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.