Penarth to Milford Haven, a less than lovely first trip of the season

The one weather window that looked favourable for a run up the Irish sea meant we had to leave Penarth early morning and push into the NW'ly wind all the way to Milford Haven. There we planned to anchor up and wait for the tides to head north. 

The marina was pretty quiet at 5:15am as we headed out into Cardiff Bay:

We were not as quiet. The big John Deere main engine is very quiet when ticking over at marina speed but for some odd reason, the throttle / gear controllers were squealing despite working perfectly. All was well until we took over control from the flybridge. We'd had issues before when it would take several button pushes to engage properly. It had worked perfectly on our test runs around the bay during the winter and very recently but today, a whole new and different irritant!

We headed into the 5:30 barrage lock, with all three control heads squealing nicely. We apologised to the yacht in there with us about the noise and headed out to sea for the first time in several months, following our rather truncated summer trip last year:

The timing was good - as we headed out into the channel that leads to the lock and Cardiff commercial docks, a big guy was heading in:

Being in the narrow channel at the same time as him would not have been advisable!

The start of the trip was pretty good. No rain and we were sheltered by the land from what the sporty NW wind could do. Patrick and Kylie looked pretty happy, even if  poor Patrick is showing his age by going nicely grey, in a distinguished penguin sort of way:

We wondered if Kylie turned her back on the old guy as she still looks pretty young. Harsh considering how long they've been together.

As we passed Barrybados and headed towards Swansea, so the shelter from the land decreased and it got bumpier. Looking at the horizon to avoid seasickness is a good idea that the furry stowaways adopted quite quickly:

As we pushed our way through the short wavelength and quite steep waves being produced by the wind over tide conditions we kept washing the anchor. Yes, the bow of the Nordhavn is a long long way above the waterline. Work it out. We spotted that the HUGE Nordhavn 55 folks Alex and Gisele had left Weymouth and according to Marine Traffic, were on a pretty sporty run to Halifax in Canada:

We sent them a message wishing them a good trip and hoped they had topped up with fuel and food.

To the east of Milford Haven there is a firing range. Despite doing this trip many times, we've only seen it active once and familiarity had bred contempt so the captain hadn't even checked the firing times. Guess what, they called us to say they were active and we had to divert around the range area - see the odd "bulge" in what would have been a straight line track to Milford entrance:

What looks like a little detour on the image actually added around 90-120 minutes to our journey and even worse, took us further south so we then had to head back directly into the wind again with less shelter from the land. We were so happy. Even happier when the best anchorage spot off Dale had a couple of yachts in it. We tried one location, dragged and headed further into the estuary, Sandy Haven Bay, where we finally anchored, all alone. 

The flybridge throttle/gear controller misbehaved once more and the captain captured the error code on the system which reported a "short circuit" in the controller's push button. Only it wasn't. Great end to a bumpy, diverted 14 hour first trip of the season. Things can only get better.

We took careful note of where the pot marker buoys were ready for our departure the next morning, checked the engine which was happy but had burped out some coolant (the pre-departure top up had added a bit too much) and fell on some food. Sleep was going to be short.

Broken Captain, delayed departure

After a couple of days back afloat when we finished the hull polishing, gave the waterline area a scrub and generally prepared to leave we also had some nice weather to enjoy:

Sometimes enjoyment means the aft cockpit with a cheeky G and T. Had to be done. Although it looks nice and tropical, the wind was still keen but sheltered in the cockpit allowed us to believe that summer might arrive soon.

Then a huge spanner in the works. The captain woke up one morning with a painful back / leg in a way that he had not experienced before. It was not a good way. Far from it in fact. Each step was seriously painful so it became a "drag the leg around and do loads of exercises to free the thing up" day. Naturally that happened just after the hull scrubbing escapade and a couple of days after the trip on the horribly uncomfortable train from Southampton. It also happened at a weekend but the osteopath appointment was duly booked for as early as possible. Fortunately the exercises really worked and the captain was fit to get to the Osteopath although the monster hill in Penarth was not attempted - a taxi ride instead. Walking back down was OK though. 

To be sure, we delayed leaving, had a couple more osteo visits and decided to have a quick trip back to Hythe to check on Toddlerville and the exterior decorating that was underway. The scaffolding that is now needed to paint the place was a serious affair and costs more than the work itself:

Fond memories of the first few times we had the place decorated and they just used ladders came flooding back...... The smart scaffolders hadn't asked the Toddlers if they needed access to the garage or wanted to get the car out so it was marooned inside. Brilliant service. To make things worse, the painters who were supposed to start the day after the scaffolders all mysteriously got ill / had an overrunning job so they took ages before starting. The joys of getting work done are unbounded.

During our stay in Hythe we took advantage of Alex and Gisele (yes, the couple with the HUGE Nordhavn 55) being in Lymington to pop over and visit them. On the way through Beaulieu there were more wild donkeys on the green than we've ever seen there. The crew took a quick picture that only captured a few of them and mainly bum views:

As you can see, Avis like to remind folks to drive on the left. 

We much enjoyed catching up with the HUGE Nordhavn owners and hearing about their summer plans. Made us get more serious about ours too.  So, we returned to Penarth, dropped off the hire car (driving on the left of course) and did some final boat prep and lots of weather checks. They were a bit depressing. Loads of northerly / NEly strong winds, not at all ideal for going up the Irish sea.

There was one little weather window for that trip, so we prepared for a nice early morning departure to Milford Haven, followed by an even earlier one the following day from Milford to head north. Tide times can be a nuisance.