248 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
248 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
sponsored
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motoring
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countryside-life
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7859284
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# Sailing the Celtic Sea from Cornwall to Ireland
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## Adam Nicolson takes to the Celtic Sea in 'The Auk', a big wooden ketch, to
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sail from Cornwall to Ireland.
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![Sailing on The Celtic Sea from Cornwall to Ireland][1]
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Sailing on The Celtic Sea from Cornwall to Ireland
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Adam Nicolson 4:42PM BST 28 Jun 2010
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![][2] It was the most unforgettable journey of my life. We were tied up in
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the yacht harbour at Mylor, in the Carrick Roads just north of Falmouth. And
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we were going to Baltimore in the southwest corner of Ireland, 250 miles away
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across the Celtic Sea. With George Fairhurst, an old friend and yacht skipper,
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I had set ourselves up with a big wooden ketch, the Auk, 42 feet from stem to
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stern, and we were heading off for an adventure, a big reach out into the
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ocean world.
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But we weren't ready. For days we tried to get the boat finished, bending on
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the new sails, replacing broken instruments, stowing food and drink, scrubbing
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the decks, hosing out the cockpit. Finally, one afternoon, grey, windy and
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cold, with a gale forecast from the south, it was done and we could go. I cast
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off, George took the boat under motor from the quay. Out in the Roads we
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raised the full suit of sails: the big gaff main, a high-cut yankee, a
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staysail and the mizzen.
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The boat felt sleek and tight. George and I were tired from our long
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preparations, but keyed up. It then slowly became clear that no instruments
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were working. We turned every switch but nothing came on. The electrician who
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had replaced two of them a couple of days earlier did not have a depth-gauge
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in stock. But the system on which the instruments worked was integrated and no
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depth-gauge meant no readings from anything else: no wind speed, no wind
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direction, no course-made-good, no electronic compass. There was no light in
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the magnetic compass and no autohelm. We would have to stand at the wheel,
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watch and watch about, three or four hours on, three or four hours off, no
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breaks while you were up there, for the 40 hours or so it was going to take us
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to get to Ireland. We could have turned round but neither of us would have
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dreamed of doing that.
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The sea was huge that night. The whole of the bow was plunging in to the
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breakers, burying the bowsprit up to its socket, and driving rivers of sea
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back along the deck towards the wheel. The spray was lit in the nav lights on
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either side in huge arcs of red and green water. But the night was clear and
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phosphorescence was sprinkled down to leeward like a reflection of the stars.
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George took the first watch and I slunk down into the safety of my bunk, away
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from this. Sleep was instant and deep. No thought for the man on deck and the
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rattling of the seas as they came over him. At one in the morning, George woke
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me. I came up, he gave me the bearing, handed me the torch we needed to read
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the unlit compass and I took his place at the wheel. The stars were coming and
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going now through the clouds. Our course was to leave Scilly to port and then
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bear away for the Irish coast.
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## Related Articles
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* [Coast to coast cycle][3]
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28 Jun 2010
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* [Lucky River Severn][4]
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30 Jun 2010
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At some time in the dark, early hours, we came into the shelter of Scilly. I
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kept the boat a mile or two offshore and although the wind didn't drop, the
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water was calm in the islands' lee. The smell of land came wafting across the
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night, thick and fleshy, a warm, musty, vegetable fug, like a soup, floating
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out to us over the Atlantic air. I bore away on to 325 magnetic, eased the
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sheets and made for Ireland.
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A change of watch then and again in the grey-green dawn, the grey of the sea
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the colour of battleships, and than again at nine or 10 in the morning.
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George's face was creased and worn, as mine must have been, but we were making
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progress. The Auk would look after us. We were at home, however tired we were.
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All day, we alternated, spending half an hour or so together on deck each
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time, a little talk, something to eat, a cup of tea. The swells were
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mountainous out here, mid-passage, if crinkled by the wind, and the whole
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extent of this sunlit sea was the deep, royal blue of the ocean.
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A pair of swallows visited us that afternoon, flying down the companionway
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steps into the cabin, circling there, cheeping, prospecting for home, but then
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left, dissatisfied, for something better in Ireland. A fulmar hung in the slot
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between the yankee and staysail, buoyant on the airstream which slides through
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that gap. If the wind had stayed good for us we could have reached a harbour
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that night as sleepily and dreamily as this day had passed. We were lulled. We
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could have sleepwalked home.
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It didn't happen. Late that afternoon, a weather front came through and winds
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veer on fronts. The southwesterly that had been easing us to Ireland shifted
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though 70 degrees in the space of an hour and as it moved it rose. We were
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headed and the rain began to hammer down. Night was coming on again, the wind
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was now in the northwest, exactly where we wanted to go.
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A tide of exhaustion flooded over both of us. There was no way we could sail
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to Baltimore where we were due. The engine was the only option and the
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prospect of 10 hours of that, at something like four or five knots, dead into
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a rising wind, felt like sacks of grain laid on our shoulders. The wind now
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was rising fast, and starting to shriek in the rigging. We had no instruments
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to measure it but George reckoned 35 knots, gusting 10 knots higher, Force
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8-9. The beautiful day quickly gave way to a raging night. The whole of the
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foredeck was now plunging again into breaking seas and the white teeth of
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those breakers appeared grinning around us. We hauled the sails down and tied
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them as best as we could.
