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.