Neyland to Penarth = the end of the cruising season.....

All good things have to come to an end, so they say. This rather truncated and strange cruising season had to finish and we reckoned that getting back to our Penarth winter berth was better sooner rather than later - lockdowns were increasing and being trapped in Neyland with only the local Co-op for amusement might be a challenge too far.

So, we found a suitable weather window for a trip up to Cardiff bay that also allowed us to leave our berth before the Royal Marines arrived. Not sure they would like us rafting on them or vice versa. The one drawback was that the window meant arriving at the barrage locks in Cardiff around 4:30 am to make best use of the tides - they run very strongly further up the Bristol Channel.

With not too much choice we duly left Neyland around 2pm ready for an overnight up channel run and arrival. A trip that we would not have contemplated before having the FLIR installed thanks to the scattered pot markers that we knew would be around. 

Here is the route: 

The dogleg south when leaving Milford Haven is to avoid an area that has lots of overfalls and even more pot markers. It was a bit rougher on departure as expected with waves up to 2 metres on the starboard bow but as we headed up the channel, so it calmed down nicely, despite ending up with a headwind. 

En route we were treated to spectacular displays by the local dolphins. The crew did her usual hanging out over the rail and giving them whoops of encouragement:

Getting a picture of them was tricky, this was the rather feeble best we managed but it gives you an idea:

As we headed up the channel and it fell dark, so it became quieter out to sea as well. The AIS only had one local fishing boat to report and the radar could find nothing else to amuse us:

As we got closer to Cardiff, there was a beautiful crescent moon which the mobile phone camera failed to pick up amongst the lights of Rhoose and Barrybados:

with the glow of the navigation light showing against the boat at the bottom of the picture. The good news was that they all kept working on this trip.

A final wide open throttle run to clean up the engine and exhaust approaching the Cardiff barrage allowed us to wake up the guy on duty witha radio call just after 4am, asking to join the scheduled 4:15 inbound lock. Guess what, we were alone and as soon as we entered the lock, the gates shut and it was flooded for us to depart. A radio call to Penarth marina got a way faster response than the barrage call and by 4:30am we were on a temporary beth in the marina. Happy and sad to be back safely after our summer excursion. Here is how the FLIR saw the view forward from the berth in the dark as we docked:

And here is how it looked in the sun the next day:

We continue to be impressed by that piece of kit.

Maintenance news: none at all, not even a little blown bulb to report. The trip worked well with the tides, just the timing was not as good for getting some sleep.

We will work out our hours run etc sometime and report back. Still got half tanks of fuel left to keep warm with this winter and run the genset when we need to do some washing etc.  We started out just about 3/4 full so again we can confirm that fuel burn is not the big issue with a displacement speed boat that has a suitable low HP engine driving it.

Bangor to Neyland

This was a tricky trip to plan. The most autumnal weather had really set in and so we were getting short periods of reasonable weather (low wind speeds) interspersed with way longer periods of strong SW'ly stuff. That drags up some nice big waves in the Irish Sea and we had to travel the full length of it. At our normal cruise speed, the trip to Milford Haven takes around 33 hours. Getting a favourable tide around the coast of Northern Ireland and all the way down to the Dublin area is do-able thanks to the timing of the tidal direction changes. Typically, you then end up fighting the rather strong tides around St David's Head (the bottom sticking out western bit of Wales for those with geography as bad as the captain's). 

We saw one promising weather window with some strong W'ly / NW'ly winds to begin with (when we would be relatively close to the Irish coast and so a bit sheltered) and then decaying wind strength until a strong SW'ly picked up. The idea was to leave to take advantage of the nice tide around the Irish coast, live with a bumpy bit as we peeled away from it and run the boat faster than normal to get a fair tide at St David's and arrive before the nasty windy weather appeared again. The fun bit was that most of the weather sources said this would be possible, just not the UK Met Office and their shipping / inshore waters forecasts. For once, we believed all the others and headed off around 8:30 in the morning, a civilised departure for a change.

It was a lovely start to the day indeed:

as we headed around the coast, inside the Copeland Islands and enjoyed lots of tidal help for a calm first part of the journey:

As we left the shelter of the land, it was a little bumpier but still glorious weather (well, from inside the pilothouse anyway):

The wind made it a bit chilly outside so we kept the windward door firmly closed. Well out to sea we were being followed by a ship called Elbcarrier. They seemed to like chasing us down and the AIS system was showing a closest point of approach as something way way too small for comfort:

It varied from 0 to about 150 meters as our heading was gently changing thanks to the stabilisers which were counteracting the waves nicely but making us wander as usual. We kept watching him / it (as they were misbehaving, they did not deserve a "her" for their ship) and did the "stand on vessel" thing of maintaining course and speed. Finally, just before we were going to call them to make sure that someone was awake and paying attention to their AIS and radar plots / alarms they made a late 8 degree course change, then a lot more and opened up a nice gap:

