Finally getting salty (after a 9 month break)

The day finally dawned. The weather forecasts were exceptionally hot and calm so an ideal time to be "out on the water". The weed around the berth had been given a trim (but was trying to re-grow most manfully) and the boat had behaved on a run around the bay. Sadly it seemed that everyone else had the same idea - on the first "really nice weather" day the 8,9 and 10am locks out of the barrage were heaving. One neighbour described it as like the wacky races. So, to avoid the massed fishing boats at 8am, and the pleasure craft later on, we went mad and took the 7am lock. Yes, 7am. Unsurprisingly, we locked out alone but in nice sun and in T-shirt temperatures:

A run out to Flat Holm (an island) then back into the Cardiff roads for some wide open throttle runs before returning just under 3 hours later. For once, we can post a sea-going track, just not a long or exciting one:

Still, there was some new territory - we'd not been out to look at the island before! It has an interesting history before the current "site of special scientific interest" status, including fortifications in times of war and an isolation hospital for seafarers thought to have cholera. We felt OK, which is handy as the hospital is now ruined. For a little history lesson look at Wikipedia on Flat Holm.

The opportunity to add to our strange collection of lighthouse pictures had to be taken:

and the massive, recently restored foghorn can be seen too:

On the way back in we gave the boat a good long full throttle (WOT) run and the engine temperature was about 4 Fahrenheit above normal. Why Fahrenheit? Well, although we are Celsius people, the Lugger / John Deere engine is from a USA manufacturer and they quote all the numbers in "American" as does Lugger Bob the tekkie guru who advises Nordhavn owners on the engines. So, it is just easier to keep using Fahrenheit. It isn't because we are old and resistant to change, at least not on this topic.

Most significantly, we have lost about 10% of the (already slow) boat speed so our normal 6.3 / 6.4 knot cruise at around 1500 rpm had become more like 5.7 knots. We need much more salt water time to kill off the growth from the inactive period.

On the way back in to the barrage locks, the "local" dredger Sospan Dau was anchored off the channel to the commercial harbour:

From the noises being made it sounded as though some heavy maintenance was being carried out to her equipment. The almost constant dredging needed and maintenance of the lock infrastructure versus the tiny number of ships that visit and lock in to the Cardiff docks does make you wonder if it is kept as a "national pride" thing rather than a real commercial operation.

We had the delight of another empty lock for our return to fresh water and the bay. Bilingual signs are a must:

and covid-19 advice is displayed inside the lock itself just in case you thought about having a party on the little floating pontoons that you tie up to:

We returned about 45 minutes before high water so the actual locking time was very short. When the gates opened and the bridge lifted, there was a mass of boats outside waiting to escape the bay. Some of them deigned to move a little so we could get through - plenty of charter fishing boats were heading out with men who must have ended the day very sunburned. As there is no way they could or were socially distancing on board and charter operations are not supposed to be happening, we did wonder why the barrage control folks let them out to play. Another example of the tougher Welsh lockdown rules being totally ignored by the population.

We had a run up and down the bay to exercise the wing engine a little then headed back to our berth happy that everything had worked. Time to wash some salt off the hull again.

Escape of a sort - or it felt like it anyway

The excitement was almost unbearable. Yes, we had a road trip to Hythe for a dentist visit and were let back into the country afterwards too. It felt most strange to drive 320 miles in a day and to see things other than the local Asda store for a click and collect food shop. The poor car was confused too - it tried manfully to head for Asda but was wrestled onto the motorway and forced to do 70 mph again.

Guess what, the excitement continues as although the crew had her fillings fixed, the captain has a cracked tooth which means an implant is needed. So, Hythe beckons again in two weeks time. Yes, the dentist is getting to be our social life. The only challenge is the PPE you need to don whilst there:

 Most fetching but luckily only the dental staff get to see that look.

