Neyland, Dale, Bron and to Penarth

One little job that got completed was to wire a standard plug socket directly to the incoming shorepower, not via the inverters. That way, using a plug in device recommended by Andrew (the non Welsh speaking Welshman whom you have met many times in this blog) we will get SMS alerts if we are away and the shorepower fails. For the non boating folks, if shorepower fails, the inverters happily take over and keep the fridge / freezer running using battery power and converting it to 240v mains stuff with wiggly amps not nice straight ones. Not at all nice for the batteries if that continues for several days! So, a socket was fitted with a suitable in-line fuse to the shorepower system just after the current inrush limiting device:

into which we will plug this guy:




who will send us a nice little SMS message if the shorepower goes pop. Reassuring.

Whilst in Neyland we raided the Co-op - there is no other choice - and did a little bit of boat cleaning which had been neglected.  We also waited for some nice weather to head for Penarth and our winter home again. The good stuff was forecast for Saturday / Sunday and so the plan looked like heading to Dale on Friday, anchoring off for the night and leaving early on Saturday morning to arrive at the Cardiff barrage lock around high water. You really have to take the tide with you for the last part of the trip as it runs very hard the further up the Bristol Channel you go!

Steve the ex Cardiff waterbus man wanted to hitch a ride with us from Neyland to Dale. So, we headed off in glorious sunshine with Steve looking very intent at the helm:

We are not sure if the rugged jaw look was a happy one, a stressed one or a "get me out of here" one. Bron the spaniel was much easier to read:

The "I like my cuddles" face....

The ocean voyage is shown below, any strange wobbles in the route are due to incoming commercial traffic, outgoing pleasure boats or Steve steering:

At Dale, we anchored and then took the RIB ashore for a very pleasant if huge dinner at the most welcoming Dale Yacht Club.  Returning at sunset we were treated to a blood orange moon appearing behind the lights of the refinery. Actually it was much more impressive than it sounds!

After a disturbed night, thanks to various arriving and departing ships kicking up quite a wash, we made an early departure to fit with the tide times. Sunrise:

The start of the trip was a bit lumpy thanks to the recent easterly winds which were slow to change direction. However, things smoothed off nicely and the sun was out, as were the friendly Welsh Dolphins who came to play several times:

As usual we had to go outside and cheer on their efforts enjoying them and the great weather.

The tide turned and our speed over the ground increased steadily and nicely as you can see:

For non boating folks, SOG is speed over the ground. STW is speed through the water. For non Nordhavn folks, 10.1 knots is our equivalent of flying in a full displacement 47 foot boat.

Here is the route (well, all bar the first bit that Marinetraffic didn't seem to want to capture):

We were approaching Cardiff as the sun was busy setting:

and our usual two lookouts were in place but once again, mute. Useless couple.

Annoyingly, we were around 5 minutes too late for the lock in time at Cardiff barrage (on 15 and 45 mins) so we pottered around before approaching the barrage for the 8:15pm lock:

You can see the kit for lifting the bridges across the locks against the orange sky. It felt like arriving home somehow despite a little outboard powered fishing boat that was in the lock with us who had a stereo system almost as powerful as their engine and a dire taste in music. Leaving the lock, we headed happily into Penarth Marina:

The Custom House restaurant, a lovely old building, is on the left and you can see the open lock into the marina towards the right of the picture.

After around 14 hours underway we happily berthed on our hammerhead, doing some dredging and weed cutting at the same time!

Maintenance news:

Well, in Neyland the captain spotted that one of the fittings on the bottom of the fuel supply tank had a weep. Sorting it out will mean draining the tank and we might as well remake all of the connections at the same time - they are all factory original and done with the same sealant so.... A fun job coming up. Luckily the weep is not dramatic, just enough to leave a trace on the fitting. So, a nice absorbent pad now lives underneath it to stop any fuel stain getting into the bilge.

The big Lugger ran quite happily again as did the other kit on board so no more spanner stuff to report.

Bangor to Neyland (Milford Haven)

After nearly two weeks of blowy stuff, a little weather window was promised which would allow us to run down to South Wales without getting a battering from the waves. 33 hours or so underway in rough stuff is not tempting when you don't have to do it.

So, we duly returned the little Aygo to the harbour airport (OK, now it is the "George Best City airport" but who names an airport after an alcoholic?) wandered into the marina office to pay (ouch) and this time had a more normal Bangor customer service experience. In fact one of the team had even delivered a couple of little packages to the boat for us and posted them through the pilothouse ventilation window when we were not there.