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"'Go down," George said to me, a level of intensity in his voice I hadn't
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heard before. Freezing rain was now driving into our faces. "I'll get you in
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three hours' time." Down below, the cabin was jumping, a savage version of
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itself, thrashing at the lamp that hangs from the deck head, a lurch of no
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gravity followed by thumping smacks into new seas. I crawled into my berth,
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jammed myself against its sides, my body held in place by a three-point brace
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of my hands, the middle of my back and my knees. The engine groaned away
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beside me and I slept.
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"Can you do it?" I woke to see George's masked face slewing and sliding above
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me, only his exhausted eyes visible through the slit of a sodden balaclava.
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"I'm too cold to stay up there and I don't want to start making wrong
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decisions."
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In the churning world of the cabin, I got up, swathed myself in the weather-
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armour, lifejacket and lifeline, went on deck, got the heading for Baltimore
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from George, 340 magnetic now, took the torch from his hands and he went
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below. I was no less exhausted than when I had gone to sleep hours before. I
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had to shake my head every few seconds to keep myself awake.
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It is a mysterious and powerful place to be, on deck alone in a storm at
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night, while the man you have been relying on sleeps beneath you. He has dug
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deep for you, stayed there for hour after hour in the dark while you have
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slept curled down in the bunk, protected from the rolling and breaking of the
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sea. Now it is your turn. It would be difficult to think of a more ancient set
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of conditions. It bears a cousin relationship to sharing a rope when climbing,
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but the tenderness of it and the demands of it are, if anything, stronger. I
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sleep while he steers and I steer while he sleeps. The only continuities are
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the boat, the seemingly endless stretch of time, the repeating waves, the
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stirring of the masts above you, the light head of exhaustion.
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It is a strange and distant intimacy. The three hours came and went and I
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stayed at the wheel. George had done the same for me and everything here was
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reciprocity. I was cold but not impossibly cold, dog tired but not beyond all
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consciousness. It is always said that helmsmen at night hear the voices of
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people in the sea, and I certainly heard them then. We were in the darkest
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night I have ever known, no sign of anything in it beyond the world of our own
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small boat.
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Then, at last, no more than a blur at first, so faint that you cannot see it
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with your watching eye, but only if you look aside and catch its flickering on
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a distant screen. Was that something? Was it? Could it be, the ghost of
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something pale smeared over the northern sky? Only after 10 or 20 repetitions
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was I sure: at last the distant loom of the Fastnet light, the most southerly
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point of Ireland. For hours it guided me in, the lighthouse itself appearing
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above the horizon, its beam getting stronger, as the Auk drove on towards her
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destination. Then, still an hour away, I saw the light marked on the chart at
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the harbour entrance at Baltimore. "I've got a flashing green," I shouted down
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to George. "Make for it," he said.
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The ocean slowly stilled. We reached the flashing green, then the red beyond
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it, curving into the harbour calm, the lights of the village, the fishing
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boats against the quay, the ripple of harbour water against the Auk's ocean-
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worn sides, the sea as calm as a clock. We dropped the anchor at four in the
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morning, 37 hours out from England, and the Auk lay to her chain like a
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stabled mare. George and I sat below in exhaustion-drugged silence and relief,
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drinking whisky until the sky began to show the first streaks of a green Irish
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dawn.
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[X][5] Share & bookmark
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[What are these?][6]
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* Share: [Share][5] [ ][7] [ ][8]
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[Tweet][9]
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/motoring/countryside-life/7859284
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/Sailing-the-Celtic-Sea-from-Cornwall-to-Ireland.html
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Telegraph
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## [Range Rover - countryside life][10]
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* ### [Sponsored »][11]
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* ### [Motoring »][12]
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[X][5] Share & bookmark
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[What are these?][6]
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Share:
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* [ ][5]
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* [ ][7]
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* [ ][8]
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* [Tweet][9]
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*
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[1]: http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01671/Celtic-
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Sea_1671445c.jpg
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[2]: http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01671/FromWestcoasttoWes_1
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671084f.jpg
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[3]: /sponsored/motoring/countryside-life/7859265/Cycle-route-coast-to-
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coast-from-Cumbria-to-Yorkshire.html
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[4]: /sponsored/motoring/countryside-life/7863587/River-Severn-history-and-
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beauty.html
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[5]: #
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[6]: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/4590190/Share-this-article-
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What-are-these.html
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[7]: mailto:?subject=A Telegraph reader thought you would be interested in
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this article&body=Depending on your email program, you may be able to click on
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the link in the email. Alternatively, you may have to open a web browser, such
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as Firefox or Internet Explorer, and copy the link over into the address bar.
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%0A%0Ahttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/motoring/countryside-life/7859284
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/Sailing-the-Celtic-Sea-from-Cornwall-to-Ireland.html %0A%0AFor the best
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content online, visit www.telegraph.co.uk
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[8]: javascript:print()
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[9]: http://twitter.com/share?via=Telegraph
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[10]: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/motoring/countryside-life/
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[11]: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/
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[12]: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/motoring/
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