Back on the mooring after an excellent 3 week cruise - we covered 782nm and discovered some excellent new anchorages as well as re-visiting old haunts.

This will be our last proper sail for a while - we haul Maunie out in mid-June for a fairly serious refit - so it's been great to have such an interesting and enjoyable cruise.

Departing the Yealm after an OK passage from Falmouth yesterday (3 hours of good spinnaker, 3 hours motoring).

Heading back to Dartmouth at the end of a very good cruise.

Back in St Mawes after a 59nm motor on a glassy sea from Scilly yesterday. Anchored alongside Quayhog, a sister ship to Maunie, so owners Duncan and Elisabeth joined us for supper last night.


We'll have a day here today and hope for some wind tomorrow.

Always good when a plan comes together as you hoped it would. The Irish Sea is a tricky stretch of water to cross so we were delighted that our weather window turned out pretty much as we'd hoped. Some slow but steady sailing with the Parasailor for the first few hours reduced our average speed for the 160 nm passage but we had the delight of about 40 dolphins and three pilot whales (whose breath stinks, by the way) playing with us. The wind increased nicely through the early evening and we dropped the Parasailor at about 22.00 in the last of the twighlight as it got up to 20 knots.

The rest of the passage was very easy (though quite bumpy and rolly) and we arrived off the alarmingly rocky west side of the Scilly Isles just as the wind began to ease.

We're anchored in Porth Cressa, on the south side of St Mary's, where we have perfectly flat water and good shelter from the remaining NW breeze. Tired but happy Maunie crew.

Just set off from Baltimore. Spinnaker is rigged and ready, just hoping the wind will fill in as we clear the coast. ETA St Mary's, Scilly, lunchtime tomorrow.

Anchored off Sherkin Island in Baltimore harbour. Maunie was originally called Maunie of Baltimore and her first owner kept her on a mooring just a mile from here. Slow internet via mobile phone but enough to tell us that we'll set off at about 10.00 tomorrow.

At last the wind has swung around from the SE but it was still on the light side so we've delayed the passage to Scilly until tomorrow. With an extra day to play with we left the anchorage after lunch and had a great reach with the Parasailor across to South Harbour, Cape Clear Island. We had the anchorage to ourselves as we ate supper but decided to move on due to the issue of zero phone signal. This would usually be a bonus but the navigate wants updates on the weather for a planned crossing to Scilly tomorrow morning so needs the interweb.

A 34nm sail from Bantry to Crookhaven in more typical Irish weather. Started well, with a gentle spinnaker run towards the mouth of Bantry Bay, then had favourable tide but wind on the nose heading past Mizen Head so a very lumpy, confused sea and we had to motor-sail on and off to maintain momentum. Anchored in the lee of Rocky Island but we'll pass on the delights of the excellent village pubs - the wind should swing round to the NNW tomorrow afternoon so we'll take advantage of it to do a 26 hour or so overnight passage back to Scilly.

After 2 nights at anchor in Glengarriff we had a nice 7 mile beat over to Bantry this morning. The town used to have a poor reputation for yachts as the only option was to anchor or take a mooring in the rolly, rather open bay. However a €9M investment was completed in 2017 - the silted area inside the town pier has been dredged and a great little visitors' Marina installed. Easy walking into town and good provisioning so we'll be here for a couple of nights.

A very pleasant 11nm sail further up into Bantry Bay. Anchored in Glengarriff, a beautiful harbour. This wind direction isn't the best for here so we avoided the visitors' moorings and instead anchored behind the tiny Bark Island which is high enough to give us shelter from the breeze. Ashore to explore this afternoon.

A great day's exploring - we dinghied up river to visit the little town of Sneem this morning, with the electric outboard doing nothing to disturb the wildlife. Then a 39nm sail round into Bantry Bay, via the very narrow and tidal Dursey Sound where, if the swirling tide and the close proximity to the rocks doesn't worry you the apparently negligible headroom under the cable car will.

We're in another beautiful and deserted bay, Adrigole Harbour on one of 7 visitors' moorings. No other occupied boats.

Tomorrow the moving high pressure will bring back moderate to fresh SE winds for a few days so we are well placed in the SW-facing Bantry Bay to explore in relative shelter.

All very happy on board.

On a visitors' mooring in Oysterbed bay near Sneem - wow, just a beautiful spot.

After 3 nights in the bright lights of Dingle (with a perfect luck of the Keatings moment last night when a band of Irish and Czech musicians asked if we'd mind if they joined us in our sung, complete with open fire, in Dick Mac's, an amazing pub. We stayed till after midnight listening to their great Irish folk tunes), we left this morning to head to the Kenmare river. Our track on YIT will show us taking Maunie across some sizeable hills but of course we took the long way round (45nm) and had a great sail - the Irish Flag spinnaker was flown and a very good fish pie was created under way.

Another small world moment - we crossed within 100m of a British yacht called Lacerta. David and Debbie joined us on Maunie for the Robin Knox-Johnston sail-by in Falmouth last month when their engine was playing up.

In the morning we plan to explore up river in the dinghy to the town of Sneem before moving on to Bantry Bay where we'll have to wait for a few days while another period of frisky SE winds comes through.

Safely into Dingle after a bit of an epic sail from Scilly. A bit too much motoring to start then 5 hours with the Parasailor - we took it down at midnight (always a fun challenge) then used white sails reefed ever smaller as the wind increased to Force 6-7. 218 miles in 33 hours so an average of 6.6 knots.

As ever the boat did us proud and the pilothouse is the only way to sail - we even had the heating on when it got really chilly at night (and the wind has been really cold).

Wildlife included a pilot whale, lots of dolphins and several puffins.

Passed Fastnet Rock an hour ago with dolphin escort. Slower progress than hoped yesterday as the breeze took a while to arrive and we had some adverse current. Still aiming for Dingle this evening but may divert to Pormagee Valentia Island if the easterly builds too much. All well aboard.

Departing Scilly for Dingle (SW Ireland) in an hour. Looks as though we'll start under engine then head west to find the wind but then hope to be flying the Parasailor. ETA 17.00 tomorrow.

Ignore previous updates if you subscribed by email - it had us in Wales then Belgium! Must go to Specsavers!

On a visitors' mooring in New Grimsby Sound, between the the islands of Tresco and Bryher in Scilly. We picked a super weather window to sail the 121 miles from Dartmouth overnight - gave us NW veering to NE Force 5 to 6 so a close reach all the way rather than the usual beat into the prevailing SW winds. Pretty bumpy at times and lots of shipping and fishing boats to dodge so neither of us got much sleep but it's great to be here. Tomorrow's forecast is for sunshine and light breezes so we'll do some walking ashore.

Anchored off Trelissick House on the River Fal after entertaining day yesterday. Sir Robin Knox-Johnston marked the 50 years since his homecoming as the first person to circumnavigate solo and non-stop in his 32ft wooden ketch Suhaili. He sailed the beautifully restored boat across the finish line at exactly 15.24, the time of his finish in 1969, and we joined a flotilla of about 40 boats to follow him. Quite a moment.