Sailing into Liverpool

After a very long trip around Ireland where the weather was truly awful ...wind, rain and we were even boarded by customs!!!.. we finally sailed into Liverpool after an eventful trip from Arklow on Saturday 3rd September. We were lucky not to have been run down by a container ship the Coastal Denise just off the coast of Angelsey early on Saturday morning. The ship changed course having followed us safely for a couple of hours. George and I were on watch and we both could not believe it! We were forced to turn hard to starboard to avoid being mowed down and thanks to the wonders of AIS we were able to find out the name of the ship and with the help of the Liverpool coastguard elicit an apology from the ship. The guy on watch claimed he saw our green light but he could only have seen that after he had passed us and we all agreed that it was highly unlikely that anyone even knew we were there despite me shining our strong flash light up into the bridge and onto our sails as the ship got closer and closer! Still no harm done and we live to sail another sea! Orion is now safely moored in Liverpool Marina while we continue to work on her and we are looking to head back down to the Med next year.

Finally on our way!

We are now back from our adventure getting the boat back from Lagos to Liverpool Marina. It has taken me a long time to get around to putting this on the net but finally I decided to get my finger out and get it done!! It wa a good trip from Portugal to the Azores ... lots of dolphins, a turtle and even a whale! John tried to get some work done with his sextant which sometimes he was more successful with than others! The weather was on the whole kind to us on the first leg of the rip though the first ten hours or so out from Cape St. Vincent were a bit choppy causing us all to feel a bit queasy but we all stuck it out even Paul who was really quite poorly again. However give him his due he never complained once and just stuck it out down below with his bucket til his body got used to the rockin and rollin! He must have felt better because on Johns 61st birthday he made a tuna bake all his own recipe and really tasty it was too! We arrived at Ponta Delgado 5 days or so before we had anticipated. A really nice place ... good value and a very friendly place. We took time out to hire a car and see more of the place and Paul decided to live a little dangerously hiring a Quad bike. Quadman as he was known as from therein on followed us up the volcano. It was a good day.