Passage 43, Weymouth to Lulworth cove
After a most pleasant weekend enjoying Portland Bill and Weymouth with my wife, I saw her off at the station on Monday and escaped the expensive clutches of the marina in the afternoon to go and anchor in somewhere a little more secluded.
I’ve always wanted to anchor in Lulworth cove and here I was after a short 2 hour trip of 9 miles by 6pm that evening. The sail was very uneventful with a nice little northerly breeze to get me there. Uneventful except for the fact that my autopilot was misbehaving again. It just loses the plot and allows the boat to go hopelessly off course while still pretending to steer by making constant tiller adjustments. Seeing as this is new and cost £400 i'm not best pleased. In fact I was pretty angry with it and had to stop myself ripping it out and hurling it overboard. Dammit.
Lulworth Cove is lovely (and quite popular for boats) and I was lucky to have calm weather and off-shore winds (i.e. not blowing into the bay). In strong on-shore winds this cove is positively dangerous and would make for an extremely nasty anchorage. There's a huge hill on the inside of the cove which towers over your boat quite dramatically. The walks around here are spectacular I am told but, alas, I will not be staying here for long and I'll need to up sticks tomorrow morning early.
Summary
Short hop of 9 miles with F3 northerly winds in pleasant conditions - not sunny but not raining either and it's quite warm too.