Iris's Round Britain Blog — Mounts Bay Academy

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Iris's Round Britain BlogMarch 2017

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First Day: Today we arrived on the boat and put all the food in their places with a specific order, after that we sorted out belongings and headed on deck to learn some of the basics of sailing. Can't wait to get going!

Day 2 Today was pretty rough and the wind was blowing a gale, at least we had the Dolphins to cheer us up. Their was a whole pod of them that swam right up next to the boat. It's freezing out there so you have to wrap up extra warm!!!

Day 3 Everyone is quite queasy and we have decided to call throwing up "guinieapigging" it is just a nicer word I guess. One of our crew members "Antonio" has gunieapigged 13 times , I don't think anyone is going to beat his record!!! This is a photo of my friend Poppy.

Day 4 After 220 NW we have finally reached Milford Haven in Wales. All the crew could not wait to get onto land for a much needed shower (and a good old food shop) Milford Have is rather quaint ; a mish mash place .

Tonight was games night and we are now in Wales , for games night we played two rather bizarre games . The first one was a game where you had to pick up a cereal box with our mouth and every round one part got ripped off it got hard when it was a bit of flat cardboard on the ground and you were not allowed to touch the ground with your hands or knees. The next game was where you had to cut into a packages chocolate bar with a knife and fork and try and get chocolate out. Turns out were not leaving today because the alto agora have failed and we need to recharge the batteries so we will leave tomorrow at around eleven o'clock. I can't wait to get sailing again!! We made chocolate nests though!

Thank you to the West Cornwall Youth Trust for their donation of £250 to help Iris achieve her dream of sailing round Britain!

Thank you too to the Rotary Club of Penzance for their donation of £284!

Today flew by super fast! All of today was good apart from the fact that my friend Poppy dropped her phone in the water as she was walking up the ladder, I take part of the blame for it as I asked her to take my bag as I was at the bottom ; it was not retrievable because it fell so far down!!

It is now quite late and I have just finished my midnight till four o'clock watch . During our watch talked about our ghost sightings and stories, some of the stories were pretty scary ( unfortunately I have never seen a ghost so I had no exiting story's to tell ) in Dublin today we went through a place called Temple Bar . There was a padlock bridge so I attached a padlock with my best friends and my name on it.

We are leaving to go to Carrick Fergus and it will take approximately two hours. The sail ability group were really nice in Carrick Fergus and they said that we can go onto their new speed boat later , yay !!! They also gave us all a free neckscarf. We have just been in the speed boat for the second time and we were going at like 50 knots! It gave Poppy and I such an adrenalin rush and we couldn't stop laughing . Unfortunately Ryan dropped his phone into the water.

Today was really good, we had to change course though so instead of going around the top of Scotland we are going to go through the Caledonian Canal - this is because up around Scotland there are 8-9 metre waves and 40 knot winds . Because of this we will be sailing to a place called Ghigha (it is only 1.5 miles wide and 7 miles long) apparently it is really pretty. Poppy and I thought that it would be a good idea to jump into the freezing cold water today in just our swimming costumes; so Skipper set the boom out so it hung off the side of the boat and we climbed across it and jumped off!! After we had done it almost everyone else put their costumes on and jumped off!!!!!!! ️️️ We anchored in Gigha today and it is super pretty here!!! Still haven't seen any whales yet, apparently there are two Minke whales around... At midnight were talking about ghost stories while doing our two hour anchor watch , we got up at about 6:30 this morning to bring the anchor back in, we didn't find any anchors on our watch though ..

Today we set of to go to Oban which took about eight hours. Scotland is so pretty!! A soon as we got to Oban we had some lovely and well needed showers . It was my sister’s Birthday today "HAPPY BIRTHDAY POLLY!!!" today we also had a look around town. After looking around town we went to an abandoned farmhouse in which we did not stay in for long because there were animal skeletons everywhere. After the abandoned building we went to see the sheep and lambs.