The trip to Milford Haven is a tricky one to time. You need to take the tide with you around the Norn Iron coast to begin with and ideally don't want to be pushing it as you round St Davids head and into Milford Haven. We had considered going all the way to Cardiff but the tide timings just do not work for that trip at all - the constraint of arriving at Cardiff near high water is one too many.

A civilised 10am departure would allow an equally civilised arrival around 6pm the following day at Milford Haven and then we intended to anchor off  Dale, just inside the entrance. Here is the start of the trip according to Marinetraffic:

It was also the bumpiest bit as the strong northerly winds of the past few days had picked up some waves - nothing too serious though only up to a couple of metres. It did mean that our initial track to the Copeland islands threw up a little spray but once we turned to run with the wave pattern, the stabilisers kicked in and things were quite pleasant with some sun to enjoy:

Kylie and Patrick seemed happy with the view too.

During the afternoon, we had quite a gaggle of fishing boats around us:

but we managed to sneak through unscathed:

To be fair this picture was taken with the PC software set to display a large chunk of the Irish Sea  - it wasn't that close a call!

The moon put in an appearance:

as did a lovely sunset:

You can see how the sea was calming down nicely, amazingly the forecast was spot on for wind direction and strength this time. That gave us a very calm night time passage, seeing the liner Queen Mary heading north up to Stornoway:

a bit blurry thanks to just using the phone camera but you get the idea of how lit up she was. We dread to think how much fuel she burns just to power all those lights.

Our calm evening was rudely interrupted by an overtaking ship, The Scot Mariner. She was not going that fast and had been overhauling us from a slight angle astern for a while. She got closer and closer and when our AIS said the closest point of approach was going to be 100 metres, in 15 minutes, we kept a very close eye on them and finally called on the radio. The exchange went something like:

Rockland to SM - We see that your CPA is around 100m and wondered what your intentions are

SM reply - To avoid you

Rockland to SM - Well, as long as someone is awake on the bridge then we trust you will

Sarcastic watchman, who came far too close, only altering course at the last minute (he was the give way vessel, dangerous for us to alter course) and giving us about 150 metres clearance as he passed astern. If we had done that to them, or if our engine had failed or......  The offending ship:

at least he was awake and had his navigation lights and AIS on.

The rest of the trip was less eventful:

Nice and calm as we approached the Bishop rocks off St Davids head and a few dolphins to watch. They didn't come to play with us - most unusual in Welsh waters. Perhaps they were heading back up north....

Passing Skokholm island (a bird sanctuary) we thought that we should add this to our lighthouse picture bank:

Just as we were looking forward to turning into the Milford Haven entrance, a tanker thing decided to leave with a pilot boat and three tugs in attendance, rather blocking up the western entrance so we had a little loop around to use the eastern one:

Quite a big liquified gas ship. Our planned anchorage off Dale and a possible departure on Tuesday early morning to Cardiff was cancelled as the revised weather forecasts had force 7 in them, together with heavy rain. So we opted for Neyland instead where we could walk ashore and visit the Co-op for supplies. Nothing that grand in Dale....

The trip actually took around 32 hours. We ran a little harder than usual (1700 rpm, around 11.5  litres per hour with the stabilisers working) for much of it to help avoid pushing a strong tide as we approached South Wales. That worked well; we have been rounding Skokholm in the past only making a couple of knots headway. Nothing on the maintenance front to report - the main engine behaved perfectly, as did the wing which got a little run as we entered the harbour area. The prop on the wing is getting a bit fouled up though as when in "overdrive" mode (ie the coarser propeller pitch) the wing will not pull its full rpm now. One oddity - the Time Zero software on the PC decided to restart itself once. No idea why, no messages just a restart and then it worked perfectly again. Thank you Microsoft for developing such a stable environment to run software in.....

Norn Iron ambling

As the weather was rather unseasonable (an example):

we were in no rush to depart Bangor although the normally very organised and friendly marina folks here seemed intent on it. The crew had called them before we left Scotland, arranged a berth for a week or so (long term forecast was not great!) and was given H pontoon hammerhead as the bigger finger berths were all busy.

