Plymouth to Torquay

Thursday 31st of July - Billy has arrived but the weather does not look so good, neither wundguru nor the Inshore waters forecast - F4-6 peaking F7 with associated swell. In the true spirit of sailing, we set out towards Weymouth anyway as Plymouth Sound is sheltered and we can turn back at any time. We did not even manage to get past the breakwater before we turned back.
Friday 1st of August - Weather forecast now getting better, but feel that I'd like to try getting moving if possible. We left our berth at Plymouth Yacht Haven far too early for the tide intending to have a sail around the Naval vessels in Devonport - and very impressive they were too. We made sure to give them a wide berth. Still early for the tide, we found an unmarked set of swinging moorings just north of Drakes Island and stopped for a break. We were rather quickly moved on by the local military who at least let us finish out tea which is all very civilised and what you'd expect from our Navy. . Heading out to to sea, we made past the breakwater but turned back deciding that again the conditions were too poor. A mixture of short steep swell slowing Serenity and poor visability.
Saturday 2nd of August - As windGuru predicted there was almost no wind and the swell was gentle and long. The IWF was still saying F4-6 :-( The tide was behind us, the jib was out but the main halyard was wrapped around the radar reflector again. As wind on our stern increased, we tried the scooper but the swell corkscrewing us made it useless, I may have it badly rigged.
We ended up gybing downwind to optimise our VMG.
Again, after seeing so few yachts around the UK, it was a suprise to see so many with us or on reciprocal courses.
Passed Bolt Head, Prawle Point and decided that we were too tired to head on to Weymouth, we were making progress, but not *that* much progress, so we decided to drop into Brixham ( this was option (b) in my plan ). Brixham was full, the town quay was rafted too deep and we rafted very uncomfortably up as a temporary measure to have a cup of tea and think about our options.
A few phone calls later and we had a berth in Torquay 40 minutes across the bay and we found a very clean marina. Torquay had excellent Ice Cream and Billy confirmed that the fish was excellent.
This passage was another excellent example of leaving Plymouth for one destination - Weymouth, diverting to Brixham and ending up at Torquay. You really have to stay flexible when sailing.