Our trip to the West Country coincided with a rare period of settled weather and we took the opportunity to make the trip by RIB up the Dart, firstly to Dittisham to sample the delights of the Anchorstone Cafe, and then on to Stoke Gabriel. Although we could have considered continuing upstream to the drying quayside of Totnes it would have meant a late evening return passage after the 7pm high water. There are regular ferries and water taxis that cross the Dart to link the Kingswear side with the main town of Dartmouth, but we opted to use the RIB to get across and explore the town, stopping at the short stay visitors dinghy quay near the main ferry pontoon. Although the access there is by a long ladder at low water, there are also nearby landing steps where you can bring the dinghy for loading up supplies.

By Sunday we decided it was time to head back east in order to meet up with friends in the Solent and plotted a course back to Weymouth to coincide with slack water at Portland Bill. The passage proved to be so calm and straightforward that we wondered if we could carry on all the way to the Solent. Ideally we would need to arrive at the Needles by slack water to ensure a comfortable passage so we opted to increase our speed from our usual 15 knots and with a following tide made 20 knots most of the way.

As we made our way up the Needles channel into the Solent we were again struck by the sudden increase in marine traffic, having come most of the way from Dartmouth hardly seeing another vessel. Our friends Jeff and Gerry had arranged a berth for us at Hythe Marina, and we filled up with diesel at 29p/litre, less a 15% discount for taking over 500 litres.

Cruising Statistics

Distance: 101 nm

Total to date: 800 nm

Avg Speed: 18 knots

Duration: 6:30 hours

Diesel: 569 litres, 25p/litre

Wind: V/SW 2-3

Mooring: £35/night

Electricity: Free

Waypoints

The Bight
50 20.76N 03 34.45W

Checkstone PHM
50 20.63N 03 33.88W

Castle Ledge SHM
50 19.50N 03 32.80W

Dartmouth Approach
50 18.00N 03 30.00W

Bill of Portland
50 26.80N 02 19.20W

St Albans Head (6.3nm SW) 50 30.00N 02 10.00W

Needles Fairway Buoy
50 38.20N 01 38.90W

Shingles (0.1nm SSW) 50 39.70N 01 37.00W

Hurst Narrows
50 42.20N 01 32.50W

Lymington Spit
50 44.00N 01 30.00W

Gurnard (0.5nm NW)
50 46.00N 01 20.50W

Charts

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