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.