it was our first day through the locks today and we went through ten of them, we had an extremely leisurely journey to Fort Augustus . when leaving to go through the locks today we were met by surprise by Mike ( Poppy's mum's friend) Mike brought Flossy the dog with him so she was our sea dog for the time being . we went through some more locks today to reach lock Ness , it was a tight squeeze into the lock because we were alongside a huge canal boat and a smaller but still massive boat. after that we went through Lock Ness, it is massive and we also managed to sail through parts of the lock in order for Mike to take some photos of us with the castle in the background. This morning starboard watch (my watch) Today we went from Meirtown lock to Inverness , for dinner we had Roast dinner and i made it by myself for 16 people!!!! the roast dinner consisted of : honey fried then roasted parsnips, roast potatoes in which were boiled ten roasted in various herbs and seasonings with a smidgen of butter, sliced and boiled carrots, pork, crackling, meat gravy with a splash of wine, coli flour cheese, and veggi sausages / it sounds very extravagant but trust me it wasn't and it was a bit chaotic but i did it! i kinda feel a little homesick today, tonight was the longest, coldest night watch eveeeeer!!!!!! i am missing all of my friends so much but was cheered up when i saw Anna's post about missing me, thanks Anna! i just want to sleep in my own bed in my own room; not a stinky bunk that you can hardly roll over in. ;( i will feel better tomorrow (i am probably just tired) i had a little bit of an off day yesterday, i don't know why because i am fine now!! "right as rain" Visited the Royal Yacht Britannia and Pete (Mat's dad) was our tour guide because he used to work on the yacht and when the yacht wasn't running he worked at Buckingham Palace because he live there. Pete said that the queen once said to hi " Pete can you just undo the lid on this bottle for me " and that is how laid back she was with all the people that worked on the yacht while she was on holiday. after we had visited the yacht we went to get a drink from Starbucks , i got a strawberry cooler.. i wrote Anna a postcard today and i have literally jam-packed it with writing, i used a postcard that i got from the gift shop on the Royal Yacht Britannia. Were in New Castle! Martin (my foster day) arrived on the boat today, originally he wasn't going to come as an after guard but because there was a space open it was a great opportunity that was silly to miss. i made pitta bread and Nan bread to go with our curry and poppadoms today (one of the skills i learnt from my foster sister) we all played snakes and ladders after tea and i kept on having to go down the same snake!!! Oh Well. we walked to the Outlet stores today and i got a pair of extra thermal leggings because night watches are a lot colder than i thought (especially at sea). the girls also got some peel off face masks so we could accomplish our challenge of eating tea with a face mask on. We are going to have to stay in Newcastle longer than expected because we need to ensure that if we go to sea, our engine is working because if it is not working we are scuppered. (basically we are doing some engine maintenance) we went into Newcastle city today and visited..... first stop -the monument second stop - the bridge ; a beautiful architectural masterpiece third stop - fake beach ( in which had some really cool beach huts) fourth stop - out side gym, where we messed about on the various equipment fifth stop - blinking eye bridge sixth stop - grange marked where we pursued our one pound challenge to fine the most weird and wacky item with under one pound; i got an aubergine pen. seventh stop - shopping mall eighth stop - cha time a Chinese drinks thing where you can choose flavour drink and then choose what flavor popping spheres you can have in it. ninth stop - sushi box, i didn't get sushi because i;m a veggie. tenth stop - the train back. eleventh - the post box on the way back t the boat to post our post cards we went bowling this evening and it was really fun, i got two strikes and the rest were basically misses, i think my strikes were flooks!!!

Today we have set sail to go to Belfast. In Belfast we are going to go to the Titanic museum , Antonio (a member of our crew ) is obsessed with the Titanic "who knows how we are going to drag him out of the place!! Today we also made some really good Brownies in which we ate at about 2 o'clock in the morning on watch , YUM!!!! It certainly kept us awake.
Our Misen Staysail was put up for the first time today , we were zooming along at 10.9 knots.

I really enjoyed the beach in cleethorpes , in the photos that were taken of us on the beach it looked Mediterranean. The beach there had donkeys and a fish and chips cafe on a pier. The swimming pool in Cleethorpes WA really really good and there was a super duper fast water slide and an area in which you could dive. After swimming we walked back across the proms age and got a bag of five fresh doughnuts to share for only £1 . Because we basically had a two girls walk over to Grimsby we decided to get the train back while half the group walked not realising that the train went straight past the fish market anyway so we ended up having to walk just as far. Hay ho

"Sleep when you can sleep" that is my quote o the day! We had to tidy up the boat today and went to the abandoned place In Grimsby today- search it up!!! There is an old ice factory there in which still has all of the machinery and gear in it from the time. The taxi driver told us there was lots of gangs and murders and stuff in Grimsby at night so we should stay well clear of there ( made us feel great about staying there) we were all safe though because we were docked up next to the fish market.

Today was awesome ! We went to the national maritime museum and my favourite part was about the slave trade because I was able to explain things in a more understandable way to poppy because I learnt about it in history. We also waked up to the Grenich Observatory in which was were sailor use to work out when local noon was so they could match up GMT with the ball. I can't write much today because I am off watch and I'm cold and tired so just want to go to bed but what I will tell you is that this long 40 hour passage has had its perks and the sea a so so cool, it basically looks computer generated

Today we arrived in London . Martin (my foster dad) is leaving today so I went out to see my sister. We visited various landmarks in London like the Globe theatre , the shard , Tate , we had a look at the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben , the market , London eye and the pizzeria . In London we Birthed right up alongside the Tower Bridge which was awesome. When sailing over we arrived at the Thames Barrier at around 9 am . Starboard watch (my watch) had been awake from 8-12 ,4-6 ,8-12 ,4-8 so having been awake since four o'clock in the morning I was very tired but I stayed awake for the rest of the day because I didn't want to miss sailing in the Thames and walking around London for a second.

Prepare for a long voyage . Today consisted of preparing for a long and hard 40 hour passage . Helen is in need of a good clean so that is what we did . Poppy and I were going to go up the mast today but the harness was to big for either of us to go up so Georgia did instead; it was great to watch!!

I made some Rosemary bread today and it turned out really good! It is only a 15 hour passage to Dover so I am looking forward to getting there . We came across lots of bumble bees , we don't know why they are flying across the ocean.

We woke up in Dover today . We found out that on the news Banksy had done some art last night right next to where we are , so when we were arriving he was over there doing his art. We walked over there this morning and took some photos and were interviews by the news. I think that the message that he is trying to get across with the graffiti is that we are slowly chipping away from the EU and that soon there will be one less star. On the way back from seeing his masterpiece we came across his car with a number plate saying "Banksy" on it . It also had a short term parking ticket in the window. We are just about to leave to go to Yarmouth in the Isle of White now.

Helen Mary R returns to Plymouth sound!!