We puttered out to Ishtar in our trusty tender, Tom. Couldn't risk leaving him on the mooring as we might not be back for a week or two, and Tom leaks a bit. He didn't seem to understand when Louise took him ashore in the rubber tender.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Leaving Tom's mooring"]
[/caption]I cast off and we left our multi coloured mooring for the last time.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Tom's mooring"]
[/caption]We filled with diesel at Neyland. It became clear straight away that we had problems. The engine would not switch off. We had fitted a new GPS plotter and I suspected we had disturbed the wiring. I found the fault and managed to stop the engine, but things were still not right - the alternator was not charging the batteries. We headed for the pontoon at Dale, for food, and discussions.
We have two batteries. An 80 amp hour engine battery and a 110 amp hour auxilliary. Both fully charged and both in good nick. I calculated that, with minimal electronics, used sparingly, and using the paraffin lamp rather than electric lights, we should be fine. We'd only use the auxilliary battery. If the charge in that started to get low, we'd head for home immediately, motoring the whole way if necessary.
Five days later and there was still plenty of charge in that, and the engine battery was still fully charged, so we need not have worried.
We left Dale at dawn. Initially tried to sail to Lundy without using the engine, but high pressure meant light winds, and it would have taken us a week.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Sunrise over Texaco"]
[/caption]Almost immediately after leaving the Haven, we were joined by dolphins. As many as 20 in a pod, and a few small pods of the more nervous and shy porpoise.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Dolphins"]
[/caption][caption id="" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="er, Dolphins."]
[/caption]The high pitched song of the dolphins was joined by the squeals of delight from Louise, as they played all around the boat.
After about an hour, we got our first sight of the distant Lundy Island.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Lundy Island"]
[/caption]It was about 37 miles from the heads of Milford to Lundy, so we chugged and sailed, Dolphins never very far away, counting down the miles, using the GPS sparingly (no need at all, really). The Sun broke through, and late in the afternoon we telephoned the warden to enquire about a mooring buoy.
There were two visitors moorings, but we could use any private mooring if it was free. If the owner came out, we might have to move, but generally the situation was very relaxed. As it happened, there was a free vistor's mooring.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Lundy, from the Northwest"]
[/caption]Louise took us in, pumped the dinghy and we went ashore in the late evening sun.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Lundy moorings. Ishtar is top left."]
[/caption]
