We had left Gigha and it was time to get the sails up, so we unhitched the halyard from one of cleats on the mast. This was a little trick we learned from re-reading our competent crew books, but by just clipping it around the cleat, we can effectively pull on the halyard and haul the sail down. Once the halyard was un clipped, it was time to hoist the main sail all the way to the top. I then re-marked the halyard with four marks which really helps the person pulling the halyard, so that they know when the sail is all the way to the top.
We were near Machrihanish on the Mull of Kintyre when the wind died and we had to put the motor on, because what wind we had was coming from behind, rather than turn the boat into wind. Beverley thought that this might save time, well all I can say is, the sail went everywhere and we had loads of ropes inside the cockpit, so realistically it did not save time but it did give us something to do. One of the other things we thought about was creating weather dice, because, the dice will probably be as accurate as the weather forcast, as in not very, but at least using the dice would be fun. As we were sailing down wind, we did manage to get the Genoa out, but when your motor sailing down wind, the motoring component takes off the wind speed, so you do have to rethink the maths, and we have to vary our thinking, but I made the most of, tide, wind and motor, so that we got to Glen arm using as little fuel as possible.
The next day we motored down to Larne lock with the only notable thing being Beverley cooking Gammon surprise, which was a hash of potatoes, gammon, chorizo, onions and a few other leftovers, all mixed together, it was really good.
We stayed on anchor at Larne lock for a few nights, getting the shopping in and meeting up with some people from East Antrim boat club, but soon it was time to go, so that we could meet up with Beverley's mum. I would be on the helm because we swap the helm position, so that we both have experience of being on the helm.
The passage should of been sailable, but apart from a small section in Belfast Lough itself, we motored all the way to Carrick. At Carrick, I had one of the worst entrances, that I have done for a long time, th main reason for this was because as I was just about to start my turn, a rowing yacht pulled away from the dock into the area that I was going to turn, so I had to reverse while being quite close to boats on my leeward side. I then tried again and this time my manoeuvre went well. The only issue was, where we ended up had less height uner the keel, than the tide at that time, so we decided to go to another pontoon, which was reserved, so I had to reverse into a different slip, but windage pushed me on to the other boat in the slip, so Beverley pulled us across on lines. No wonder Beverley was drenched by the time we arrived and was moored up.
