RETURN TO GUERNSEY

Anchored alone in Baltimore after taking part in a bruising Jester Challenge with a ripped mainsail, and an old back injury reawakened whilst anchoring, I knew I must reach safety within 24 hours; so, at 0215 I pointed Pippin’s bows for the moon, which hung conveniently over Baltimore’s entrance. Lot’s somewhat misplaced wife, now a pillar of stone for she had disobeyed the Angel and looked back when fleeing Sodom, slept atop her dark headland, as I set course for Crosshaven, 54 miles east.

It was a limp sort of morning: the ensign hung limp, the Irish flags hung limp, the wind hung limp and I hung limp. Only the sea was alive, rolling lazily in from the Atlantic. motor-sailed past Galley and Kinsale Heads and around lunchtime, on the turn of the tide, I entered the narrow entrance to Cork Harbour and swung the Frances 34 Pilothouse into the River Owenabue, bound for the Royal Cork Yacht Club at Crosshaven. It’s a tight narrow turn, requiring care