After one mini escape, we finally managed another. The assistant marina manager Hugh said that he would cut the small forest of weed from around our berth on Saturday if we went out into the bay for a while. So, we got up early (like kids at Xmas time), prepared the boat and called the office to be told that  Hugh was lifting a boat out but was going to call us when he had finished and would come over to sort out the monster weed problem.  We sat and waited and waited and admired the view:

Just before lunchtime we had a call from him (things were taking longer than he had anticipated) and arranged a 2pm departure. Around 3pm Hugh and his little helper made it so after a day of sitting and waiting and wasting the lovely weather on the longest day, we braved the bay. It was a bit busy but we managed to dodge the yachts and racing dinghies. The main engine pulled almost full rpm but the boat speed was down - lots of growth to remove. No overheating at wide open throttle fortunately so the cooler cannot be too bad. We need a proper, longer WOT test to be sure. The little wing engine was down about 200 rpm but that is probably down to the barnacle fouling from the cruise last summer.  It also rolled 100 hours of use:

so it can now officially be treated like an adult. It has been fed break-in oil (for baby engines) up to now but can be weaned onto normal 15-40W stuff from now on.

The fresh water weed and gunge on the hull should get killed off when the boat tastes some salt water again, hopefully quite quickly. We will see!

Penarth marina is undergoing a re-branding exercise. We remember the fun of those from our time at work and remain most sceptical about the benefits. The original operators of Penarth,  Quay marinas "merged" with Dean and Reddyhoff last year (for merged, read were taken over) and the bigger group have re-branded themselves as "boatfolk".  As you can see, the signage hasn't quite caught up yet:

Somehow the old Quay marina sign, the bottom one looks crisper and more legible from a distance too. Progress?

The "boatfolk"  marketing manager has a lot to learn - the marina handbook had only three useful pages (tide times and marina plan) and looks like a kiddies colouring book. The "welcome pack" was equally amusing. If they are trying to attract a much younger audience to boating then fine, but they seem to have forgotten that their target audience also need the cash to buy and run one! The good thing is that the team in Penarth are great so nothing has really changed bar most of the signs.

We stopped for a pump out on the barrage then headed back through the lock to a much less weedy berth:

Once again our trip up and down the bay looks like a demented bee's attempt to get through a pane of glass:

You can tell where the deep water is in Cardiff Bay from our track. The two "sticking out" diversions into shallower stuff were us avoiding a gaggle of sailing things.

So, despite wasting a lot of time we managed to check that the oily bits were working OK and we will prepare for a salty trip soon. Funny how getting out to the muddy murky Bristol Channel seems like a major event. The recalcitrant Welsh government continue to plough their own little furrow and are changing the lockdown rules slower than anywhere else. However, a mid July departure seems possible as overnight stays in other ports might well be allowed then. We have to arrange a lift out to do the annual underwater maintenance. The shaft and cooler anodes must be very sick by now as they were last changed in 17 months ago...... The challenge might be finding somewhere with a big enough lift and the yard space and time to drag us out. The marina lift out teams are going to be very busy as things get slowly unlocked.

They opened up the sea lock but.....

So, the Welsh government / the Cardiff harbour authority / some guy in an office decided to allow boats out to sea, through the barrage sea locks for day trips. Wonderful - maybe some salt water would get rid of the fresh water fouling that we have on the boat after all this inactivity. Heaven knows how grubby the coolers and stern gear are.

The drawback was the weed that surrounds our berth. Big time. The marina guys who are back from furlough started on the never ending job of cutting it, starting with the fairways. This was the result:

They have to cut it using a small electric "underwater hedge trimmer" then scoop it up using a rake. Very high tech stuff - hard and slow work too. The only trouble is that around us is also infested with the weeds almost growing to the surface:

Getting out, the big main engine prop will happily chomp this stuff up but probably leave lots wrapped around the rudder. Coming back, the weed grabs at the keel and where normally the boat happily spins around under main engine alone in just over her own length, the weed stops that dead. Hence we have to use the bow / stern thruster to push her around and they are pretty much guaranteed to get jammed up with weed and potentially damaged. There is no way we could get lifted here to clear them either.

So, the nice marina folks agreed to move us to another berth whilst they clear the weed from ours. Only the other berth has a little tug on it that does not seem to want to go out to work at present. So, we are stuck. RIB trips only until that moves and we can do a berth swap. Frustrating now, most frustrating. In fact the most frustrating thing since lockdown started probably. Somehow a general lockdown seemed like a "no choice, get on with it" situation so we did. This is, in theory, controllable and so more annoying!

As consolation, the RIB had a blast around the bay - although that was not a straightforward trip as the first time we tried to go out the lock gates were jammed. When we did escape, we were second to go through the lock, we had to follow mummy swan and her remaining 6 cygnets:

Yes, 6 not 7 cygnets. The marina suffered a bereavement a few days earlier - we think that a fox got one of the cygnets during the night judging by the number of  "grown up swan" feathers on the bank where they normally sit. Mum and dad must have put up quite a fight but look all OK themselves.

