The homeward leg - Dulcinea

Today we awoke to no rain which made for a change and it was nice not to have water dribbling in through leaking hatches. Today we had to be into the marina at around the 1pm mark as high tide was around then so we had plenty of time left in the morning. We took the dog ashore for toilet, cleaned up the boat a bit and dropped the mooring which had been a great stop for the past couple of nights and slowly pottered out into the sound. We didn't have to motor long before we were able to throw up the sails and tick along nicely on a beam reach, but then it being the sounds turned into close hauled before doing the inevitable and ending up right on the nose so it was away with the sails and onward with diesel power! we chugged for a good couple of hours and watched the black clouds rolling in from the south and knew it wasn't going to be long before we had some bad weather but since we were well into the channel we knew we should make it fine. By the time we entered the marine entrance the wind was blowing 15-18kn on our port side but undeterred I attempted the docking manoeuver I executed so well last time but that wind caught our beam and started pushing and pushing hard! I missed the berth and before I knew it we were drifting down between Pier 2 and Pier 3 getting closer and closer to the carpark and a boats worst enemy (LAND!). Trying desperatly to turn around and get out I was not able to beat the wind and thankfully people were standing around watching and Emma managed to get a rope to someone who pulled and brought the nose around and I was finally able to head toward our berth and without much effort parked her up and tied on only to watch the wind head over 25kn and I was so happy we were not coming in now as things might have ended very different. Then suddenly the heavens opened and it was a torrential rain, we were scrambling around throwing things out of the boat and into the car and then throw the soggy mutt in the car and head for home. After all the rush I ended up forgetting all sorts of things but oh well, they are not going anywhere!