Milford Haven to Bangor (Northern Ireland)

After our rather early 3:45am alarm the day before, a 6:15am wake up felt like a nice lie in somehow. Only it wasn't. Still, it did mean we got to enjoy a lovely sunrise:

which made the industrial bits of Milford Haven look less, well, "industrial" and ugly. The anchor was retrieved together with a fair bit of the sea bed and we headed off, timing the trip so we had a fair tide west to St David's Head and then around the corner as we headed north. We also wanted a fair tide running close to the Northern Ireland coast at the other end so our departure was arranged around that.

The sun was out, and leaving the haven around 7am seemed almost like mid-morning. Here is the little lighthouse at the entrance bathed in early morning sunshine:

and how everything looked from the pilothouse:

We passed Skomer, admired the many puffin antics and rounded the headland and rocks to head north rather enjoying the calm weather and seas. All pretty quiet too, several tankers anchored in St Bride's bay but very little on the move:

The day continued to impress. Light winds, slight seas and deep blue water:

We happily trundled along at just over 1600 rpm, watching some TV, being amazed at how far offshore we could still pick up a mobile phone signal thanks to the new antenna and all in all rather enjoying the trip. A pod of dolphins came to play with us for a while and that always adds to the excitement.  Naturally, at the helm you need to have all the critical things close to hand:

By evening time we were off the North Wales coast, only we could not see it as the route takes us pretty much up the middle of the Irish sea. We did get to enjoy the colours of the sunset though as some night time clouds built up:

The wind picked up a fair bit, from the NW,  so the trip got a little bumpier but nothing too dramatic, just more noise from the waves against the hull and the stabilisers had some work to do. Overnight things were pretty quiet, until during the crew's watch, a gaggle of fishing boats appeared ahead of us. The crew probably has a less pleasant and not to be repeated collective noun for fishing boats though, so she woke up the Captain to navigate through the gaggle:

Actually it was easy, no course alteration needed for that lot, just a minor detour for one lone guy a little later on. Sunrise was welcome although the captain had enjoyed watching the seabirds on the FLIR (infra-red camera) bobbing about and then taking off ahead of us. The sun said hi nice and early:

and the wind had eased and shifted a little too, pretty much spot on as per forecast. Here is the route we took, including the run from Cardiff to Milford the previous day. You can see the one long leg up the Irish sea, nearly due north, of over 150 nautical miles. 

which takes quite some time at our 6.4 knot cruising speed.

Approaching the Northern Irish coast, we actually slowed down a bit, dropping to 1475rpm because we were about an hour ahead of our expected timing. Mainly because the sea had been so calm meaning our average speed was higher than we allowed for. We slowed to allow the tide to turn and help take us up the coast, inside the Copeland Islands and on to Bangor. The engine had a wide open throttle burn as usual to clean up the exhaust and piston rings, whilst the crew prepared the lines and fenders:

You can see how blue and calm the waters of Belfast Lough were. Such a treat and probably the easiest and fastest (31 hours) trip up the Irish sea we've had. Berthing was simple too, we called Bangor marina on the radio, the lovely and helpful Victoria answered and scarily remembered our names as well as the boat. Ken and Debbie were waiting on our allotted berth to take the lines as we backed in. All good. 

Rather tired we managed to wash the salt from the hull, walk around the town to get our legs working again and consume a rather wonderful raspberry and white chocolate scone too. After getting our second wind, Keith and Bailey the Jack Russell popped in to say hi. Bailey is the best trained little dog we've met and he had fun trashing one of Izzy's already well chewed toys:

It felt like we were in our third home.

Maintenance News:

Perhaps things do fix themselves. The autopilot behaved impeccably for the whole 31 hours. No funny relay clicks, no switching itself to follow-up mode. Maybe the contacts were a bit corroded from the enforced layup whilst the captain's shoulder was recovering from surgery and they cleaned themselves up in use? 

Nothing else to report, the machinery and electronics all worked just fine. Bit reassuringly boring really.

