The skipper writes: 13:28 Monday 17th August
"We are safely now alongside in Woolverston Marina on the banks of the river Orwell back in the UK. At 0400 on Saturday morning, we crossed back into UK waters for the first time in 8 weeks. As the Dutch courtesy ensign was hauled down, for the first time since leaving Ramsgate, we had nothing to replace it with. The conventions of the sea say that as a courtesy to the nation you are visiting, the ship must fly their national flag from our starboard spreader. We have flown the flag of the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Estonia, Russia, Finland, Lithuania and Denmark and it is strange now to see our spreader bare! The Devon Flag still flies to port, as it has done all along but we are nearly home now.
We plan to set sail tonight and enjoy hopefully a couple of days of fair weather to get us into the Solent and the conclusion of this epic!
In many ways it feels anti-climactic to be back but all of us know that this trip has changed us.
The lads will return to Liverpool, ready and better equipped to deal with their lives ahead of them. Phil will slide back into Show of Hands, rested and wiser for a break from that life. Amy and I will be back at sea but more confident with Pegasus now we have seen what she can do.
The world is a wide, wide place and we are all deeply affected by the new corners we have seen.
Pegasus will hopefully be taking place in next years event from Belgium to Denmark and Norway before returning to the UK. It will be hard though I imagine, to have an experience such as this again.
It certainly feels like the trip of a lifetime....."
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Welcome home one and all! Pegasus has been what adventures are made of...and many tales will be told down the years by those who experienced the wind in her sails!
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