We made good progress heading south along the coast motoring at about 5 knots, so by about midday we were nearly past the tip of the IoM. By this point we had spotted dolphins twice and we're in swimming costumes as it was so hot!
Then the tides were against us and our speed dropped to about 1.7 knots and were not making any progress. With about 40 miles to go we would definitely be arriving in the dark.
With the lovely hot weather, flat calm seas and several dolphin sightings we decided to go back to Port Erin and drop the anchor for lunch.
After a snooze we then headed through the Sound which is only passable at slack water or when the current is with you. This was made a bit more challenging as there were divers on a drift dive with a dive boat buzzing about. Therefore we had to keep an eye out for the orange sausage surface marker buoys showing where the divers were located.
Once through Ian decided to set himself a challenge of catching a fish in the half an hour that it would take us to get to Port St Mary. He did himself proud as he caught one within minutes of getting both lines out.
We're now anchored just off Port St Mary harbour in a little bay with one other yacht. It's been a glorious evening (our warmest this sailing season) with people still on the beach and swimming at 9pm. There must be an evening steam train service as we can hear the steam train whistling as it goes along the track between here and Castletown.
A 6am start planned for the morning in the hope that we'll have some breeze and more day light sailing hours. At least we've shortened our original trip by about 10-15 miles by now being as far south on IoM as we can go. Only about 45 miles tomorrow.
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