Departed 22nd April, returned 3rd August.
Here's a few other things:
1. We bought Imray's north sea, and one other, both paper charts. We hardly used them at all, and it was a bit of a waste of money.
We also bought Admiralty's Western Isles collection (southern bit) and didn't use them at all.
We navigated with a prehistoric design of plotter . . . and the Imray 'app' on an iPad. This was excellent, and supplied all we needed - except when Apple fairly upbruptly upgraded to a later version, and the Imray app refused to plot any routes. Imray were probably taken aback by this, at it took them a couple of weeks to sort it, and we had to erase the iPad and reinstall the previous version. So - however wonderfully reliable Apple products are, beware the Apple update.
We did, however, have most of the tracks on an iPhone, and the plots.
2. Costs. We thought Dunlaoghaire was super expensive at around £38 per night, and we got a bit wind bound anyway. But the visit was terrific, to see Dalkey, where Alison's mum used to have holidays, and Dublin, briefly, to visit the military museum where a pretty good record of British nastiness is kept, along with a lot of other stuff.
But it would have cost less to cross the Atlantic.
Fuel was paramount. Engine hours went from around 25 hours at the start, to 340 hours at the finish. Such was the wind, and such was our need to get from one point to another. Sailing amounted to about 20%, and motorsailing was the remainder.
3. I was glad to get home. But I'd do it again, now that we have seen the lay of the land, and the turn of the tides.
4. None of the navigations was difficult, but some of the timings were rotten because the navigator, bless his cotton socks, got departure times wrong - mainly Strangford and the entry to Milford Haven.
5. Duff spots: the Crinan Canal - pouring with rain, no help available and an exceptionally rude and self centred handsome skipper of obviously limited experience who took his boat ahead of us even though he had been instructed to stay behind us - and then locked us out.
Stonehaven in Scotland was a bit short of facilities, and Shoreham on the south coast was weird. The 'marina' was old and rickety, the boats seemed unloved, it was opposite a factory, the lock was like a washing machine and the cost was rather high for a place with few facilities.
And the Solent. It is stuffed with people racing, to an almost unbearable extent.
And Fawlty Towers . . . you know, Torquay.
Grimsby was grubby, busy, unattractive. But -
6. Good places - Grimsby. The battery died there, and getting it replaced was made easy by a wonderfully helpful local engineer, the harbourmaster and various others. We walked miles for a brilliant fish and chip tea, and it seemed to be a place that was a community. Some of it looked as if world war two had only just ceased.
The east coast is pretty grim up to beyond the Wash. And then the east coast becomes lovely.
Other good places - everywhere. Anywhere from Whitby to Boulogne via Arklow and the Scillies.
Go to Padstow, the Scillies and Dieppe. And Dartmouth which is brilliantly organised as a sailing port - hardly a marina in sight.
Eastbourne is comfy and very efficient. Falmouth is brilliant, and most of the sailing ports up the south coast from Falmouth to Weymouth.
We didn't go to Brighton. Been there, done it.
7. Problems - maybe in too much of a hurry to get around the UK, but with hindsight, we were assessing the scene. Maybe just Ireland next time.
And the dead battery. Once the charge splitter had been replaced, all was well.
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