Over 500m eventually. We do wonder why they didn't just add a couple of degrees 10 mintues earlier rather than do the nautical equivalent of a handbrake turn. It was nice to see them pass us:

The rest of the route pretty much runs down the middle of the Irish Sea. So, you see nothing bar water and any other ships that are about. No yachts, no other motor boats, just a few commercial guys and the odd fishing boat.  We did, however, get some friendly Irish dolphins come and play.  Always a great distraction but sorry, no pics.  During the night watches, the starboard navigation light bulb decided to blow. Irrtating as that was the side that most of the ships coming up from the Atlantic would approach us on. Rather than try to tinker with it in the pitch black, the decision was to use the deck lights if necessary to add to the steaming light, AIS and our radar return. Oh for dual bulb fittings.

You can see a big gap in the route where we were too far from land to have our AIS signals picked up:

This tends to upset the folks who professionally stalk us (yes, you know who you are) but as it was during the night when the European people should have been sleeping, we don't think that it caused too much stress.

We had calculated that running the boat at around 1800 rpm (one of the happy speeds for the engine) which equates to about 7.4 knots with our current fuel load and a relatively clean bum should get us to St David's before the tide turned against us. Seeing the 13 - 14 litres per hour consumption compared to our normal 9 or so was strange:

For the tekkies who think that the engine is running cool at 65C, that happens when the second (higher temperature) thermostat in the system opens up. The running temperature drops from 70 something down to 65C or so, then climbs back up as the higher temperature thermostat closes again. You don't see it happen often running at lower rpm unless the keel cooler is badly fouled up.

Sure enough, and luckily for us, the Met Office forecast was out - predicting way stronger winds than we encountered. The timing to get to St David's worked out too and so we cut inshore of Skoholm, passing our favourite anchorage on the south side of Skomer:

We then had a little tide to push heading into Milford Haven. Sometimes things work out. This was a good "sometime" for it to happen. St Annes head was a welcome sight:

As it was approaching high water, there was plenty of commercial traffic entering and leaving Milford. When we entered, we stayed to the west, well out of the channels the large guys need. This did mean avoiding numerous pot markers both large and small. Dale Castle got closer than normal:

and the juxtaposition of old castle and modern navigation aids looks a bit strange:

A large tanker, Merbabu,  was being "encouraged" into place by three tugs who helped with the right angle turn needed at Dale roads:

We didn't want to cross the channel in front of them so we just did the marine equivalent of a circuit and bump whilst waiting, hence the strange AIS track for anyone who thought we had simply lost the plot:

  

In fairness we didn't get much sleep overnight and so our grasp on any plots was not great. 

We had to slow down again as the tugs gave the tanker a nice shove into her berth:

but then we happily sped up and berthed in Neyland, about 27.5 hours after leaving Bangor. It could have been closer to 27 without the tanker diversion.

For the maintenance and statistics types:

Maintenance involved replacing one navigation bulb. Not too tricky. The trip is about 195 nautical miles plus arond an hour inside Milford Haven to get up to Neyland. As an interesting exercise (for some), we worked out that running the boat harder (an extra 4 litres per hour which is a whopping 45% increase in fuel burn for a 16% increase in speed) actually burned an extra 45 to 50 litres over the entire trip. So, 45% extra burn per hour for a 16% speed through the water increase cost us a 15% additional fuel bill for the trip, The joy of tidal help. What we cannot turn into maths was the importance of getting into shelter before the wind picked up again. That is priceless. As we've said many times before, fuel costs even at 1800 rpm are not a big issue with a Nordhavn. Go slow, go economically.

The Neyland folks were as welcoming as ever although they did warm us that the royal Marines would be using the berth we were on from Monday. Maybe we need to move beforehand.

Finally, just to prove that odd boat names exist in Wales as well as in the Isle of Bute, a little Shetland was berthed nearby:

We don't know and don't want to know what is in the big black box on the foredeck......

Port Bannatyne to Bangor (warning, early departure)

There was a day when the rain and wind was supposed to stop. At last we thought. Then we looked at the tide times for a run back to Bangor. We decided it was time to head south now as it seems that autumn is well and truly here and the weather is going into that "3 days of low pressure systems, wind and rain then maybe one day of nicer stuff" cycle.

The only downside was that the non blowy day co-incided with tides turning north from Belfast at around 13:30. We didn't want to push them in the north channel area where they run pretty strongly so working back for our 79 nautical mile trip, departure had to be just after 2am to optimise the tidal flows. Yes, 2 in the morning. Rubbish this boating lark,isn't it? We planned to leave a little later and push the first of the north going tide as we approached Bangor but the knowledge that an alarm call was pending stopped us from sleeping properly. So, we got up around 1.30 am...

