Milford Haven to Cardiff Bay (Penarth)

Another one of those irritating trips where to get the best tidal help, you need to leave exactly at the time when the lock into Milford isn't available. This trip needs proper timing too - we mentioned before that the tides down near Cardiff are pretty fierce so we need to be going with them, and arriving when there is enough water around too.

The best bit of the trip planning was that the various firing ranges will / should not be active on Saturday / Sunday so no need for big diversions to avoid being caught in friendly fire.....

So, we opted to leave the marina towards the end of free flow (for the non boaters that means both sets of lock gates are open so you can "drive through". No McDonalds ordering point mid-way though, thank heavens). This was an ungodly 7:30 am in the morning - retired people don't do such hours.... Then we would anchor up in the bay at Dale until departing around 4pm for the overnight run down to Cardiff. We would get about 9 hours of tide with us and only (only?) 6 against, arriving at relatively high water and just as it was getting light - helpful for a new spot and the barrage lock entry that looked tricky for a first timer at night.

Of course, the nice part was the fog. Thick, thick fog. Normally, we wouldn't leave for a trip when the forecast was for it to be "very poor visibility", in new territory for us. No rush, go a day or so later. Well, the fog was promised for quite a while and the forecast said "occasional fog banks".

Of course, we had one at 7am. Seemed silly to be using the radar to help safely navigate out of the lock and down the harbour to Dale. Still, we love the huge 12Kw Furuno radar. Awesome piece of kit that really picks out every detail. We needed it.

As there would be about a 7 metre drop in the tide height we had to pick a suitably deep spot to anchor in too. Despite the pea soup fog, there was still a brisk wind (somehow you feel cheated when that happens) so crossing the harbour entrance was bumpy. The anchor set OK, but then broke out so we had to make a second drop - very rare, think it went into an area with lots of weed. The view slowly got better:

By better, we mean that we could see the shore and some of the buildings that were only 500 metres away or so through a haze:

Of course, by the time we had to depart, it was very thick again so no pictures. Or view of the buoys that we watched on the radar.

Heading south east we had the waves on the nose so had a bit of a bumpy ride close to the shore where the tide was running fast in nice thick fog. The "occasional" in the forecast seemed inadequate somehow.

As we turned to the west, the waves moved to our beam a little more and the stabilisers killed them. Nothing could move the fog though. We heard an LPG Tanker talking to Milford Port control as he approached and was advised that his pilot time was already delayed and that if the fog didn't lift a little, they could not enter the port that evening. See, we weren't making it up or being feeble! Didn't worry the dolphins though - some came along and played with us for a while - great to see the friendly Welsh dolphins after the somewhat sniffy Scots variety.

Running at night in the thick fog always seems eerie. So, we had an eerie trip as it didn't lift at all. Tiring as you are pretty much glued to the radar but apart from commercial ships, there were only a couple of other idiots / brave souls / people in well equipped pleasure boats about. You can decide upon which applies here. Pushing the tide off the Gower peninsular we were down to 2.8 knots at one stage. Of course, that meant rocket assistance and speeds up to 10 knots when it turned with us.

Finally, off Burry Port (near Llanelli) the fog abated a bit. This gloomy set of lights is the port area, just to prove that we could see something.

Strangely, the view across to Watchet on the England side became as clear as the proverbial bell at the same time.

The trickiest bit of navigation was going to be around Lavernock Point, just before you head sort of north up to the Cardiff bay barrage. Lots of banks, overfalls and very strong tides. Of course, the fog really closed in when we got there so you couldn't see lights on the buoys even when passing them about 50 metres away. Great timing.

A big instrument failure then would have been a challenge. We always try to have a "plan" in mind- often just continuing on the existing safe course or if approaching a hazard, making a 180 turn and retracing our steps for a while until we can fix things or revert fully to the paper charts (we always keep a position log). This spot had such strong tides that figuring out the course to steer that allowed for tidal drift would have been really tough - no local knowledge of how the tide eddies around the headland etc. Sometimes, you don't want the radar to fail. OK we have a backup second unit but.... Relying on just the depth sounder to work out where we were would have been equally tough - lots of banks and shallow areas around so picking the right one could have been tricky.

The good news is that all the kit worked just fine. Equally luckily, the visibility as we entered the barrage lock for a 7:15 am lock-in was better. To prove it:

Of course, being Wales it has to be in 2 languages. Here is your first Welsh lesson of this blog - we think it is appropriate as you had some local Scottish & Irish phrases before. We aim to educate as this stuff certainly cannot entertain. OK, small pronunciation test later:

We were wonderfully tired and happy to moor up on a temporary berth in Penarth Marina. Will move to our winter home early in the week

Maintenance news: Nothing earth shattering to report. Before the trip, the Captain added some oil to the main engine (it wasn't down to the fill mark - just did it "to be sure"). Means it has burned about 1/2 of a litre in 260 hours of use. Well within specification. (For info, the engine holds about 20 litres in the sump so an oil change uses a little more lubricant than your average car!)