Tywyn escape

As the Covid situation got messier and messier, we decided to take advantage of the Welsh government's decision to end their fire break as planned, despite England entering 4 weeks of lockdown. Seeing that the infection numbers in some parts of Wales were still grim, we booked a cottage in Mid Wales for a week, thinking that it might be our only chance for some new scenery before they are forced to introduce new and more draconian restrictions. So, on the first day of relative freedom, we headed up north, through mid Wales (lovely) to Tywyn:

The "3 hour" route through mid Wales is lovely, the only drawback is having to drive past Merthyr Tydfil which is a truly horrid place at the best of times (one of the most depressed towns in Wales so we heard with many social issues) and it was the Covid capital of the entire UK too with the very worst infection rates. We kept the windows closed and the aircon on recirculate until well clear.....

Mid Wales was as spectacular as ever with nice roads, vistas and little traffic so we enjoyed the drive up and a brief coffee stop in Brecon.

The cottage in Tywyn had good views from the kitchen and a sofa in there too so you could admire them:

and a beach in very close proximity which Izzy enjoyed:

with some interestingly painted stones in one area:

We think that Patrick has already visited Tywyn and quite some time ago looking at how weathered the paint was:

Some short excursions followed to Machynlleth, the claimed ancient capital of Wales, Barmouth and Dolgellau. All had rather wonderful coffee shops for us with excellent cakes and good walks to amuse the dog. Machynlleth has a real "Cornish town" feel about it, very alternative, very Eco friendly, loads of independent shops, beautiful old buildings and on market day a proper little town buzz. Such a contrast to some of the "little towns" we visited in Scotland that are, frankly, scruffy and sad. The housing stock here is way better looked after too.

Barmouth had the delights of a huge sandy beach to amuse Izzy:

and a lovely coffee spot (look up Goodies) with great staff, coffee, ciabatta and cake. Suitably fuelled we walked around the town and discovered that Izzy must have been here before and modelled for a pub sign:

Then we walked to the old footbridge that runs across the estuary with the railway line. A proper piece of Victorian railway engineering that the Railtrack guys have to live with and maintain now. Ouch. Have a look at Wikipedia entry

The views of and from the bridge are lovely especially as the sun came out for us:

The trip back was over the toll bridge at Penmaenpool. Here is a stock picture - kind of hard to get one when driving over it:

A proper wooden bridge and well worth the 80p toll. Actually, we gave them £1 and didn't wait for any change in these Covid times. Extravagant we know but safety first and all that.....

Back at base, the sous chef was ever hopeful that we would drop something:

with a stare that tried to force something tasty to fall on the floor.

The other day trips were to Dolgellau and Aberdovey, Dolgellau had a nice flat (for the crew's dodgy knees) walk along the river using an old railway line and another truly excellent coffee and cake stop with the freshest cakes we have tasted whilst "out" for ages. A quirky place, using an old hardware store and keeping the original shop counters and fittings. Again some borrowed pictures and from the pre Covid times too:

 Aberdovey was a big hit with Izzy, another large beach:

and the chance to do some digging:

which clearly was tiring. 

All in all a very beautiful area and one which we will happily revisit sometime. In fact, if England continues with a post Xmas lockdown and Wales stays a little more "open", the revisit might be sooner than we expect.

As the Welsh "Fire Break" ends, so the English lockdown starts....

Yes, just as we thought that things would get easier after our 17 day "stay at home", so we escape from it and England goes into 4 week of the same. Makes deciding what to do pretty tricky really. Actually that is not fair, you can go places as long as they are in Wales - until the next lockdown that is.

We went big and washed the doglet in our shower which led to the usual mad behaviour as she tried to get her scent back, We kind of liked the conditioner smell that she had acquired but she seems less impressed:

No matter, some nicer weather was about and the bay looked stunning in the evening sun, only the phone camera could not do it justice:

Meanwhile, 11 shipping containers were carelessly lost from a ship in the Bristol Channel. See BBC report and this sad looking old thing was contracted by the government to recover them if they were spotted. It spent all the time tide up outside the marina, bet the berthing fees were not cheap:

We know that news about Patrick the penguin has been light recently - he seems to have been in a bit of a sulk and there has been little activity from him. Most unusual. We think we have discovered why though, it looks as if Anne led him astray whilst she was here and he is now either recovering from a huge hangover or pining for her:

We need to have words with Anne (once the English lockdown is over of course). Meanwhile, the doglet decided that she could take over the recliner chairs as well as the sofa:

Our allowed space on board is shrinking by the day.

