For our Summer adventure, we planned to sail down the Cornish coast and to explore rivers and coves past the River Dart. 2023 had been a challenging year weather wise, it had some good warm weather but July and the start of Aug when we would normally take our holiday was very unsettled and wet. The other factor this year has been wind, it seems to be either 25knots or nothing. In our last trip to Weymouth, we had the same direction for days with quite high windspeed which is fine but when you have a short window for making a trip it adds an extra element that you might not want.

We arrived on Saturday which again was a blustery day, it was a bit too late to leave and we needed to load the boat with supplies before we set off anyway. Sunday looked like the day to head down to Studland before making another leap down the coast. We left with the tide early afternoon, had a pleasant sail down the Solent, met a little bit of chop at Hurst Castle and then made the turn towards Studland. Due to the wind angle, we were heading for Christchurch, so we sailed almost to the Mudeford Quay, put a tack in headed out before tacking again to point back at Studland Bay. The wind was about 15knots which was lovely. We anchored, had food, and watched the sunset on a still flat calm evening. 

Weather Window

It was looking like Tuesday or Wednesday would be the day to make the next hop so Monday was going to be a beach/walking day and we would keep an eye on the forecast. That night, we had a police car going up and down the road which goes to the Sandbanks ferry, what looked like a police boat and possibly in the inshore RNLI lifeboat. The helicopter was shining a light on the beach and the boats searched the water. About 10-15 mins later the police car and the small boat seemed to stop at the same point before they all left. Nothing on the news the next day, so we never found out what had happened. 

Monday night we waited for the updated forecast and the wind was dropping and changing direction so now it looked like Wednesday would be the day…. On Tuesday we took the opportunity to visit Swanage on the bus. We went over to South beach, which is in the corner of Studland, pulled the dingy ashore and then walked up the hill past Studland Cross which is a cross made from the cliff stone at St Aldhelm Head and has the remains of Jurassic creates in which are so common in the beaches along this section of the coast. 

Studland Village

The village of Studland is really nice, picturesque, just as you would imagine. The bus ran frequently and was open-top, so we took the opportunity to sit at the top and soak up the view. We had a lovely time exploring Swanage, it’s a nice seaside town with crystal clear water, we need to take a mooring or anchor here soon. We got back on the bus at the station which is at the end of the high street and started to make our way back.

As we got out of Swanage, going up a big hill, we started to slow down, the bus didn’t seem all that happy and felt like it needed another couple of gears to get up this hill. Almost at the top, it stalled. Everyone just looked at each other as the driver tried to start it back up. It ran for a moment and then stopped again.. 

Was this the point where we fixed a bus?? 

A few minutes passed and the bus sprung back to life and suddenly it was like there wasn’t a hill. Who said turning things off and back on didn’t fix everything!

The rest of the short trip was uneventful, we enjoyed the views, ducked for each tree that passed and got back off at Studland Village. 

Back at the boat we had another lovely evening and waited for the updated forecast. The forecast the day before for Wednesday was Westerly about 10-12knots, that would work, it would be an early start, but we were ready to go. We checked again and now it was West and then NW which would still work, but the wind speed at most was 5knots. This wasn’t looking good, crossing Lyme Bay which is a good 50miles with that wind speed was going to mean the engine was on to make any real progress and with the tides around The Bill, we needed to arrive at that Bill for 7am, this was looking like a 3 or 4am start. Still doable, we looked at the next few days, and they were all predicting Easterly, not the direction you want to see if you want to get to Cornwall. The long-range forecast (if that could be believed at the moment) was then in the other direction for the days when we would want to start thinking about heading home. At this point you start to think, I am on holiday, do I want to motor for 15 hours, I’m possibly not going to get much further than the Dart and then the trip back is looking equally as challenging. We all sat around the table and concluded that we were not going to Cornwall after we checked each forecast about 6 times and thought of any other way we could still make this trip happen. Ok – What’s plan B?