Holyhead - Gateway to Ireland

Snowdon stood out to the east

I had intended to leave Pwllheli at 06:30 – another early morning start to catch the tide. Early mornings were never my strong point and we were about 30 minutes late leaving. It was a sunny morning with a breath of wind from the South East. Snowdon stood out clearly to the East.

We needed to catch the flood tide north and round to Holyhead, so we were leaving at just before low water. Another anxious time watching the echo sounder as we creep down the harbour channel.

We made it with about half a metre * in hand and headed for our first rendezvous with the tide – Cindal point. According to a bit of local knowledge I had gleaned the in the bar, the tide there turned early and would get me through the passage between Bardsay Island and the mainland whilst there was little current (up to 5knots at Springs)  and then out into the beginning of the mainstream flood tide northward.

On time at Cindal point

Freddie pushed us on. We were on time at Cindal point and the local knowledge was well founded – a small current took us westward to the sound. The water in the sound was flat calm with no signs of the dreaded over falls. We were out into the Irish Sea: flat calm, no swell and no wind.

The coast disappeared into a haze. Eventually, an island appeared to the north, and the haze cleared to reveal the north coast of Wales and the coast of the Isle of Anglesea.



Eventually, the dreaded South stacks appeared and the tide turned against us. More local knowledge had told me that if you get really close to the South Stack, there’s on odd eddy that runs contrary to the tide.

Approaching South Stacks

I saw a small boat making use of this eddy and followed her through, into the bay between South and North stacks. Cliffs loomed over us as we clung to the shore and we crept past North Stacks to see a line of breaking waves (overfalls) to the north of us.

Ouch.





As we approached, seeking some way through them, the tide current must have changed a bit, for the breaking waves just collapsed, leaving a mass of seething water.





North Stack - the lighthouse is for sale



Freddie barged us through and we rounded the North Stacks to see the harbour wall of Holyhead. It’s a mile and a half long and the tide was now really against us – it took nearly an hour to get through the entrance, and then we had to go back down the other side of the wall to reach the Marina. 55 miles in 10 hours. And all thanks to Freddie, who was hot and salt encrusted at the end.



RNLI doing it's stuff



A day off today (10th August) watching the RNLI doings it's stuff.

Now it's the Isle of Man and then Ireland tomorrow.  We're going abroad!

*A bit more than 18 inches



 















Pwllheli – phew!

Vagabond and I resumed our clockwise wanderings on Tuesday (7^th August). I had left her  a drying buoy adjacent to the Swallow Boats workshop and rejoined her on Monday, after a week of house clearance, gardening and all the other stuff you when when starting to "downsize". The journey back to Vaganbond t most of Monday and included a car, three trains, and a slow local bus until I arrived at the Tesco in Cardigan, where I bought a few staples.

 After Matt (the MD of Swallow Boats) had kindly picked me up from there, I joined him and his team looking at their latest creation – a true replica bronze age boat, built out of timber planks and held together with the bronze age equivalent of string and sealing wax.

Bronze age leviathan

Leavinf them contemplating their creation, I went off for a walk, to look at the channel that we needed to take the following morning, for I was anxious to leave as soon as Vagabond floated. My thoughts were to make for Aberystwyth but I was worried that we’d get there just in time for low tide and we wouldn’t have enough depth of water to get into the harbour.

Waiting for the tide

I was woken on the Tuesday to the sound of two enormous tractors as they lifted the leviathan  to the waters’ edge and, like Vagabond, , it lay there, waiting for the tide.  I called the Harbour master at Aberystywth, who confirmed my fears. It meant I was in for a long passage, as we had to get to the north end of Cardigan Bay before nightfall.

Both boats floated at roughly the same time. Matt and his team of 12 volunteers paddled the replica away to it’s temporary resting place, ready for the sea trials on the following day.

At 10:30 am, I steered Vagabond out through the channel, anxiously watching the depth gauge as we went.  We cleared the bar and hoisted the sails, more in hope than expectation. It was a grey morning, with a hint of rain in the air, but the sky was blue out to sea as we headed north. I had the choice of three possible destinations, Bardsay Island, just of the point of North Wales, AberPorth, a bay along the south side of that northern peninsula, or Pwllheli, a marina nearby.

