Babies, Puffin observations and preparing for North Wales

Dinner on Monday evening was enjoyed sitting in the cockpit in the sun again. Getting to be a nice habit this one. Of course, being anchored is even better as it means that your view is constantly changing as the boat gently swings about. For Diane – think CN tower restaurant with much lower service levels, a little lower down but no bill at the end.

Monday night we piloted a new phone anchor watch app. For the non-sailors, it is good to know that you are not dragging the anchor when the wind direction shifts / increases or the tide rises. Normally this means leaving the GPS receivers powered up and one plotter too so you can set a “maximum radius of movement”. Go any further and the alarm sounds; comforting to be warned when there are rocks all around you (see yesterday’s pictures!).

One drawback to this – we don’t have a plotter in our cabin so it means leaving the door open and relying on the alarm sound waking us. Fine when there are only 2 on board, not ideal otherwise!

So, we downloaded an app that does the same thing on the phone and has an alarm that sounds like the arrival of a police car twinned with a baby monitor alarm. That should wake anyone in our cabin and give the guests a quieter night and less frightening views should they venture out first in the morning….. Only problem was – it was a bit tricky to set up needing anchor position and distance and a good satellite fix. After being woken 3 times for various spurious alarms, it got turned off. That will teach us to use freeware. However, it gave us a little understanding of what having a baby would have been like and tremendous respect for the nursing Anne and Claire.

Back to puffins though. Sitting anchored off Skomer we had plenty of them to observe! Such a strange piece of evolution and such comical habits. The take-off is a little like a miniature swan. Lots of manic flapping and paddling across the water. The landing is less than elegant – kind of a last minute petrified stall and collapse into the water, usually going right under. They pop up again, shaking their head and feathers and trying to look dignified but somehow it doesn’t work. No proper pictures of them, sorry – the rest of the birds would paddle past us relatively close by but the puffins kept more of a distance than our low tech camera could manage. Hence a stolen pic or two for you:

Of course, when we watched them swimming about in the anchorage, the impressions changed. Underwater they are awesome! Very impressive manoeuvrability, somehow you feel sorry for the fish they are chasing.

As the forecast was settled for another 24 hours, we decided not to spend more time here and go ashore (the North Haven has mooring buoys and the chance to land by dinghy) but to press on northwards at lunchtime to suit the tides. Courses etc were already prepared so it was the usual round of pre-departure checks. What are they? Well, the normal basic stuff – oil and coolant levels for the engines and gearboxes, stabiliser hydraulic oil level, steering fluid hydraulic oil level and reservoir pressure. Sort of “bloke stuff” I suppose. (Sorry to any technical females reading this and viewing it as a sexist comment. It was meant as a negative thing for guys…).