Voyages from 1998 to 2005 UK and Europe to the Mediterranean [ Click on image to enlarge ] After our Atlantic crossing, we made our landfall in Cornwall, anchoring in the large estuary off Falmouth, then at the Royal Cornwall Yacht Club, and later even ventured up the estuary to anchor at the head near Truro and at Mylor, other communities in this large estuary. We stayed for the eclipse of the sun, but were disappointed as it was a cloudy day and all that happened was that the dark gray overcast sky became black as night for a few minutes at the totality, then lightened up again. We went to Penzance and all around Cormwall by car. We spent the summer along the coast of the English Channel to Fowey (pronounced Foy), Plymouth, Dartmouth, the Isle of Wight, Southampton, Portsmouth, Brighton, Dover, into the Medway to Chatham dockyards, and up the Thames River to Limehouse Basin in the east end of London, about a mile downstream from the Tower of London where we were to spend the winter. After being sure we had a berth for the winter at Limehouse Basin, the headquarters for the British Cruising Association, we went back out the Thames to explore some east coast rivers, including the Deben (up to Woodbridge) , the Orwell (including Ipswich, Felixstowe, and Harwich), and the Ore (to Orford) and Alde, right up the shallows to Snape Malting. As well we went into Walton Backwaters, featured in one of Judy’s favourite sailing books by Arthur Ransome (Secret Water), just inside the Nez. We enjoyed our winter in London, and left in April to go through the mast-up route through the Dutch canals to Amsterdam, out around the Frisian Islands, into the Baltic through the Kiel Canal (North Sea Canal) and spent the late spring in the Danish islands, going to Copenhagen and Helsingborg in Sweden before crossing the Kattegatt to the Jutland peninsula. Rather than going around through the Skagerrak, we cut through the Limfjord into the North Sea. The Limfjord, to my liking, was not a real fjord, the country was too flat, and so we went up to Rosfjord on the mountainous southern tip of Norway for a few days before a storm-tossed crossing of the North Sea to Fraserburgh on Moray Firth. From Inverness we went through the Caledonian Canal, which included Loch Ness, over to the Highlands of the west coast of Scotland. We explored the Inner and Outer Hebrides, going up to the Isles of Rum, Eigg, Skye, and on the mainland to Loch Moidart, and around the Ardnamurchan peninsula to Mallaig, before reaching our furthest north, Stornoway on the Isle of Harris. In Tobermory we met up with and had a lovely supper rafted together with Den Njord, whom we met in London, and Blue Highway, with whom we sailed from Bermuda on our way across the Atlantic. Southward we went down the Isle of Lewis, Scalpay, the Uists, Barra, the Shiants, and Eriskay, before heading over through the Crinan Canal to Inverkip near Glasgow. We crossed to Bangor near Belfast, sailed into Strangford Loch, and crossed to the Isle of Man before going to Holyhead on Anglesey. We went around Anglesey, through the fearsome Menai Straits to Caernarfon, and down to Milford Haven before going to the Scillies, and back into the Channel to the Channel Islands of Guernsey, Jersey, Sark and Alderney, then around the Cherbourg Peninsula to Honfleur across the estuary from Le Havre. Going up the Seine River, we took the mast down at Rouen before going up to Paris for a few weeks. From Paris we went across the Marne, the Canal Lateral de la Marne, the Marne-Saone canal over to the Saone, and into the Rhone River. Past Lyon we went down to Arles and Avignon before entering Le Petite Rhone over to Sete, where we put up the mast; bridge closures kept us stuck there over the Christmas holidays. Two days after Christmas we sailed across the Gulf of Lyon to Barcelona where we celebrated New Years 2001 Next section