As an aside, something for those of you who still believe that size matters. It seems that in one respect you are right. When we upgraded our radars in 2019, we fitted a new technology digital 4 foot scanner and an old technology magnetron 6 foot unit. Here is how the sexy new technology scanner sees the marina from our berth:

and here is the same but using the other scanner:

You can see how the bigger scanner does a better job of trying to show the individual boats. Naturally the new technology one has lots of other benefits but for the ability to discriminate between close together targets,  no matter how far away they are, size mattered.

Maintenance news:

As the weather had finally decided to dry up, a few outside jobs could be completed. Extra insulation on the new heater exhaust, reseal around the teak capping on the transom and drill a new hole for the replacement tap that we have for the aft cockpit sink:

and as you can see, it just keeps raining..... The tape is just to keep the rain out until the tap gets fitted. It was a pesky job as we had to fill in the old 35mm hole then move it away from the side of the cabinet so the new retaining nut would fit underneath (way bigger than the one for the old tap). 

After all this fun, we turned to a more exciting piece of prep - packing for a little break away.

More Fire Break time

Yes, the nice devolved government could not call it a "circuit break" as had been discussed in the media for England. The Welsh guys had to call it something different. It was more severe than the one that the equally lovely Nicola imposed on the central belt of Scotland so we had a while doing odds and ends on the boat and looking after the fluffy hound. That involved a few soggy walks and Izzy had a couple of "bad hair days" drying out afterwards:

Maintenance stuff - well, the port side of the gas locker has the dubious pleasure of being next to the void that contains the exhaust for the Webasto boiler that we have for heating. It got removed when we renewed the exhaust pipe recently and as there was no heat insulation on it, we procured some rather good stuff  (have a look at  Zircotec website) and stuck it onto the board:

Nice finish, shame it will not be seen again unless we need to tinker with the heater exhaust.

The heat exchanger on the wing engine also had a treat, drained down some coolant, took off the end cap and had a look to see if it needed removing and having a serious clean out. It was not too bad:

Looking into the tubes with a little borescope they were not badly fouled at all but there were some bits of impeller and general gunge in the end cap which were removed:

The end of the tubestack got a quick clean and then was rebuilt using the original unpleasant hose clips that the Northern Lights factory / the Nordhavn builders used. They are both guilty. We will replace them one day:

Not going to drag that tubestack out for a serious clean up yet. The genset might get more TLC though depending upon how the inside of the tubes looks. However, thanks to where the genset is mounted, the tubestack will not pull out of the "easy end" - ie the one just above the alternator. It is too long and would hit the bulkhead before it is clear of the housing. This means dismantling the other, trickier end which is linked to the exhaust elbow and dragging it out that way. We repeat our frequent moan about the genset not being fitted a bit further forward as it easily could have been!

Before the "Fire Break" here in Wales we raided the local Deere agricultural dealer and collected a few parts that we and Captain Rae needed. His were posted off, and the new torsional damper got some paint to protect it for the 5 years that it should be spending on our main engine.

Getting the old one off and this on is quite a performance though.

What else? Well, more dog walking in lockdown (sorry, Fire Break) and some tinkering with the settings on the Victron inverters that were fitted last year using the program on a laptop connected to them:

They had seemed to be charging at too high a voltage during the absorption phase although the voltage was exactly set to the Lifeline AGM book figure. (By the way, before you ask, the 70 amp charge shown on the app is for one inverter so the pair can put out 140).  After lots of checking voltages, configuration etc it boiled down to the way the Victron units compensate for temperature being a little less sophisticated than the way the lifelines like. The issue was sorted but the new domestic waterpump that we fitted during the lockdown earlier this year:

does not like high voltages. 28V or so and the control electronics go crazy, unlike the older similar Jabsco pump which still runs happily at that and higher voltages as did the Marco pump that we had to replace. 

Some investigation revealed that this is a known problem with the vFlo 5 pumps which have now been discontinued with no direct replacement. Wonderful. We now have a battle with Jabsco on our hands. We only bought the thing as during lockdown getting the big Marco pump that can handle the head of water involved was mission impossible as Italy was pretty much closed. So now, when on shorepower or running on battery alone we can use it. When under engine or when the batteries are recharging via the inverters, we switch to the older pump. Good job we have them mounted in parallel with power and plumbing swap over capability!

Izzy, quite naturally, took all this in her stride:

and continued to worry more about food, walks, playtime and cuddles. Smart dog, we are learning from her.