‘Head due north’, I thought  ‘ And decide where to go when you get there.’

The Welsh Coast disappears

The wind dropped. The blue sky disappeared. The rain started. The coast of Wales disappeared. Freddie barked into life.

Nine hours later little had changed except that we were further north and I had to make the decision about the destination.

It would be dark in about an hour. I could just get to Pwllehi before the sunset. The marina, showers and an easy time beckoned. Freddie was cranked up an extra notch.



Snowdon on the right!

The sun came out and gave us some stunning views of the North Welsh hills (including Snowdon). I called the marina and was allocated a berth, which we reached just as dusk was closing in.

53 miles. Ten and a bit hours. The ongest motor boat trip yet.

More Gardening Leave

The perceptive of my readers will have detected that Vagabond has been inactive for the last few days. She is (your scribe hopes) attached to a buoy close to Swallow Boats yard whilst I'm at home finalising the sale of our home and helping the Owners Agent find another one.


At least, that's what I was planning to do. All I can say is that I am amazed at the many ways in which a legal mind can delay a transaction.


So I've cut the grass, sold stuff on Ebay, visited the local recycling centre, given stuff away on freecycle, taken the Owners Agent out to dinner, and filled a skip with the contents of the garage.  This was a cathartic event for each these items had been painstakingly accumulated over the 39 years on the basis that 'it might come in useful'.

I've also taken the opportunity to include a couple of pages to the blog - the first is a map of the UK showing our progress and the second is Nerds Nook - a record of the hours spent in each stage and the nautical miles recorded. I see we're at about a 60 / 40 split between hours spent sailing and hours spent on Freddie.

Normal service should resume on Tuesday when, weather permitting, Vagabind will wander north along the Welsh coast.

Fishguard and Cardigan


05:30. I've been awake for an hour. The forecast is now mist and fog, some rain, no wind. The visibility at the moment is fine, I can see Ramsay Island and passage bout 6 miles way to the North West.
On goes Freddie, up comes the anchor and we're off.


As we approach the Sound, the mist closes in. I can see the rocks that mark the beginning of the passage, can see the ones in the middle that we are to miss but can't see the ones at the far end that we are meant to line up on the get through the passage unscathed. The tide is turning and starting to push northwards.

I resort to a bit of instrument flying. The GPS on my IPAD shows a heading line for the boat eg the way the wind sea and Freddie are pushing us, irrespective of the way the boat is pointing. With heart in mouth, I line up this heading line with the "recommended" course line on the electronic chart.

We're committed.

Twenty minutes later we're through, having seen very little of the Sound. Visibility now gets worse, no more that 50 - 100 metres. I reduce speed to a slow crawl.



A gull, flying without the benefit of instruments, sees us at almost the last minute and catches it's wing on the forestay. It flutters off, no doubt wondering where we had come from.

Visibility improved after about an hour and we were able to continue up the coast of Pembrokeshire at a slightly increased speed but it was now obvious that we would not arrive at Cardigan in time to catch the tide into the river estuary.

I phone the Estate Agent. He wants to get our sale in his month's figures. We have a bargaining session and he agrees to go back to the Vendor. I phone the Owners Agent to tel her the news. He phones me back. We may have a deal.

I go silent as we enter Fishguard, narrowly avoiding (thanks to the AIS warning on the real GPS) a ferry bound for Ireland. I anchor in the pool at Lower Fishguard and phone the agent to get the deal finalised. The vendor now requires a new mortgage arrangement. Will it never be over?

Doris the dinghy is inflated and we go ashore. There's one pub in Lower Fishguard and it's shut. The sailing club is shut until 7pm.



Welsh weather.



Next morning we leave Fishguard, again in no wind and little visibility and Freddie pushes us up to the Teifi estuary at Cardigan. Here's where Swallow boats are based and I've arranged to use their mooring for a week or so. It's nerve wracking getting in - the estuary is shallow and there's a very narrow channel round the bar and into the estuary. Even more so than the instrument trip through the Ramsay Sound. We touch bottom twice before finding the mooring. Fortunately, we went in on a rising tide.......



