Their progress can be followed on Hestur's blog:
http://junkdorybuild.blogspot.co.uk/
Here's the latest post.
A bit of a late start but after what seemed like weeks of preparations we have finally set sail south.
We left Ullapool on the wednesday
3rd October, had a great sail down and inside of Skye - going under the
Skye bridge at around midnight then running through Kyle Rhea (at
9knots!) under moonlight. priceless. We then anchored until daylight in
Sandaig Bay.
Next day was headwinds so we bashed
on to the isle of Eigg and anchored in the Bay of Laig (NW side). From
here we sailed none stop to the Isle of Man (200 nM) in two days two
nights. Goiing outside of all the islands (Mull, Islay etc) and then
running down into the North Channel skirting northern island and out
into the Irish sea.. We picked up a slightly dodgy mooring, 5am Sunday,
(the pick up immediately broke off!! apart from that it seemed good) in
Port St Mary on the south end of the island. After a few hours sleep
Charlotte and I went ashore and had a very nice day wondering about (got
steam train to Douglas- really felt like we are on Holiday!)
Yesterday (Monday 8th) we had a
great sail south to Anglesey - North Wales. We ran a few miles down into
the Menai Straits in the dark from the north east end and dropped
anchor just off Beaumaris.
Just woke up to a beautiful morning
with the sun rising behind the Welsh mountains, now waiting to get the
tide through the Swellies to pick up a friends mooring for a few days
while we visit friends and family.
Everyone says that the hardest
thing about going cruising is getting away - I think i can totally agree
with this - especially if you are starting off with a brand new boat -
my list of jobs to do and finish (on Hestur) seemed endless in the last
few weeks and took up most of my time - packing my bags only took a few
hours! Charlotte probably had the hardest job of packing up / moving out
of our little house where we were staying in Ullapool so i could spend
the time getting the boat ready...
Everything is working well - the
new Tender floats and fits perfectly on the fore deck - Also a dream to
row - thanks so much John! The self steering works well and has steered
us just about all of 350 nM in a wide variety of conditions (not always
good ones!) Thank goodness for that as it was very untested.