Penarth to Milford Haven

As always, a spell of nice weather coincided with some very early tide times. Escaping from Cardiff ideally we would lock out through the barrage around an hour before high water. Then we get the supercharged tide help pushing us west for several hours and we are in the wider bit of the channel by the time the tide turns against us - where it runs much slower. Yes, high water on our chosen day was around 5am so we endured a 3:45 alarm. Actually we didn't, as always when you set an alarm, you wake up well beforehand, In this case, well was a good 90 minutes. So, a little bit sleep deprived, we prepared to head off on our first proper trip of the year.

For some unknown reason, the autopilot which had behaved perfectly during our test run around the bay decided to misbehave, randomly kicking into "Follow up lever" mode as we left the berth. Interesting - that mode stops steering using the manual wheel from working. Guess what we were using to get out of the marina and into the barrage lock? So, the autopilot had to be put back into standby mode by prodding a button a couple of times. Grr.

One other yacht joined us in the 4:30am barrage lock -a singlehanded man only aided by his dog. The dog was rubbish at putting out and then recovering fenders by the way. We timed it to get some visibility, rather than rely on the FLIR and radar for the start of our trip.

The forecast had promised us a nice day, and the sun peeped out just in time to illuminate one of the uglier landmarks in the area:

The now defunct Aberthaw power station. Not the loveliest of sights really.

Heading down the channel, the crew made tea using the electric kettle - you can see how the domestic alternator was rather busy supporting the inverter to power the kettle - 129 amps:

The captain knew when it was likely to be delivered too - the load dropping back to a way more normal 40 odd amps:

The route is a simple enough one, heading along the South Wales coast, avoiding the shallow bits and then rounding up into Milford Haven:

The weather conspired to help us beautifully. Initially taking the tide with us we were heading along at a nice rate:

9.8 knots over the ground, only 6.4 or so through the water at a leisurely 1600 rpm. Very economical. There was very little other traffic about bar this guy who was anchored right in our path:

and the picture shows just how calm the sea was. This wind strength kind of explains it:

0.8 knots true wind speed. Wow. In fairness it did go up to around 3 at times. You can see how little the boat was moving by the roll and pitch angles:

and that was with the stabilisers inactive. Amazing weather. As we approached Milford, Martin and Inge on Malaspina reported that the south anchorage at Skomer was pretty empty so we decided to head there, make a slightly longer trip and go and enjoy the puffin antics again.Then, they reported that a mist was developing - we could see what looked like the start of a bank over to the west so we opted to just head into Milford Haven. Tiredness played a part in that decision too. So, we dropped the hook in Sandy Haven bay and relaxed enjoying the late afternoon sun. Great first trip, shame about the early start really! Around 12 hours out to sea in very benign conditions is a great start to the cruising year.

Meanwhile, Martina nd Inge were enjoying the delights of the Skomer anchorage and the puffin antics. As they are both commercial pilots we think they found the puffins landings a little bit "bumpy". To explore the area, they took their kayaks and paddled through the nearby caves too:

We added in their picture as we've never paddled through there - not got any kayaks on board, lots and lots of other "stuff" but a kayak free zone.

Maintenance news:

The autopilot's bad behaviour when we started off was strange, it was perfect when we did our trial run around the bay in Cardiff shortly beforehand on. When it fired up at just after 4am, it was OK then suddenly changed itself from standby to follow-up mode (ie control via the follow-up lever in the pilothouse). Hitting the button on the follow-up lever to put it back into standby mode didn't switch it back either. Most different, strange and annoying behaviour. You could hear what sounded like a relay trying and failing to latch in the "brain" of the unit. Out to sea, it repeated this self induced switch to follow-up lever operation a couple of times when we were in "navigation" mode (ie following a course sent by the Furuno navigation kit) which was equally annoying. As we got further into the trip, so it happened less frequently. A self healing issue? Never happens with a boat it seems.... Well, maybe it is a case of never say never? Our fingers are crossed. The autopilot is a key bit of kit for us, you don't hand steer a Nordhavn for long, just in and out of berths and trickier areas. 99% of the time we are on autopilot.