Leaving Fishguard



Leaving Vagabond secure, under the watchful eye of Charlotte of Swallow boats, I make my way back to Bucks by three trains and two buses to find a Sale Agreed sign outside the house.

By the way, my old persons bus pass doesn't work in Wales - it's a separate country look you.

Skomer Island

We had reached Milford Haven on Sunday evening. I needed a rest after an exciting passage from Lundy and Vagabond needed a good clean. This is not because the Purser and I had made a mess in the cabin, it was because the sand and mud brought aboard from the mooring ropes at Ilfracombe had got everywhere on deck and below.



The Plank (turn your PC on one side!)



There were also the chores that occur through wear and tear. Some rope ends needed whipping and I needed to find somewhere on deck to stow the fender plank,  which is placed outside of the fenders when the dock wall is somewhat irregular. It was used to good effect when alongside the wall in Padstow and again alongside the waiting pontoon here. It was now thoroughly dirty and could no longer be stowed in the cabin.

Make do and mend

So we had a day of “make do and mend” and they used to say in Nelson’s Navy.

Inevitably, you get interrupted when doing such stuff about the boat. People want to stop and talk, to say how pretty she is (even with 2 months worth of grime on her decks) and find out what sort of boat she is and what I’m doing with her. I really need an advert for the blog that I can hang from the boom when in port (or some business cards to hand out!).

The discussion then turns to where to go next. Several boats were aiming for Ireland. No one was going north. In fact there was no -one who had....

I mention Skomer and Ramsay islands. Other skippers shake their head – ‘It means going through Jacks’ Passage and then Ramsay sound. Lovely when you get to Skomer but you have to be careful. Mind you, the Puffins are fun....”

The weather forecast for  the next day (Tuesday 24^th July) - by all three weather forecasts  that I follow – suggested F3-4 from the South in the morning,  dropping over night and then 3 4 from the South  or variable for the following day. Sounded just right for Skomer and beyoond. 

Skomer it was tomorrow.

I read two Pilot books about Jack’ passage.

DONT GO THROUGH AT ANYTHING OTHER THAN NEAPS. (We were half way between springs and neaps. )ONLY go through at slack water – the two Pilot books differed as to when slack water occurred.......

From my point of view I wanted to go through as the tide turned from running south to running north. This was because of a complicated tidal current situation in the estuary itself.

‘Leave at 12:50’, I said, and booked the lock accordingly and went off to read my emails. One was from the Estate Agent. The possible purchaser of our house had now read his survey report and over a dozen questions as a result. I put my creative writing hat on to compose a suitable reply to them all.  ‘Yes, the bottled gas system had been installed by a competent engineer in 1973. No, I didn’t have a gas safety certificate.’  Etc etc

Next morning, the wind was as forecast. I was just casting off to go to the lock when the Estate Agent called. ‘The purchasor has more questions’. “’Sorry, Gary, he’ll have to wait, I’ve a lock to catch and I’ll then be a bit busy for the next 5 hours.’



Dale - on the way out of Milford Haven



Out of the lock, into the estuary. Up go the sails and we run down river with the wind on our beam. The water is smooth and we romp along, overtaking a couple of large boats in the process.  Now there’s a first! We had to tack a couple of times to get out of the mouth, past the inlet of Dale at the mouth and then the tide turned.



Now  we are making scant progress towards our destination.  Freddie springs into life and pushes us along.

There’s a boat between us and the shore  who seems to be making better progress, so I tur in to follow a mile or so astern of him.

 It was a glorious sunny afternoon with vibrant colour and excellent visibility: in fact at one point I looked West and could clearly see what seemed to be an island in the far distance.  Yet there was nothing on the chart in that direction between us and the Southern tip of Ireland 50 or so miles away.  Perhaps going to Ireland was not so silly after all. Fortunately, I hadn’t taken my passport, so sense prevailed and we ran along the western end of the south coast of Wales.

Despite the tide, with Freddies help  there was a real likelihood that we’ll arrive at Jack’s passage too early.

