Round GB 2021, Day77. Hallsand to Lyme Regis.

With light winds forecast I did not fancy a long sleepless trip across Lyme Bay so decided on following the coast which might give a better chance of sea breezes and, in settled conditions, give a number of options to stop for the night any where from Tor Bay to Lyme Regis. 

I left at 07:00 for what turned out to be the best sail of the whole trip with lovely weather and favourable light winds, haze did make photography difficult but I got a lot of sun bathing in between multiple gybes of the big spinnaker which was up most of the way from the middle of Start Bay to close to Exmouth.

Very light winds to start but with a glassy sea I was able to ghost along.

Slapton Sands, site of Operation Tiger a disastrous practice for the D Day
landings when e-Boats got in amongst the fleet resulting in the deaths of
 almost a thousand American troops. 

Approaching Dartmouth with the 60 sq.m. spinnaker set.

Berry Head

Babbacombe Bay, The Cruise ships Ventura (P&O) and
the Cunarder RMS Queen Mary at anchor waiting for Covid
restrictions to be lifted.

RMS Queen Mary.

And not shown on the pic above the Regal Princess.

With a freshening wind I was making good progress, almost 6 knots
in just under 10 knots of wind. It didn't last much longer, the wind
was backing and became too much for the big spinnaker.

Beer, I had thought to anchor here but despite the earlier light winds
I had made good progress and with calm seas I decided to press on
to Lyme Regis so that I would not have to leave quite so early in
the morning to make the tidal gate around Portland.

I was disappointed to find yet more buoys in the anchorage off
of Lyme Regis harbour further restricting the space to anchor and I 
was quite a way out. By co-incidence a face book friend replied
to a post by the skipper of the yacht on the right, a very young lady
making her first stop on a round GB trip accompanied by her father
in his own boat and her mother following by road in a camper van.

45 miles in 11 hours.

Slide show all of my pictures from Hallsand to Lyme Regis. Page through by clicking the arrows or click in the centre of the pic to view from Flickr in a new window or full screen:

Click here for Day 78 to Studland Bay.