Fortunately we have a redundant setup with two autopilot computers and two power steering pumps fitted. If the worst happened we will swap over to the other computer and pump. If it is the follow-up lever itself that is misbehaving, we can unplug it or replace it with a used but good spare we have on board. Hence we were happy to leave Penarth and see how things developed.

On a more positive note, the recently tinkered with stuffing box on the main engine prop shaft was just fine. It dripped nicely and stayed at a most tepid 20 degrees or so (Centigrade that is, Fahrenheit would be very bad indeed).

Getting ready to head off -at last

We slowly sort of got ourselves ready to head off, hoping that the weather might just improve a little. Martin and Inge had arrived and were very busy cleaning their already rather sparkly Nordhavn, Malaspina. They even enjoyed a short voyage to turn her around so they could shine up the port side:

We joined in the hull polishing fun, although we completed our port side from the RIB to save the crew bending down and kneeling on the pontoon. Slower but less bodily pain it seems. We were delighted to finish it though and treated ourselves to a right royal day out - we went to Porthcawl for a wander around. The tiny harbour never looks inviting:

and the tiny entrance and pile of mud at low water don't add to the appeal of the place one jot:

A shame really as the town and waterfront area are pretty good, we had a nice time wandering around the town, admiring a rare thing (some sun peeped out) and the ingenious use of driftwood on the promenade:

It was then time to get serious about departing. We returned to Hythe, dropped off the car, set up a new TV for the toddlers (the old one had started to give things a nice green colour, making watching snooker on TV quite a challenge really) and braved the train back. They still run totally unsuitable old rolling stock that was designed for short Thames Valley commuter routes on the Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff service.  Numb bum, ringing ears from the engine noise (windows have to be open as the aircon is feeble) and a horrid resonance in our carriage at speed added to the uncomfortable tiny seats to make the whole experience wonderful. At least this one was on time for a change. This service even stars in the "worst train allocations of the UK" video. That didn't cheer us up much to be honest. 

After a day on board to recover from the horrors of Great Western trains, we dug out the little Brompton bikes, fitted new chains and headed off for what was quite a liberating ride in the sun. Liberating because it was the first one since the end of January and shoulder surgery.  It then became lubricating as we needed a stop off outside a pub for essential refreshment and sustenance:

Only the refreshment had arrived at the time of the photo.

As the boat had also not been moved since the end of January, we took her for a run around the bay area to see if all the oily bits were working OK and then make sure that the electronics behaved too. Luckily all was well, except the stern gland on the main engine could do with a little more water coming through it. The route was the usual confused up and down the bay thing:

trying to keep it in the deeper bits, especially for the wide open throttle runs. It seemed that we were nearly ready to head off, so we had a look at the weather forecasts to see if they would conspire to prevent this.....

Maintenance news:

As part of the pre-departure preparation, we gave the boat a much needed wash off, scrubbed the winter freshwater growth off the hull around and under the waterline and packed away all the things that had migrated out of lockers and cupboards during the long winter period.. It is amazing how things seem to pop out and not get put away again.

The main engine stern gland was slackened off a bit to promote more water flow through it and will almost certainly need adjustment after the first longer sea trip. We refitted the new wiper blades that had been taken off for the winter to save them a little bit, sealed off the heater outlet (SO nice not to need that) and did some route prep work too. Who knows, we might actually use the boat as a boat soon. 

Tinkering around and waiting for many things

Thanks to the half crown that the dentist was unhappy with, we had another trip to Hythe, this time a real whistlestop thing. Fortunately the replacement from the lab was a better fit to the other teeth and the nice dentist lady was happy with it. Our guess is that she had to be - it was costing them quite a lot and the cynic in us says that it was going to be fitted no matter what. An unfair comment probably, she seemed very intent on doing a good job.

