We made Port St Mary at 2230 after a long motor sail with the wind almost on the nose, Morecambe Bay was quite lumpy but the sea settled a little after Lightning Knoll.

Around 2100 the wind had increased and the sea with it, the viz got poor and the rain got stronger, with some very big breaking waves on our port bow with about 30 meters of water under the boat (one or two large dollops coming aboard) and us trying to see the entrance through the murk,
An hour later we got the main down as we had to bear off and I did not want to approach too fast (as I have not been in here before)

We were on a broad reach now under jib only and on autohelm and were sheltering under spray hood looking at the chart with a torch when Daniel said "lookout" and a big breaking wave hit the port quarter of the boat it spun the boat around and onto its side, we both hung on (just) and the leeward gunnel went under and we got half a cockpit of water.
I threw the autohelm off and we got back on course, a nasty sea but the wind was not that strong and we were well clear of Langness Point in deep water ?.

The following morning I heard on Manx radio that at 0400 the Port St Mary life boat had rescued the crew of a motor cruiser that had took on water and sunk . Dan quite enjoyed the experience but did not particularly like the long trips so we opted to go up to Ramsey instead of Ardglass.

There was no wind to start with and Langness Point was very smooth but later in the trip it came back from the SSW so we put up the spinnaker and had a good couple of hours sailing.

After one day in Ramsey we left for home at 2300 hrs ,would you believe it the wind was now in the SE, a very black night and a bit lumpy, we had to motor sail to keep up speed as we were pinching to make the course and it was raining and misty.
After a long wet night, about 10 miles from Lightning Knoll the wind went to the NE and we finally got a very good sail to halfway up the Lune Channel .
Hope we have better weather for Wales !

Dan says we will have to do this again some time so perhaps he is getting as daft as us !

Pete and Dan

The Trawler which fell over during the night - I'm glad we wern't rafted up to it!