A nice potter in the RIB up the quiet parts of the (quite pretty too)  Ely river followed (new territory for us)  and even some of the flats built around the bay looked appealing with the dramatic sky background:

On the return trip, we witnessed the Pont Y Werin bridge lifting - the first time we have seen it do so - for a little yacht:

The bridge is a  pedestrian and cyclist only offering that cost a cool £4.5 million 10 years ago as part of the regeneration of the bay area.

We did some socially distanced chatting to Simon and Nikki:

although Simon was reluctant to come out of the cockpit saying that he was wearing his pyjama trousers. It was around 4pm. Draw your own conclusions.

Heading back into the marina, we were again second in the queue for the lock, behind mum, dad and the cygnets:

who kindly swam to one side to let us past once inside the marina again. Most considerate, unlike some of the walkers and cyclists around here who do not seem to understand the 2 metre rule.

As a diversion, the crew continued her baking fun, hence we are eating far too much homemade bread and cake. The soda bread with nuts and sultanas in it was a particular favourite:

as was the blueberry and lemon cake. Exercise needed!

The highest excitement was a call from the just re-opened dentist to say that they would have a look at our niggling teeth. A road trip to Hythe beckons! Strange how a dentist visit for treatment seems exciting now. Even a drive down the motorway is appealing. Of course the Heddlu (Welsh for police) might stop us coming back from England as you are only supposed to go 5 miles in this strangely still locked down country. We have the medical appointment justification, unlike Mr Cummings and a few politicians of various political persuasions. If the blog posts stop you will know that we have been detained.....

A clean(ish) boat but still nowhere to go

After the "we finally, for the first time in 11 years polished all the boat in one year bar the top of the stack" party we wondered what to amuse ourselves with next. The plethora of Covid / lockdown jokes kept us busy for half an hour each morning and after that we had so much spare time. Patrick joined in the general merriment too sending us this:

The cupboard from hell under the cockpit sink had its first proper clean out in years. Sticking your head into it and finding all sorts of unsavoury things in the dark recesses was not nice. That led to another job - the locker and tap was a retrofit in the UK as the original boat owner didn't like the factory fit version. Unfortunately the tap that got fitted was a chrome finish thing which quickly corroded in the salt water. The hose fitting also started leaking a little - just enough to allow some water into the locker and to encourage the  growth of smelly stuff inside. So, a new stainless tap is needed. Such excitement and extravagance.

We had fun cleaning up the RIB after it had been used for hull polishing etc. The marina's resident swans brought around their 7 cygnets quite regularly for a feed:

and the grown ups liked taking food from the dinghy tubes:

The family caused much amusement:

The hull of the RIB was tea coloured when it got lifted out after around 5 days in the water. The stain would not wash or polish off so Y10 (oxalic acid gel) had to be used to remove the marks. Memo to self - NEVER swim in the marina unless you want a semi-permanent tan.

To prove that we know a few people almost as strange as we are, a parcel arrived from Devon (well, the Devon / Cornwall border to be precise. It contained some moist paper wrapped around two home grown radishes:

resplendent with their leaves too. They were delicious but probably cost rather too much in shipping to make it a viable business for the green fingered folks who produced them.

Finally, the Welsh government decided that the Cardiff Bay could open up to boats again. So, there was a manic Monday when loads of people either came down to their boat to prepare it or took it out to play. We decided that the RIB was safest and took it for a little blast. Glorious weather - this pic shows our neighbour in his Princess motor cruiser by the Pier Head building:

The hundreds of birds on the pontoons there have turned the decking surface white. Lovely job for someone when they finally allow folks to moor there again. We also trundled up the river at a sedate pace and had a chat to the lovely Nikki on board the equally lovely yacht "September Moon" - suitably socially distanced naturally:

All that varnish. Somehow polishing fibreglass seems simpler. The harbour folks have said that trips out to sea (day trips only) will be allowed from Monday. A sort of freedom, catching up on what England has enjoyed for a couple of weeks. Our only challenge is going to be moving the poor boat as the weed around us is most impressive. No boat traffic for weeks, loads of sun and hence weed coming up nearly to the surface of the water. Not good at all.