SAILOR'S EMOTIONAL RETURN after 7 years at sea _ Sailing Florence

Seven years ago we left the shores of England behind for the biggest adventure that we could imagine. We sold everything, bought a boat and set off to sail around the world, just us and our new home Florence. We only planned to be three or four years but it has been seven years, packed full of once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Now as we sail back towards mainland England and our families it is an emotional return. We're just passing the Lizard Lighthouse which is actually the last place that we saw of England. This is where we lost sight of the UK seven years ago when we set off and we originally thought we were going to be three to four years and it's obviously now been seven. This will be our last sight of land for about four days as we're heading to Spain. It's also going to be our last sight of the UK for probably about four years so we're enjoying the view for a little while. I feel really emotional just seeing the coastline and the rolling hills of England. It's kind of like what I associate with home and I didn't really realise how much it felt like home until now and now we're sailing Florence, our home home! It feels really good, really really good. I just feel so lucky to have been on this adventure and even more so that this isn't the end and yeah just a massive thank you to everybody who's followed along and supported this journey. It's been life-changing. I met you when you left in Galicia seven years ago. No way! Really? Yes, we met in Lax. I think we spoke because I recognised your dinghy and we are very close. It's fun for me to to see you now. That's crazy, what a small world! Good to see you. Be happy to to be back and it was very cool to follow you on YouTube too. Thanks very much, we're really happy to be back and thanks for the the call and hope you enjoy the rest of your your trip. So bye, see you, I don't know when, in seven years maybe. Bon voyage Referee and Florence back to 16. Perfect, bye! So the Lizard Lighthouse is one end of the start and finish line for the round the world races and obviously the finish line for the transatlantic record. It's not actually the finish line for us, we're going up to Portsmouth Harbour but it's certainly a very major milestone, a very major headland and yeah the mainland of the UK. So we're going to go around and sail into Coverack which is a really open bay but we're going to anchor off there tonight and then hopefully tomorrow we're going to go ashore for a fish and chip lunch in the last place that we had fish and chips the day we left. Just a tiny bit behind where I thought we were going to be with the tidal planning so the tide has literally just turned against us around the headland so we're punching a little bit of tide which should be fine once we get a little bit further on and then we should just about make it to Coverack Bay before dark. So it looks really choppy but it's only a really really tiny area just as we're coming around the headland where you've got wind against tide literally for two or three hundred meters so it looks really looks really choppy but it was nothing. Well we made it, made it before the sun went down and we're anchored and it's beautifully calm in here which is only because the wind's coming over the hill so that's great and then tomorrow set foot hopefully on mainland England for the first time in seven years at the exact same spot that we left in 2060. So we're now anchored in Coverack and I'm just flicking back through the logbook of our whole trip around the world all the way to the first page and here we have the entry and we can see from the GPS along that we were anchored pretty much exactly where we were on the 8th of August 2016 and the entry here is 8th of August 2016 left Coverack Bay bound for La Coruña in Spain and that was the first leg of our voyage around the world and I actually feel really emotional to be back here now we're gonna head ashore and set back onto mainland England in exactly the same place that we left from just over seven years ago. Back on mainland England! We've been able to bring the dinghy into the exact same fishing harbour where we left from last time and last time the tide was in so it was a lot easier to get in here it would have probably been better going up the beach today but we wanted to come ashore in here so it's really lovely I think even more picturesque than either of us remember it to be. It's quite hard tying the dinghy up um on our first point in the UK I know my dad would have been really happy that she made it back. Amy's finding it really difficult to talk to camera because we've come back to the UK with the dinghy that her dad built for her which is a real reminder of the love that he had for her and unfortunately he's no longer with us so he's not here for us to return to he'd been absolutely chuffed to bits to see the dinghy he built come all the way around the world and back to here and also to see Amy make it all the way around but sadly he won't. Thank you very much perfect thank you. Ah I wish you got a large and then I could have had some of yours too. A bit of salt and vinegar ah cheers to being back in England. Fish and chips isn't it? Not so bad eh? Crawford chips as well. Good crispy and flaky I think that's the first time we've ever chosen not to fish we didn't fish on the way here so that we could buy fish. Fish and chips when we got here never again I mean. Well I'm glad I chose a large one that was delicious but you seem to have some left. when you just go for a walk and all of the foliage is different to what we're actually used to in that there's no coconuts falling off the trees and but there are apples and brambles and even the stinging nettles I'm appreciating the ferns and the heathers and it's just all so British. Thank you very much and a cappuccino for Amy please. An ice cream from the same ice cream shop that we had the morning before we left actually to use up last of our English change and now that we're back even the money has changed like some of the coins that we had on board Florence just kicking around in the bottom of the chart table now no longer legal tender but uh Cornish fudge ice cream. Delicious. And this isn't just the point where we started our voyage around the world leaving the shores of the UK from but actually this is the point where everything started because we were actually on holiday down here when I got the phone call from my boss to say that they were shutting the whole UK office and I was going to be made redundant and 10 months after that call we'd bought a boat sold everything and left to sail around the world so it really is quite a meeting point of everything start and finish. The life that we have led over the last seven years