Holyhead to Bangor

Escape from Holyhead isn't quite like the old "Escape from Colditz" film but the town is about as appealing. Maybe we mentioned that before? Our day started badly though, walking into town and through the ferry terminal to raid the Lidl shop. Then disaster - it was being extended (knocked down and rebuilt) and so we had to fall upon the local Co-op instead. The one highlight of the town gone - a Lidl chocolate twist with our afternoon coffee on board.

We manfully struggled on despite this huge setback of course and made our way back to the boat unmolested by the locals. Not a simple thing to achieve!

To optimise the daylight and tides, we headed off around 4pm. Good timing for our trip but bad timing for leaving Holyhead as a ferry was approaching and we had to divert to the west to avoid him, hence the strange start to our track for the stalkers who use Marinetraffic.com. The second strange bit of the track is beacause there is another traffic seperation zone off Anglesey and we crossed the lanes at right angles, being good people (albeit chocolate twistless).

No pictures of Holyhead for you to enjoy as we departed. Don't want to be responsible for adding to any misery in your lives.

The trip had 2 to 3 metre waves on our stern quarter so again, busy stabilisers. The bumpiest bit was off the Calf of Man; see the route below:

Of course, that coincided with the crew trying to sleep. Not happy. It calmed down as the tide direction changed and the wind veered and dropped overnight though. You can see the tide changes from our course.

There was no really dark period as it was a full moon, so visibility was good all the time. We were treated to an amazing sunrise experience though. The full moon was on our port side:

and the rising sun off to starboard with gorgeous colours in the sky:

Sadly, the crew was managing to sleep through this bit, just off the coast of Northern Ireland near a nicely named buoy - Skullmartin. Plenty of commercial traffic around there heading to and from Belfast and the Irish ports. One guy who overtook us decided to be close enough for us to smell the smoke from the (presumably / hopefully) on watch crew:

We gave the wing engine some exercise and then ran at an unusual for us 1800 rpm along the coast to beat the tide turning and hence having to push a big adverse stream passing between Donaghadee (great name isn't it?)  and the off-lying island.  Approaching Bangor at 7:30 am we enjoyed nice views of the Royal Ulster Yacht Club (the brick building)  that we were entertained in last year:

The approach to Bangor is always interesting.  Spot the entrance to the harbour on this picture?  Not simple is it?  The only hint is the red tower:

We neatly backed into our allotted berth feeling smug but of course with no one to witness this amazing feat of seamanship at stupid o'clock,  then collapsed quietly. Happy to be back in Norn Iron and Bangor but a little tired.

Maintenance news:

Not a lot really.  The big Lugger spat out a little coolant via the overflow pipe as we ran her harder and longer than we have for a while. The operating temperature was above our normal 75- 80 centigrade (she ran at just under 85 during a wide open throttle "burn").  That meant the cooling system felt a little over full and relieved itself by dumping about half a tea cup of coolant out. Obviously overfilled when we changed the coolant in April.  Note to self - must put one tea cup less in next time when pouring in the 17 litres or so.....

Might go a bit mad whilst here and give the main engine an oil change but alternatively, might not.

Neyland to Holyhead

Leaving sunny Neyland was hard as it is a chilled spot if a little short on the banana and culture fronts. However, the north beckons and the crew needs to see an osteopath for her dodgy knee soon too. We spent a day doing a little polishing penance (flybridge and stack area) and then prepared for a run “up country”. Bangor was considered as they apparently have an osteopath there but then we decided to break up what would be a 36 hour trip into two and stopover in Holyhead. Not because Holyhead is a stunningly lovely place of course, more because it gives us a break and only adds just over an hour to the overall trip. How come? Well, you can optimise the tides for the two shorter trips better than the one long haul.

Optimising the Holyhead trip meant a mid-day, just after low water departure from Neyland. That was fun – the channel out of the marina was narrow and looked muddy. We had 0.4 metres underneath us on the berth and didn’t know just when the channel was last dredged. Luckily, Challenge Wales, an ex-round the world race yacht which we knew from Penarth came into the marina about an hour before low water. Here is a stolen picture, kind of yacht porn:

If he could get into the marina, we ought to get out sort of logic prevailed. The captain disappeared to check that the newly fitted gearbox oil filter was not leaking shortly after departure. The crew then got spooked by passing this ferry in a narrow part of the channel:

It was sunny but a bit blowy heading out to sea. The forecast SE’ly 4/5 was actually a good 5 but the wind direction was fine for our trip. The harbour had its usual selection of ugly tankers to enjoy:

The range safety boat Smit Merrion was poodling about in the harbour and radioed us to ask if we were “going outside” as the firing ranges to the east were active:

He seemed surprised when we said yes but that we were heading west and so well clear of the range. Everyone else he called was staying in the estuary area - it seems that most local boaters view a SE'ly force 5 across a 2m SW’ly swell as a no go sea-state. Perhaps we are getting a bit too used to the seakeeping capabilities of the Nordhavn.

Not many pictures of the trip for you this time. We went between Skokholm and Skomer, noting that the swell rolling in made our favourite Skomer anchorage untenable. However, lots of puffins were out on the water and so we enjoyed watching their take-off and landing escapades. As we headed around St David’s head, the land tracking stations lost our AIS signal and didn’t pick it up again until much later on. See this Marinetraffic.com picture – no little triangles means no signal picked up and so an estimated route:

As you can imagine, we didn't go across the land as this picture suggests.

There is one other firing range to negotiate - Aberporth. There they fire big serious stuff from planes, ships and the shore and so although their website said "no activity" we followed their advice and checked. The folks there are so friendly and helpful, most impressed every time we call them.

The swell was exactly as forecast, 2 metres or so on our stern quarter and so the stabilisers were active. No drama but when the odd bigger wave came though you could feel the boat being lifted about 3 metres into the air quite rapidly and then down again, but on an even keel. Great for our average speed though, we were getting help from the tide and the waves this trip.

The sunset was wonderful again and the swell died down as we headed north meaning the off watch person could sleep easily. The hours of darkness were brief - long daylight hours and nearly a full moon meant that you could always see a little.

The sunrise was equally dramatic and this gives you an idea of what sunrise travel looks like from the captain's seat with the autopilot, radar and PC screen busy:

As it got lighter, Patrick also seemed to enjoy the view:

The trip was a first for us, no course alterations to avoid the big guys or fishing boats was required. Most of the big stuff was to our west preparing for the traffic separation zones off Anglesey:

We headed into Holyhead (after giving the big Lugger engine a "full throttle burn") and discovered that it was busier than we'd ever seen - lots of wind farm support boats and dying fishing boats on the breakwater. Luckily there was one gap big enough for us so we headed for it, despite the lack of mooring cleats. The marina is still a bit of a mess, the pontoons need serious amounts of investment and our slot has no access to power or water (about 70% of the breakwater is like this). Luckily we are pretty self sufficient. Shame, they seem to have prioritised the building of nice offices and employment of several admin staff,

Maintenance news:

Well, we ran for about 125 miles and just over 19 hours. No maintenance to report or dramas out to sea. Suppose that we should stop underplaying the sea-worthiness of the Nordhavn. There are not many boats that we would have happily headed out to sea in for this trip, knowing that we could cook dinner and sleep well when off watch too.