Skomer to Holyhead
It was kind of sad leaving Skomer and the various feathered
friends that had entertained us so much. Of course, we took one along with us –
penguins are not native to Skomer.
It was possible to use the tides and daylight nicely this
time. As the trip would involve three different tidal flows, we choose to have
two of them with us! So, a departure slightly after lunchtime on Tuesday
sitting on the flybridge and loving the views of Skokholm and Grassholm (one
end of that island is white from bird poo. Luckily most of our boat is white
too so the fact that she was bombed overnight didn’t show too badly). Passing
St Brides bay there were another two tankers “awaiting instructions” – one of
them had already been there for 10 days.
Off St David’s Head is Bishops rock; another evocative place.
Some wild seas and many lifeboat rescues there in bad weather. The chart is
littered with wrecks and we didn’t want to join them. Of course, the sea was
“slight” (about 1 metre waves) and blue sunny skies so no big risk today:
As we headed up to North Wales, so the wind picked up a bit
over forecast and was right on the nose. The wind over tide conditions (for the
non sailors, if the tide is going in the opposite direction to the wind, then
you typically get bigger waves and they are often steeper too) started to pull
up some larger waves to make the passage bumpier. Just north of Fishguard they
were about 2 metres high and an irritating wavelength where you climbed up one,
went over the crest and pushed the bow into the next one. Lots of nodding up
and down. We even managed to wash the anchor a few times and that is rare (look
at the pictures of the boat and figure how high off the waterline the anchor
sits). Actually the anchor was perfectly clean anyway as the bottom in Skomer
was sand and shingle, no mud! No water
came over the bow though, just spray. As it wasn’t too uncomfortable, we
carried on the direct course rather than tacking a little to reduce the motion.
Luckily it calmed down (as the tide turned) ready for dinner.
Preparing a stir fry underway (using a deep pan of course!):
It stayed light until nearly 10:30 pm but the wave height increased again which made sleeping for the off watch person harder. One benefit is that the watchkeeper cannot doze off either. Patrick of
course was in his element.
A stunning sunrise over the North Wales coast and Anglesey
(or Ynys Mon if you want to learn some Welsh) heralded Wednesday and calmer sea
again. We'd seen only one boat since leaving Skomer in 14 hours. Lovely! The
tide roared us along towards Holyhead harbour. OK, maybe not “roared” in your
eyes but 9.1 knots is exciting for us when the speed through the water was 6.1.
Just view it as an almost 50% fuel saving!
Approaching Holy Island:
The harbour was quiet, no ferry traffic and the marina
office didn’t respond to our 7:15am radio calls so we just found a spot and
moored up. Pretty tired but a lovely view across the harbour:
Behind us, we look across to Snowdonia (mountain range for
the non UK readers).
Washing off the accumulated puffin poo took a while but
being outside in lovely scenery and warm sun was satisfying.
Tekkie stuff:
Nothing to report. Sorry to disappoint you again. Just so
the tekkie freaks don’t get bored, here is a picture for you. Some folks have
asked about the little wing engine that is a get you home backup and what the
folding propeller looks like. Here is one we prepared earlier:
Of course, it only looks that squeaky clean for a week or
so! If it could be photographed now I think it would have a few barnacles as
passengers. We run the wing engine regularly to try to minimise the growth on
the propeller and to keep the folding mechanism working too.
Any further picture / info requests happily received. They might be ignored of course, the power of the editorial pen.