has been fantastic but nothing in life comes without sacrifices. For us the biggest sacrifice of all has been time with family. I haven't seen my parents for over six and a half years so they weren't going to wait until we reached our home port in Portsmouth to see us. Instead they drove down to Falmouth to meet us here. The last time I was able to give them a hug was in Grenada way back in February 2017. People have asked us what coming home means to us well for me this moment is what it means. We have had a lot of comments about how England has changed and that we should not have bothered to sail back here but to be honest England could be in whatever state and it wouldn't matter. The reason we have come back is to see our families again and this was the moment of our first hug for six and a half years. At that point we put down the cameras and spent a week just catching up. Just leaving the Halford River in Cornwall and we're going to sail up the coast towards the Solet and our homecoming. The weather in the English Channel is always a little bit challenging and a little bit confused but it's even more so at the moment. We've got a lot of easterly winds or complete flat calms so normally we'd wait for a nice westerly wind to blow us up which is actually the prevailing direction to come from the southwest but when that comes at the end of the forecast it looks like it's going to be 30 knots gusting 50 knots so we decided not to wait for that and we're going to try and sail upwind and get much closer to our homecoming port so that we can make sure that we make the date. So we're in a little bit of a rush but to do that we're gonna have to sail upwind and we've got the the famous tide race off of Portland Bill to get past so hopefully we've got our tide calculations right for that but yeah a little bit more challenging to sail up the channel than we were expecting really because we're on a deadline which we're never normally on. Normally our deadline is to get out of the country before our visa ends but yeah we don't normally have to set dates to aim for. of dolphins and the wind is blowing over the land so the water's just really flat. I can't remember when we had a sail like this that was sheltered for so long from the ocean swell. It's just a little bit of wind chop and that's it. It's a little bit chilly but yeah this UK sailing is not so bad. When it gets dark we're going to pass Stark Point and then cross Lime Bay overnight and I just realised that this is potentially the last overnight sail of this circumnavigation. It feels really strange. I can really remember clearly our first night sail along this coast. When we sailed down this coast seven years ago neither of us had stood watch by ourselves on deck so being the sole person on watch and sailing the boat. We'd done overnight passages but we'd always had somebody else with us on that watch. It feels a bit crazy to think about it now because we've just become so used to switching between the two of us and and just being the only person on deck. I can remember that night watch seven years ago really clearly because I just couldn't get my head around the fact that we were just barreling along into the darkness and I couldn't see anything and I didn't think I'd ever get used to that sensation. Although there are times especially when there's potentially unlit fishing boats around or or lots of whales and an activity of whales that I do still worry about hitting something in the dark. Overnight sailing just feels really natural and normal now. So we're just passing Stark Point and I've been able just to connect to the internet using the phone and download a weather forecast which is much easier this coastal sailing rather than we have to use a satellite phone to get it out on the ocean. We've also now been able to cancel our sat phone contract and save a whole bundle of money by doing it this way. So I've got the latest forecast and it looks like it's going to be a little bit windier than the previous forecast said as we're crossing Lime Bay and the breeze is still going to shift around a little bit to be on the nose but not as far on the nose as it was as it was previously forecast to be so that's actually good just a little bit more wind to deal with. So with that forecast showing a bit more breeze coming later on in the night we're actually going to put a second reef in the main sail now just so we're all ready for that and it doesn't cause any problems. We actually sail Florence much more conservatively now than we did when we left England. When we sailed back across this bay I can remember we wouldn't even put the first reef in until we had 18 knots apparent and now we're sailing along with 17 or 18 knots apparent with one reef in the main one reef in the genoa and we're going to put another reef in the main so we sail much more conservatively now but we've learned that we won't actually go that much slower with a less sailor we really know much better how to sail Florence now. So with that reef in we've only actually slowed down by about half a knot but the motion on board is a lot more comfortable and as Matt said it means that when that wind does increase we'll be ready for it. We passed well offshore of Portland Bill in the night to avoid the tidal race there but then cut in towards the tiny anchorage of Chapman's Pool somewhere neither of us had ever been before. So we've come into this anchorage for three reasons and the first is pretty obvious it's an absolutely gorgeous place to be especially in conditions like this the second is that the wind is obviously going to die making sailing any further difficult but also the tide getting past Hearst Point and into the Solent is one that you need to time so just stopping here will allow us to wait for the wind to pick up and then hopefully time our arrival into the Solent as well. Finding beautiful anchorages like this makes us really excited for doing some more sailing around the UK because although we are sailing back to Portsmouth Harbour and we're probably only well less than 100 miles away from that now that's not going to be the end of sailing for us because next year we're sailing up to the Arctic and then after that we've got plans to do some sailing around the UK maybe out to the Faroe Islands or something like that so we're going to be able to come back and explore lots of amazing anchorages like this and we are really looking forward to carrying on cruising on Florence. Next time we sail on to possibly the most surreal experience of our lives as we arrive into our home port and meet hundreds of the people who have followed us around the world via these videos. Don't forget to subscribe to catch the next episode we release a video every two weeks. 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