To the right of us lies a wide sandy bay  – ‘Anchorage’  it said on my chart. It’s not in the Almanac or in Cumberlidges guide to the Bristol Channel but ‘We could pop in there and anchor for a bit, until the time was right’ I thought.



 The skipper of boat in front thought so too as he turned and went in. His dinghy went off with the dog. I went in too, anchored some way away and started to read the paper.

 I was awoken by the sound of his engine and looked up to see him well under way and moving towards the passage. 



Overfalls



Up came the anchor in double quick time and we rushed off to follow him. He  had clearly been through the passage several times before. Instead of dashing straight through, he snuggled up to one rock and then went through at angle to the apparent channel. I copied and was glad that to have done so for the overfalls on the direct route (despite the “slack tide”) looked pretty nasty.



We were through the narrows and turned left (sorry, to Port) to run along North side of the island to the inlet where we could park for the night.  We nosed our way in and the guy in front took the last visitors buoy, so we were in for another bouncy and noisy night on the end of the anchor chain.



Through!



Whilst cruising looking for a suitable, shallow and protected spot to anchor , there was a thump from the centre board. I had hit a rock. It was marked on the chart, so at least I knew where I was....



That panic over, we settled for the night and a sat and watched puffin (some desperate to get out to sea to get fish, others staggering home overladen and anxious to find their burrows and young)  until the light was too poor to see. Several attempts to capture these as bits and bytes proved that I am not a wildlife photographer.....

Approaching Skomer Island, Jacks passage on the right

Tomorrow, it’s on 05:30 start for Ramsay sound and then on to Fishguard, as we cross St Brides Bay and move into Cardigan Bay. ST BRIDES BAY CAN BE A TRAP IN WESTERLIES says the Pilot sternly. ONLY PASS THROUGH RAMSAY SOUND IN CALM CONDITIONS, AT SLACK WATER ON NEAPS AND IN GOOD VISIBILIY.

The forecast is calm and misty. We're a couple of days before Neap tides.....







Lundy Island and on to Milford Haven

Some 40 years ago, an advert in the London Times for the position of Warden of Lundy Island. The position required someone who was good in small boats and could manage people. I almost applied: the Owners Agent advised against it and I had always had a secret ambition to visit it one day. Well, that box can be ticked and I’m glad I didn’t apply.  It’s a lovely spot for a day but I could not imagine living on it!

Back to Vagabond. The Purser and I had found our way in to Ilfracombe and moored fore and aft to lines attached one of the visitors buoys. We went ashore, found the local yacht club and had a free shower before wandering round the town to find somewhere to eat that provided free Internet access on the side.

The Purser had to return home the following day and we need to find bus and train times to get him home via Barnstaple (Bus), Exeter and Reading (train).

Vagabond settled on the sandy harbour bottom and we had a peaceful night sleeping above the current local sea level. Next morning the water returned and I rowed the Purser ashore to catch his bus and then readied for sea. I was reluctantly aiming at Swansea – it was really too far East and would take me even further into the maw of the Bristol Channel and it’s fearsome tidal currents and tidal range. Even at Ilfracombe at “springs” (and it is springs*) the range is 7 metres **.

Drying out in Infracombe

By the time I was ready, the water in the harbour was receding fast. I cast off and immediately ran aground. Quickly raising the centre board broke the connection with the bottom:  I had left it too late to leave.

I returned to the mooring and spent the day doing “stuff” on Vagabond and generally drying out.  It was sunny and hot, the first sunny day ashore for some time.  I repaired to the yacht club and got into discussions with some locals.

‘The weather looks settled, it would be a good time to go to Lundy’ said the commodore ‘Several of our members are leaving at 08:30 tomorrow. Why not come?’

It seemed a good idea – Lundy was in the right direction for Milford Haven. ‘Can I anchor there overnight?’ I asked. ‘Yes – mine’s a pint’ was the answer.

And so it was that I joined the fleet aiming at Lundy the following morning. There was no wind, so Freddie was pushing us all the way. The fleet left us behind and their Penta diesels powered them ahead at 7 knots.