The return run to Penarth was a little bit different and it ended up as a real pain - the M4 near Bristol was closed thanks to a truck fire so we had a monster diversion up country to avoid the carnage in that area. We had already made one diversion, heading to Fareham first to visit the vinyl supplier that the local trim shop uses. Getting the right thickness material with as little grain as possible for our pilothouse headlining was proving tricky so we went to look at the actual rolls of material and picked the one we wanted. We then brought it back with us to help speed up the job.

When we arrived back, the rather annoying trip was forgotten as we enjoyed this view of Malaspina astern of us:

Just a perfect evening albeit a tad chilly....  We then amused ourselves with bits of hull polishing, a run up through the Brecon Beacons in the drizzle (ended up driving through the clouds) and a rather good Sunday lunch with Simon and Nikki as a "farewell" thing in case we didn't get to see them again before we depart Penarth. 

Meanwhile, Martin and Inge, the owners of Malaspina had arrived from Canada, gone to the Netherlands and returned to Penarth. All rather hard to keep up with really. We much enjoyed catching up with them and admired their diligence in cleaning and polishing their already very shiny Nordhavn:

The picture gives you a good idea of just how high the bow is on a Nordhavn 47. Martin is no pygmy. 

Locally, the excitement was that the resident swans had a third go at making a nest and this time seemed serious about hatching whatever eggs she has produced - earlier on this spring they abandoned one egg in their first nest:

Maintenance news:

We pressed on with the hull polishing fun and made reasonable progress between rain showers and freezing cold winds. Wayne, the lovely trimmer guy, returned the headlining panels for the pilothouse when he'd covered them using the material we brought back from our Hythe trip and refitted them. A way nicer look that the bare insulation and dangling wires we'd been enjoying:

A fiddly little job was replacing the battery in the crew's Sena wireless headset. We use them for communication when berthing and the battery life had become pretty poor. We'd learned from the Sena folks that a normal USB phone charger was pushing in way too many amps for the little lithium battery and that had shortened the life of it. Naturally, in the manual they don't say "charge at 1 amp or less", just in a supplementary document they will email you when you talk to them. Thanks to Andrew (the owner of Zephyros the N43) we ordered the right battery, dismantled the headset and removed the old battery which has this tiny connector on it:

That has to be cut off and soldered onto the new battery:

then refitted into the earpiece under the loudspeaker you can see off to one side:

Hopefully the crew's headset will have a way better "talk time" now.

The final must do job before we depart Penarth was replacing the engine start batteries. We mentioned beforehand that they were the originals and had finally given up. Not bad for 17 years in service really. We looked at replacing them with lifeline AGM on a like for like basis but the price of those premium batteries (and availability) was wild - over £1000 each plus delivery. We had decided to replace the wing / genset start batteries at the same time as they are the same vintage and were showing signs of age (lower resting voltage than expected) but were still working fine. Buying 4 batteries to make up the two 24v start banks with Lifeline branding on them would be rather an eye-watering bill. We will certainly go for lifeline again when the domestic bank needs renewal but for lightly stressed and very lightly cycled start batteries, we opted to go cheaper.The marine engineering guys in Penarth said that they'd had good experience and service from Monbat units so we opted for those.

The dinghy crane made light work of removing the old heavy lifelines into a marina trolley:

and then lifting the new replacements into the lazarette:

Standardisation is a wonderful thing. The answer to "when is a 4D AGM battery not a 4D AGM battery" is an interesting one. We'd had fun finding the right case size to fit into our specially made battery trays but nothing prepared us for this amusement. Here are the originals:

and the new ones:

Yes, the terminals were reversed, meaning that the battery cabling had to be re-routed / gently persuaded to swap sides. They are VERY thick and heavy cables so it was far from easy. Luckily, as the captain is still begin ultra careful with his shoulder following the surgery,  Jim the engineer guy was doing the grunt work and had that fun. Accessing the main engine batteries in their cupboard in the lazarette was a pig of a job. The wing / genset batteries are behind the wing engine in the engine room itself and way more accessible. Not a fun job but one that had to be done.