Sail Life - Sailing from Scotland to Denmark part 1 of 2, BHA #3

Hi guys this is the video where I'll tell you at least the first part of the story of how I brought my new sailboat Athena from the southwest coast of Scotland back home to Denmark. If you're not familiar with my channel you might be wondering what's up with this sailboat named Athena and if that's the case there are a few links down in the description that should get you all caught up. If you're already familiar with my channel you might be wondering why I'm starting this video here about Obelix, my old sailboat. When I was in Scotland I picked up some kind of bug and to be completely frank I felt like crap the entire way back home to Denmark with the exception of the first day and a half or so. Because of that I didn't get as much footage as I would have liked to so for me to be able to tell the story I think I might need to tell some of it from here about Obelix. Yeah let's see if this works. It was a stunningly beautiful morning as the sun rose above Kirkcudbright in southwest Scotland. I've spent the last four days aboard the boat getting her for the 700 nautical mile trip back home. I very much enjoyed my time here in Kirkcudbright and my only real wish is that I could have spent more time here and really gotten to know the place. Sadly for now time is of the essence. The crew arrived last night and today is the first day of our journey. A 10-day trip up the west coast of Scotland through the Caledonia canal and across the North Sea. On this trip we'll go through some of the best cruising grounds in the world. A little earlier today the crew and I got most of the provisions sorted and it actually turns out that we have a crew member that his birthday is on Saturday so I picked up some some small gifts for him and also stuff to make a cake for him so that should be fun. Yeah so you're going to be three hours before low water. Yeah. In that case stay uncomfortably close to the cliff. Uncomfortably close that sounds ominous. As you as you approach you'll see that the mole the headland coming out of the lighthouse. A very experienced local guy just swung by and gave us some advice and I appreciate that very very much because I'm actually a little bit anxious about today but that's just because it's a new boat but also because of my recent experience about Fiona on the trip from Portugal to the Canary Islands where I got horribly seasick so I've decided to cover all of my bases this time. So first off I've heard that vitamin C is supposed to sort of dampen the feeling of nausea in some people so we'll give that a try and some regular seasickness tablets and then one of these wristband thingies and I've also heard that putting one of these earplugs in one of your ears is supposed to help alleviate seasickness so we'll give all of this a try today. Apparently it's very important where you place this band here so that should be the correct position. Okay guys this is it. We'll be pushing off in about 20 minutes or so and this leg of the journey will take us from Kirkcudbright to Port Patrick. There are a few things that we need to be aware of. First we will be having sort of a little bit of a tide against us for the first hour or so once we reach open water and the wind will be going against that tide so it could get a little bit bumpy. Then when we arrive at the Mull of Galloway we'll be hogging the cliffs to avoid a tidal rate that's apparently quite strong around there. And last but not least when we're trying to enter into Port Patrick we'll have to be a bit careful because there can be quite a strong cross current so yeah but let's get underway and see how things go. We've made our way out of the river Dee that runs through Kirkcudbright. We've unfurled the genoa and we're surfing along in 16 knots of breeze. The sun is shining and we're sailing downwind. Life is pretty good. We're flying along at nine knots. We've been underway for a couple of hours now and it's going perfect. There's a bit of excitement getting away from the dock but it all went perfectly fine. And the best news of all I guess is that there's no signs of seasickness. It looks like I've spoken a little bit too soon. My new friend Nils has gotten a little bit green around the gills and gone to lay down. I'm sure he'll be back on his feet in no time. We're approaching the Mull of Galloway. This is one of the places we've been warned against. Apparently there can be a nasty tidal rage extending from the Mull and several miles offshore. I've been told to hug the cliffs so that's where we're heading. We've furled the headsail because we've also been warned that the wind can get a bit gusty around the tall cliffs. I'm glad we're here on a calm day. There are some rather tall almost standing waves and within the next second the water is almost flat calm. You certainly don't see this back moment in mud. We've made it around the Mull of Galloway and we're heading directly towards Port Patrick. According to the cruising guide entering Port Patrick can be a little bit tricky. There can be a bit of cross current and also at low tide the entrance is quite shallow. And as luck would have it we're pretty close to low tide. It's nine o'clock in the evening and we've just arrived in Port Patrick. A really really cozy little harbour and I can certainly see how this place would be very popular during the summer. Right now it's pretty dead but during the summer this would be a really nice place. Entering the harbour here wasn't actually as hard as the cruising guide made it sound but then again my boat has a quite shallow draft so that might have something to do with it. I'll take you up and show you a little bit of the harbour in just a moment. But yeah let me show you how we tie it up. As you can probably tell it's low tide right now and the tide is supposed to start rising within the next half hour. So we got one line of the bow of the boat and we've got another line of the stern of the boat. I asked the previous owner for some advice on how to tie up along tall walls like the one they've got in this harbour here