Leaving Devon behind


 We left Devon behind.

By the time we got to Lundy the visitors buoys had all been taken. We had to use theanchor. Help. It’s only a little thing with 5 metres of light weight chain on it. And the tides – I need almost all the rope and chain I’ve got to cope with the rise in height of the tide!

I anchored in about 4 metres of water, let out all the chain and most of the rope and then slid one of my weights down the rope to the bottom to provide an additional resistance.

I worked out my courses to Milford Haven for the morning, checked the weather forecast (F4 – 5 from the South, ideal) and abandoned  Vagabond for the afternoon as I joined the day trippers walking around the island.

I climbed the light house, had tea at the Inn, walked some of the cliffs and heard rather than saw the sea birds. The Island is owned by the National Trust*** and consist of a flat plateau, about 200 feet * above ea level, with cliffs all round. There is a church, a farm house and a few barns that have been converted to visitor accommodation. Pigs were in a pen, sheep wandered around and still the grass was being cut by a machine. And, as it is owned by the NT, there is an NT shop!

Local pork sausages were on the menu board for the evening meal.

I took a few photos. They were all rubbish, so you can't see them except for one of the fleet moored in anhorage off Lundy.

The fleet in the anchorage at Lundy

I returned to Vagabond, cooked my meal and prepared for the night.
It was uncomfortable – a swell came in from the North and Vagabond rolled heavily and various lines inside the mast rattled and clanged to the rythym of the waves.
Not a good preparation for a 10 hour sail to Milford Haven.

Despite this, when I raised the anchor to set sail next day we were still in the same position as the previous evening, so the little anchor may not be so bad after all.


At 05:30, we motored out from under the lee of Lundy Island, to be met by a southerly breeze. All sail was hoisted and we were off skipping along on a course that was just north of north west, aiming at Milford Haven.

Soon small wavecrests started to break and Vagabond was become less docile. Time to take in a reef.


Docility was restored. An hour later, larger waves were starting to break and the process was repeated.


So we flew along, with the tide (and Lundy) behind us. I could ust discern a stick on the horizon ahead and wondered what is was. Half an hour later it became clear that the stick was part of the petrol refining complex at Milford.


We came up to Milford Haven entrance. By now the tide had turned, pushing us  away from the land. It took ages get into the mouth of the Haven but, once in, the water calmed down and we had a good sail up to the Milford Haven Marina. This was rather spoilt as I had to wait for an hour on a rather rough pontoon for the lock gates to open to let us in. We weren't alongside and properly moored up until about 7:30 pm.
14 hours.
I was shattered.
And, of course, it was Sunday. In Wales.
Nothing was open.



*  Anyone know why the high tides that occur every two weeks are called spring tides?
For non metric readers
** Roughly 22 feet.


*** An English non governmental organisation that owns most of the English “heritage” sites. Go and look it up in Wikipedia ; -there’s bound to be an entry.

Westward Ho! and Ilfracombe

This morning (23rd July) I received a complaint. The elder sister expressed dissatisfaction; the blog was not up to date. My defence was that I didn’t think my reader(s?) wanted to know that the Purser and I had spent three days in Padstow waiting for a weather window in which we could dash up the forbidding North Cornwall coast to the safe haven of Ilfracombe and that since then he and I had been too busy to write anything. I believe she may have allowed ne this licence and I hope you (dear reader) will do so too.

I left you and Vagabond in Padstow harbour, moored alongside a larger yacht, whilst I went home to house hunt (possible success but am I ready to move into a setlement for the over 55's?), cut the grass, and take more stuff to the waste disposal site. It amazes me what I have acquired in 38 years whilst living in the same house....

I returned to Vagabond, with the Purser on a full First Great Western train (standing passengers all the way from Reading to Exeter) a week ago expecting to sail on the following day. The weather had other things in mind and we had to wait until the following Thursday for the wind to abate.

Now, Padstow is a lovely town that is overrun by visitors. Fortunately (from my point of view) the current economic climate means  they do not stay out in the bars that surround the harbour until all hours. For the traders it’s another matter.  ‘There’s not so many of them as usual, and they are keeping their hands in their pockets’ was a common refrain from the traders. The town band played on.

