What Baggy Did Next

So, what happened to Baggy and her weather beaten crew?

A year ago Baggy had done it. Our world weary, battered old boat had safely sailed us around the planet. It wasn’t without its challenges and we will be eternally grateful that she returned us home safely.

Since the last blog ….

Baggy enjoyed the final leg of her journey home from the Scilly Isles back to the south of England where she was born and grew up.

We slipped the Scillies in bright sunlight on Thursday 4 August 2022. The viz was so good it was an instant Land ho! as we saw the low lying outline of the Lizard just 40 miles in the distance. The UK proper!

The efficient, reassuring, oh so British, voice of Falmouth Coastguard updated us with weather and safety information. It all felt so familiar and secure. No ocean swell and the squawks of British-issue chip eating gulls filled the air.

We enjoyed every minute of an invigorating night sail through the clear, crisp Northern European night. With a cool breeze and starry sky it was as wonderous a sail as any around the world. And the last night watch of the trip.

But the sea was busy. Fishing boats and tankers passing within half a mile, a motor boat with no lights crossed our path. We kept a constant vigil and our usual three hour watch system.

Our homecoming was planned for Saturday 13 August so we day sailed along the glorious south coast visiting Dartmouth, Weymouth, Lymington, Studland Bay and Osborne Bay off the Isle of Wight. The natural coastline was as stunning as any we’d seen on our travels; but ashore the beaches and bars were rammed with people and we felt overwhelmed and claustrophobic.

The Grand Homecoming

The big day soon arrived and we dressed Baggy in her flag finery. On one side she flew the flags of the 24 countries we had visited, on the other the countries we had to miss due to Covid, our old ensign, diving flag and a large Union Jack.

And soon the manoeuvre we’d fantasised about arrived – we turned left into Portsmouth Harbour, as gently as we had turned right four years ago.

Friends and family cheered from the dockside. We smiled so much our cheeks hurt.

An impromptu bar was set up and everyone clambered on board to give Baggy a big well done pat.

The Portsmouth News sent a reporter and photographer and we were celebrities for a day with front cover and double-page spread coverage.

The party continued at The Castle Tavern in Gosport till closing time. It was as perfect an ending we could hope for. But a poignant sad ending as well.

‘We had proved our seamanship and judgment to our own satisfaction, and we had seen something of the world and its people. But we were deeply conscious of the untamed might of the vast oceans and the hazards of their shoals and shores, and we were grateful to Providence for bringing us home safely.’

Eric Hiscock, Around the World in Wanderer III (1954)

Circumnavigation Stats

32,677 miles sailed, excluding New Zealand

1,000 nautical miles cruising New Zealand (one good thing about Covid)

281 days on passage

269 nights at sea

133 dives, 103 independent (which was around four days and nights underwater)

939 engine hours

194 nautical miles longest 24-hour run (assisted by the Agulhas current)

418 nights anchored

Eight miles of chain hauled by Paul on a manual anchor windlass 💪

92 nights on mooring buoys

702 nights in marinas

24 different countries visited

154 different places visited (111 ashore), excluding New Zealand

Four years away, 18 months in New Zealand

37 days, longest passage

Setting our new course

The next day Baggy was cleared of food and essential belongings; brutally and unceremoniously hauled out of the sea, and left on the hardstanding of Gosport Boatyard. I cried my eyes out.

We moved back into my cottage in Southsea with a car load of international food and clothes, blow up mattress and camping chairs. We were confused and not sure what to make of it all.

Endeavouring to live back on land we demonstrated bizarre and embarrassing behaviour.

• Our To Do list said ‘Take rubbish ashore’.

• I kept kicking the kitchen cupboard as my left foot felt for the water pump pedal.

• Paul announced he wanted to check the mooring lines when the wind picked up.

• I was showering in my ‘public shower flip flops’ and washing up in cold water.

• We shut windows in case of squalls.

• Paul wanted to turn off the gas bottle when we went away for a few days (we don’t even have gas).

• It was amazing to use a washing machine, but I kept looking for the coin slot.

• The 24/7 electricity was amazing, but we were itching to check the amps on cloudy afternoons.

And our pantry stores were particularly exotic:

Kalahari Desert sea salt from South Africa and peppercorns from New Zealand. Perfectly good butternut squash from Cape Town and red cabbage from the Azores; white onions and dates from Ascension Island; olive oil and olives from Saint Helena: tinned beetroot, potatoes and apple sauce from New Zealand. Ahum, a year later we still have the beetroot.

Anyway, we then flew to France for a family wedding and both returned with Covid. With limited possessions and only the blow up mattress and two camping chairs in the house, both of us being ill was extremely grim.

But as we know, worse things happen at sea. So we hunkered down, ordered online, redecorated and as soon as we were uncontagious managed to reclaim our furniture and household items from friends and family.

While deciding what to do with our lives I found fixed-term communications contract work with Health & Care Portsmouth and Paul started fixing up Baggy.

We also fitted a new part to the steering system, serviced the sea cocks and replaced one stranding lower shroud.

Baggy thought she was preparing to go again but instead we all sank into the dark, cold folds of British winter and reluctantly plugged back into the matrix. And we all missed our sailing life enormously.

Then the tide turned

Mercifully, by spring 2023 the tide had turned for us all.

Paul: secured a full-time job running the Plymouth office for yacht brokers Red Ensign Marine. If you need to sell or buy a yacht, he’s your man.

Sally: secured a full-time job managing the communications and marketing for an impressive school called Mount Kelly, in Tavistock, Devon. Having never worked in a school before it’s a steep learning curve.

Baggy: said her goodbyes to Gosport and relocated to a pretty swinging mooring at Weir Quay on the River Tamar, just two hours away from the open sea. She’s already sailed to Sark and Guernsey and plenty more adventures are planned.

The rest of the crew: Baloo 2 (the dinghy), Mowgli (the wind vane), Parsun (the outboard): they all made it back. Gerty (the New Zealand coconut yoghurt culture) didn’t make it; we couldn’t find food she liked and she died. RIP Gerty. I cried again … over a yoghurt!

House: We moved into rented accommodation in Tavistock, Devon and sold the Southsea cottage. And this is where our new adventure begins.

Introducing: The Dartmoor Doer-Upper

Up a rough track in Dartmoor National Park sits an empty, run down, former miners cottage.

Built in 1873, with just a stone wall separating its grounds to the wild moorland, our new project awaits.

It’s on the outskirts of Princetown, 435m above sea level; the highest settlement on Dartmoor and one of the highest settlements in the UK.

Old, unloved, leaky and damp, it’s set in a vast green ocean.

Dolphins are swopped for wild ponies; cockroaches for wood-boring beetles; sea spray for Dartmoor mist and sea gulls for skylarks.

We know life won’t be easy. But we also know we’ll feel at home here, in the earthy wild. At least for a while.

There is freedom waiting for us all on the breezes of the sky, and we ask, what if we fall? But oh, what if we fly!