After we arrived, we popped into the office to say "we have arrived" and a new rather grumpier then the normal staff person processed rather than served us. His offering was "you are small for that big hammerhead and might have to move if you want a week here". We said that we were of course happy to do so, tell us where we need to go but that we just berthed where we had been allocated (and we had told the man on the phone how long we planned to stay!) That afternoon a young berthing master tapped on the boat. "How long are you staying, because you are small for this berth". We ran the now familiar story again. "Well, I will have to check with the harbourmaster and see if you can stay there". How to make folks feel welcome when spending a reasonable sum on visitor berthing indeed. So unlike the normal friendly and organised Bangor setup.

The good news is that catching up with local folks made up for this. Quite a social whirl indeed. George (probably know to blog readers as "Stornoway George") kindly took us to Greyabbey where an excellent lunch was enjoyed in Lekker - a dutch themed bistro:

The theme suited the half-Dutch crew member perfectly. The pancake with bacon, apple and stroop suited the captain pretty well too.

Continuing the gastronomic theme, it was curry time with David and Caroline, followed the next day by a lovely dinner at the beautiful Royal Ulster Yacht Club with Ken, Debbie and Annika. Coffee and cake and a nice locally baked fruit loaf were enjoyed with most of the above too:

The size of the bite indicates how good it was. Oh, and the odd gin was partaken with Keith when he stayed overnight on his yacht in the marina. For those of you with good memories, there was no horses head mask involved this time.

We took the train into Belfast and revisited the City Hall. A good exhibition on the history of the city, partition, the Troubles etc and a free guided tour of the stunning building:

with lots of historical significance - not to mention some new stained glass windows commemorating local folk, struggles etc:

The council chamber is most grand, being fitted out by the craftsmen from Harland and Wolf who were used to completing liners like the Titanic. Even the microphones have ornate decoration on them:

and the Lord Mayor has an imposing seat:

which the crew managed to make look almost regal:

even if her robes of office were a little understated.

Having seen a poor long term forecast towards the end of our first week here, we decided to rent a car for a few days. At around £39 for 5 days the little Aygo was a bargain indeed.

A small diversion to the local post office was needed when ex Captain Rae (yes, the now retired flyboy who might have cross-dressed in the past) reported a nasty complaint. Oil in his coolant. Well, not "his" - in the main engine on his Nordhavn 47. We had the spare O rings and gasket needed to stop his gearbox oil cooler leaking so we parcelled them up and shipped them to Dartmouth for him:

Colin has a fun day ahead. Wonder if he preferred the 747 / 787 Captain world where you just called in a ground crew member and said "fix it please"?

The Aygo was pressed into service to visit Castle Ward, a quite amazing country house near Strangford. It was built with two styles, one half of the house being classical, the other Gothic (a his and hers requirement from Lord and Lady Bangor). You walk between rooms and change environment totally. Guess which side of the house this one is:

The entrance hall had plenty of intricate plaster decorations, some on the ceiling by imported Italian experts and some by local folks. The last area of the room that the local artisans completed was to a tight timescale:

When the National Trust folks were doing some conservation / cleaning work they found that the violin was actually a real violin with a plaster covering. The same applies to the other objects as the craftsmen cut corners to complete in time.

The Gothic ladies boudoir had a slightly overdone ceiling arrangement:

which has been described in all sorts of unflattering ways by many famous guests. Cow's udders is an unflattering example.

The view across Strangford Lough from the grounds was lovely:

despite the windy conditions (see the forecast above!) In the Lough was this strange contraption:

which is reported to be part of the tidal generation tests carried out there. The tide really rips through the narrow entrance - at up to 8 knots. The ferry from Portaferry to Strangford tends to go much faster one way than the other!

We aso walked the Laggan meadows area, enjoying a peaceful wander along the riverside but very close to the centre of Belfast.  Stopping for lunch at the Locks Inn didn't help our scone overload either. When in Norn Iron you just have to partake.

The final excursion was to Stormont, the home of the Northern Ireland assembly and another beautiful building:

The history is tied with the partitioning of Ireland and all that brought with it right up to the present day and the Brexit debates. We had a guide who was more Norn Iron than the stereotypes. He loved telling stories about the building, Irish history, anecdotes, himself, life in general and the normal tour time was well and truly over-run. So sad that the local politicians cling on to the past divisions and refuse to work together. Have a read of Wikipedia entry for more on the building.

Finally, to round off  our time in Northern Ireland and for the animal lovers, here is Shadow, the rather cute spaniel:

together with the rather cute crew and Debbie. We should not call Debbie "rather cute" or "very beautiful"  in public in case we upset Ken, her husband.