Alongside the wall

The famous local fish and chip shop was doing a roaring trade; queue to get in, seat at refectory style tables to eat well cooked, delicious fish and chips.

In between rain showers, we walked on the Rock peninsula, went to the church where John Betjeman is buried and strode out along the Camel trail (river, not ship of the desert) whilst the wind blew over the hill tops.



The Camel Estuary at high water



We returned from one our walks to find that our "buffer boat" had gone and we were now alongside the harbour wall. My weights were deployed to allow the lines to remain taught whilst the water level changed in the harbour, because Padstow, like Penzance, has a single gate across the entrance. This keeps the water in the harbour when the tide goes out and it opened for about 90 minutes either side of high water, during which the water level fluctuates with the tide. It also means that you are restricted to leaving during the open times.

We wanted to go to  Ilfracombe, further up the Bristol Channel from Padstow, so really needed a rising tide to carry us along. We wouldn’t get that until at least seven hours after the gate opened but as it would take about 12 hours to get there, we would at least have a few hours when the tide was with us.



On Wednesday evening,  the forecast suggest that the wind was calming down, Force 4 -5 from the South West. Sea state rough and going to moderate (2 metre waves*) later.

“We’ll go!” I said. “Tomorrow,  after the harbour gate has been open for an hour. It means we leave at 07:30”.

The 05:30 forecast was unchanged. We left. The outgoing tide carried us down the Camel estuary and round the bar. We hoisted the sails turned  North.  By now, the ebbing ride was rushing south, so on came Freddy. The forbidding North coast of Cornwall slide by. Bude. Tintagel.  There are no practical "ports of refuge" along this bit. The sea was very broken and disturbed, with large waves coming at us almost randomly. Keeping the boat on course and us dry was hard work.

We pressed on and eventually passed Hartland Point. Bideford Bay opened ahead of us. Now we had two possible ports of respite – Clovelly, which is very small and dries, or Appledore, which has a difficult entrance. After a brief discussion I decided that we would push on to Ilfracombe. We should be there by early evening.



The tide turned and was now in our favour. Off went Freddie and we swept long at more than 7 knots.  Dolphin appeared and played with us for 10 minutes or so. The sea state changed: gone was the randomness, now  3 metre** swells came in from the South West, lifting our stern whilst pointing the bow down towards the preceding trough. We rose up and had a wonderful view of the surfing beaches as we ploughed on. The wave would pass and we would drop stern first into the trough so that all we could see were walls of water on either side.

We surged past the surfing beaches, Westward Ho, Croid Bay and  Woolacombe Bay

Ahead was Bull Point. We intended to keep close into the point and then turn right to run down to Ilfracombe. Almost at the last minute the Purser spotted some breaking waves. ‘Growlers’ he said and turned away from the land. This took us into very rough water caused by the tide rushing past the point and Freddie had to be awoken to push us towards the coast, away from them.

We were now looking for Ilfracombe. If a small boat hadn’t chosen the right moment to leave port, I think we would still be looking. T e entrance is very narrow and opens into a small outer and slightly bigger inner harbour. Both of these dry out completely at Spring Tides...



It was now a couple of hours before high water again, as it had taken us 10 hours to come up from Padstow. We found a bouy in the outer harbour and hooked on whilst I went to explore the inner harbour in the dinghy. There were bouys available there too. We slipped and moved cautiously into the inner harbour and picked up a visitors buoy.  This had two slimy and very sandy ropes attached. One was secured to the bow and the other to the stern. We lifted the centre board, raised the rudder and went ashore where the local yacht club provided us with a welcome shower.

Vagabond eventually settled quietly on the bottom at about 10;30 pm and we had an undisturbed night. Next day, the Purser caught a bus to go home and I did a few jobs to take care of Vagabond before repairing to the yacht club for some advice on the next stages of my trip.

The weather seemed just right to go to Lundy.



I expect I’ll now get complaints because there are no pictures in this episode. We were too busy!

For the benefit of transatlantic readers

* 6 feet 8 inches

** 10 feet