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.