots of breeze? But I was sufficiently spooked by Fishwick that I rang the Harbourmaster’s office the day before and said “May I ask you a very basic question?” “Crack on,” he replied, in an accent that suggested he was local to Padstow and probably knew his sand bars from his no-longer-locally-produced beers of the same name. I explained about the pilot book and the forecast and his reply was “They have to say that don’t they? You’ll be fine, just keep an eye out and make sure she’s not breaking.”

So far so good. Come the day, however, cometh the wind. Stacks of it. 25 knots. Force 6. Perhaps FIshwick had a point. As the waves got bigger and the wind refused to moderate I had pictures in my mind of the idiot in a Parker 325 who ignored the esteemed Mark Fishwick and wrecked his boat on the Doom Bar in an obvious NWerly, thinking he could just lift his keel and all would be right. I had actually decided to carry on to Lundy, which was a daft idea as I wouldn’t get there until midnight, it’s in the middle of nowhere and not much shelter anyway.

To cut this already long story short the wind did eventually moderate, the seas got a bit less and I took my life in my hands and bore away to my Doom. This is what I was confronted with:

The calmest sea I have seen all week. Calmer than outside. Calmer than Itchenor Reach in 2 knots. Curse Mark Fishwick for totally ruining my whole day.

I pottered into the harbour and the friendly HM was waiting to take my lines. “We don’t get so many yachts in these days…” he began.

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Miles	54
Hours sailing	10
Hours motoring	3.5