when there's also a large tidal range. Because we don't have that back home in Denmark so I didn't know what to do because as we rise with the tide our lines are gonna let us go way out into the harbour. So he suggested something and that was to weigh down one of the lines with that block of lead down there. That'll keep us snug against the wall. A really really neat solution. I'm sure it's very common over here but to me it seems ingenious. Let's get up the ladder and take a look at this harbour. There she is my lovely boat. Now if you ask me this looks amazing. Port Patrick might look like a very docile little harbour but apparently it's still being used by fishing vessels to offload their catch. That was basically our first day on the trip back home. One of the crew, Emil, prepared a lovely dinner for us and we quickly settled in for the night. The next morning we got up early and we set course for Port Ellen. The first couple of hours were pretty rough and I got horribly seasick. So first I fed the fish then I went down below to see if I could sleep it off and down below I had some really intense conversations with a three gallon bucket. Luckily the rest of the crew fared better than I did and they got us safely to Port Ellen. We arrived in Port Ellen this afternoon and it was quite a rough trip up here. It got quite bouncy and I got very seasick and that was really annoying and god I hope that doesn't happen again. Hopefully tomorrow it shouldn't be as bad but yeah so this is Port Ellen. Unfortunately we'll already be pushing off around seven in the morning again and yeah I really wish we could stay in some of these places a little bit longer because they're really cool places. All of the day started out a bit rough. By the time we arrived in Port Ellen it was warm and sunny. The marina is located in a very sheltered natural harbour and the village is spread out along the shoreline. Absolutely stunning if you ask me. I don't have any footage from the beginning of the third day because it was really rough. Much worse than the second day. We were pounding into some very steep waves for the first couple of hours but then over the course of an hour or so both the weather and the sea state changed completely. We're heading from Port Ellen to Oban. The day started out a little bit rough. We were pounding into the waves for the first couple of hours but then the sun came out and it's almost flat calm. It's a lovely day and best of all I wasn't seasick. This morning I took two seasickness tablets, some vitamin c and some bread and half a liter of water. I think that might be my cure against seasickness but fingers crossed. If you ask me this is what sailing should be like. The wind has changed a little bit and we need to be at a very specific location at a very specific time today so we better pull the sails down and start motoring. This is the place we needed to be at a very specific time. This is the sound of looing. The cruising guide made it sound kind of like we'd been lucky to get out of there alive because of strong currents. We arrived about an hour after high water and got an ever so gentle boost from the current. A few hours later we arrived in Oban. The crew quickly inflated the dinghy and went out in search of beers but I decided to stay aboard the boat. So far the trip has been really nice. I mean I was seasick one day but other than that it's been real nice and also I might have discovered what cures my seasickness at least and I think it was one of you guys that recommended these. I've been taking these with some vitamin c and a bit of bread and some water in about two hours before we leave and today this really did the trick. We were pounding the waves really really really hard for two hours and I didn't even get the slightest hint of seasickness so yay. Well guys like I mentioned before I am really tired so I'm gonna head to bed. And that was the end of our third day on the back home. Now little did I know I wasn't just tired. I've been feeling a bit under the weather for the last day and a half or so but during the night it got much much worse and this of course is the bug I was referring to in the beginning of this video. So far this year sailing and my health just don't seem to get along and I'm of course here referring to the fact that I was also sick aboard Fiona when I was supposed to be crossing the Atlantic. It is really really annoying being sick when you're doing something you love and something you really want to take in. But hey bad luck is just bad luck. Oh and the drone footage you saw of Athena on the sail this stuff yeah you probably won't see more of that until I've had a bit of a chance to hone my piloting skills. And why is that you might ask? Well because that flight ended like this. Yeah yeah I crashed the drone into the mast the only tall structure around for miles and miles. Jeez but to be absolutely fair this was like my fourth time flying the thing and and it survived so that's fortunate. Okay guys it's taken me a really long time to put together the video from the first three days. Normally I like to tell the story as it's happening and that's what I do in all of my other videos. I wasn't able to do that with this video because I was sick and I don't have all that much footage. So yeah I've spent an obscene amount of time trying to cobble this together and I'm not really proud of this video but at the same time I really wanted to put something out there from the trip back home. So yeah let me know down in the comments what you think but please be gentle and please let me know if I should try to put something together from the last part of the trip back home. It's about time for me to head to bed but before I do that I want to mention that Athena is already up on the hard and I figure the next video I publish from about Athena it's going to be sort of an introduction to the projects I'll be working on this summer. Yeah that should be a lot of fun. Okay guys that's going to be it for this video. See you! Jokul and I hope you've enjoyed this video. 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