As a complete change, there was little wind to begin with:

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1.7 knots true wind speed after a week of force 6 and above was quite a treat. As you can guess, the view of Rothesay as we passed by was less than inspiring:

although the compass looks quite ethereal.

To give you an idea of what life looks like from the pilothouse, here is our night time vista:

The FLIR image of the sea ahead and what the radar can pick up for us are most useful. This trip we would not have even tried without the FLIR knowing that there are several areas of pot markers to avoid before we get into open water / daylight.

This picture shows a plotter image alongside the radar display - there are three screens in the pilothouse that we can use for the many varied tasks.

 

You also get to enjoy a little but very boring light show on the port side too:

from the VHF (and HF but it was not powered up for this picture) radios, the autopilot and the stabiliser control panel. There is plenty to keep you amused on night passages. Usually the FLIR picture and the radar are the most popular - we try to avoid running into things!

The route simply heads down the well sheltered eastern side of Bute and then Arran before heading down to Ireland:

and the only slightly bumpy bit was as we came out of the shelter of the Mull of Kintyre where the remaining waves from 4 days of strong NW / W winds were gently decaying. We did get the fun of watching three dolphins play in our bow wave to enliven things - not that common in this area so we hear.

As we approached Belfast Lough, Ken, Debbie and Annika on Juniper came out to say hello and a photo opportunity had to be taken in the (rare) sun:

They kindly took some pics of us too - not quite as shiny or rapid as the Hardy:

and yes, it was a bit sunny. A nice welcome back to Northern Ireland indeed. 

For those of you who remember the rather nice birthday card that the captain had, featuring Black Head lighthouse, here is the real thing:

Although this picture was taken the same afternoon, and we passed by the lighthouse, we cannot claim credit for the image. George, the owner of Cuan Fisher was brave enough to nose in close to the rocks and capture this one for us.

Arriving in Bangor, we had a shore party ready to take our lines. Debbie and Annika were kindly standing on the hammerhead of G pontoon, only we had been to to go to H. Their sprinting ability was impressive, especailly as Debbie had a poorly hind paw. 

The evening was a very quiet one after the 2am get up time. We did enjoy this little penguin diversion though:

 

We do wonder if Patrick thinks he has adopted us. If so, his parenting skills are rubbish.

Maintenance news: Nothing exciting to report. The main engine stern gland is dripping a little bit faster now but nothing dramatic and as it is running nice and cool we have no intention of tightening it up until we get to Penarth again and the boat gets sort of laid up for the winter. The wing engine had a good half hour run as we approached Bangor - it has some elderly diesel in the separate supply tank and we want to burn that off before topping it up with fresher stuff from the storage tanks.

Enjoying Bute - almost by bike

The two pesky fold up bikes that live in the lazarette and take lumps out of the captain's ankles from time to time were exhumed and the tyres pumped up for the first time this year. A cycle ride into Rothesay beckoned and a little trip to the big Co-op store too. Our cheapo elderly bikes are far from posh - when new they looked like this:

Now there is a little more rust on them. They do get ignored / sworn about regularly. Finally ready we headed off but as we left the marina the captain noticed that he had a squashy rear tyre - on the bike that is. Behave.

Yes, the 20 plus year old inner tube had probably given up the ghost. So, bikes wheeled back to the boat, we walked in instead.  After a major disappointment (finding Musiker the rather good cafe with close by outdoor seating was closed as it was Monday), we managed to get some lunch courtesy of Ambience on the sea front. With no pre-planning, purely by chance,  we had stumbled onto a place with good food and exemplary friendly service.

Upon our return, the captain tried to fix the pesky inner tube but upon removal it was proclaimed as "life extinct". One attempt to patch the leaky area ended up with us realising that 20 year old puncture repair kit glue is not terribly good either.

So, it was walking time instead. That allowed us to admire the local yachts:

We did the obligatory walk into Rothesay so we could raid the Co-op (yes, there are two to choose from here, one is terribly well catered for, as lomf as the Co-op stock it).

Bute has some strange visitor attractions, here are the Trip Advisor top rated offerings:

Having seen both of them before we resisted this time. (To be fair, thanks to Covid the amazing Mount Stuart house was closed to visitors. Pennies could still be spent though)

The weather did not play nicely with us so we had a couple of days purely on the boat thanks to wind and rain. The marina at Port Bannatyne was in no way this busy:

or that sunny, hence a borrowed picture. Ditto for the waterfront:

Despite the best efforts of the weather to dampen things we had a great time on Bute. We also saw the folks who did the video of the fish shoals in Campbeltown, Alan and Tisha. They arrived on their yacht Seagull. This is their first year of retirement and we recognised the happy expressions as they realised that they did not have to rush back for the start of term. Oh yes.

We posted a pciture of the Waverley paddle steamer and commented how it was nice to see her out again after the major repair work. Well, guess what. Have a read of:

Waverley crashes into pier