The owner, Sami, and his family come down to the boat just after 9 am and the handover goes well.

He then offers to drive us to Turku airport. We have problems getting flights (holiday season in Finland apparently) so he drops us off at the bust station and it's a 3 hour bus ride to Tampere airport where we book on a Ryanair flight.

Now, I've been to some airports in my time but this shed has got to be near the top of the list for places not to spend too much time in - nothing there apart from a shop, no bar, nothing. Ah well, only 7 hours till our flight to Stansted!

We land at midnight and I decide that the thought of sleeping on the floor of the airport for 5 hours before the bus up to Norfolk is too much to bear so I hire a car (get stung as usual) and drive up to GY. At home and asleep by 3.30

Lots to do before heading off to France next Monday for a delivery to the States.

Unfortunately we have to motor pretty much all the way to the destination.

Fortunately the fuel range on Timu is excellent. A quick stop in a force 6 in Klintholm, Denmark to refuel and then it's non-stop [from Ijmuiden] to Turku.

We reach the edge of the Turku archipelago at about 0800 on the 26th and the last 50 miles through the islands is stunning.

When we arrive we get talking to George, a Swiss guy (who drives us to the hotel to watch the Euro Final that night) who says that between Stockholm and Turku there are 54,000 islands - beautiful.

We have the wind right behind us pretty much all the way round to the Kiel Canal.

A very cold night going down the Kiel Canal (and a 10 hour watch for me ) and just short of Brunsbuttel the wind picks up to around 25 knots.

Fortunately we get shielded in the holding area before going into the canal. Inside it's just a summers day.

Catch up on sleep and Sash and Jesse do most of the pilotage through the canal.

Manage to speak to the Volvo Penta rep on the Sunday and he says straight away that it's more than likely prop wrap.

Look on the Internet for dive services in Ijmuiden and come up with two places. Hardly anything is open on a Sunday here so it'll have to wait until tomorrow.

Monday morning
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Sasha has some swim goggles and she goes in first to see if she can see if there's anything on the prop. She doesn't have any luck so I go in. I start hyperventilating as soon as my head is under water (temperature is 17C) so go down to the marina office.

I ask the girl there to telephone the places to see if I can hire some dive gear. Unfortunately they won't hire gear to me (!!!) but, luckily, I get talking to Nick, skipper of Psyrax, a Van Dam 100 Nordia 102' yacht, and he lends me some gear.

Kit up, jump in and 10 minutes later the prop is clear.

The offending article:

The wind and sea dies down [from the 45 knots Saturday and F8 yesterday] through the day and, wind right behind us, we leave Ijmuiden at around 5 pm.

Jesse goes off to Amsterdam for the day and Sasha and myself stay on the boat. The forecast for today is increasing to force 7 so am kinda glad to be in a marina.

I come back to the boat after purchasing a 1 day wi-fi card (Euro 15.95!!!!!!!!) and see people leaving the beach in droves, not willing to put up with being sand-blasted any more

As I type this blog entry the met office shipping forecast has force 9's forecast for this area and having doubled up on the lines we can hear it blowing a hooley out there...boat nosh, chinese or dutch food tonight then?

At about 3 am, Saturday morning the engine cuts out and the temperature light is bright - merde!

Spend about an hour on the engine, checking it over, changing the impeller, etc., and we restart it. Bring the revs up to 2000 rpm and it feels like the stern of the boat is going to shake itself to death.

I don't have any snorkelling gear with me to go under the boat and Murphy's Law dictates there's no wind to sail with so we nurse the boat the remaining 40 nm to Ijmuiden, arriving late Saturday afternoon.

The Volvo dealership here is closed for the weekend from 1200 Saturday so we have to stay at least till Monday, ho humm...

Have a meal on board and then go for a couple of beers down one of the local bars. Someone was here last night and obviously had a few too many as he forgot something:

It seems to be that everywhere charges you for internet access nowadays. In a lot of place out of Europe, wi-fi access is 'free' in marinas: guess it's included in your marina fee.

Unfortunately, that is not the case in Gosport, £10 for one day - shocking! However, manage to get the weather forecast for the next couple of days and we head off mid-afternoon into a lumpy Solent and unsettled English Channel.

This calms down by 10 pm and we motor through the Dover Strait the next morning and across the North Sea. Any wind there is is right behind us so we motor-sail pretty much the whole way.

Got my gear sorted out and headed off down to Gosport to join the boat.

A fairly pleasant (?!) trip down on the trains(s) and met up with Sasha Love whilst waiting for the ferry across to Gosport.

Jesse Gordon was already at the marina and we spent the rest of the afternoon checking the boat over, preparing to leave, buying food and stuff for the passage and then safety briefs.

The weather forecast was force 8 in the English Channel so we weren't going to be going anywhere until late morning/early afternoon tomorrow.