Penarth to Falmouth

The forecast was about as good as you will get for a trip down the Bristol Channel, around Land's End and up to Falmouth. So, we had to take advantage of it. The timings to take advantage of the strong tides was not ideal, the optimum was leaving and arriving in the dark. Didn't fancy that at all as there are too many feeble pot markers around the Falmouth entrance. So, we opted for a "least worst" approach instead. That involved taking the 12:00 lock out from the Cardiff Bay barrage.

Leaving Penarth for the last time this winter was a little sad, here we are heading out from the marina lock, just to prove the the sun does shine in Wales:

We had to disrupt the walkers and cyclists in the same way that we have been halted several times on our walks by getting the bridge lifted for us:

We were all alone in the lock, except for folks watching and for Lorna, her mum and the two fluff ball dogs who came to wave us off:

As it was only 2 hours after low water, we dropped quite a way down so you get to see lots of the lock gates as they opened to let us escape:

It was sunny and calm. Pretty good really but we had waited on purpose until the weather gave us a favourable "window" for the trip. Barry Island (also known as Barrybados of course) from the water looked almost appealing:

The more industrial parts of Barry were much less appealing:

We had an excellent run, pushing the tide initially of course. The sun and calm conditions made up for that. Sunset over Lundy Island was glorious:

and the overnight passage down to Cape Cornwall and Lands End was good too. Mind you the "variable" wind in the forecast was, of course, a westerly for our run from Cardiff down to Land's End, where it promptly changed to an easterly for the trip around to Falmouth. On the nose for the whole time. How does it manage to do that? Naturally it was at its bumpiest around dinner time. Here is the route for those not familiar with the area:

A nice calm Land's End gave good views of the Longships Lighthouse:

The sunrise and view over the water as we headed south past it was just lovely too:

That is what cruising is all about - you can see how calm the normally confused area around Longships was. It doesn't get much better than this. Thanks to the nice weather, we could cut close inshore at the Lizard peninsular so the required picture of the lighthouse there is less distant than normal:

It didn't look as though there was much haze but the picture suggests otherwise. As we rounded the Lizard and headed up towards the Manacles, we spotted the first of many pot markers. We were back to the land of footballs in nets, black flags and total frustration with inshore fishermen again. For those that are interested and feel like signing the electronic petition:

The voluntary guidelines just do not work.

We happily arrived in Falmouth and trundled up river, amazingly were we not held up by the King Harry Ferry (for the first time in ages) as that crossed ahead of us:




Our favourite spot on the mid-river pontoon above Smugglers cottage had some space despite the best efforts of some guy who thought that it was OK to berth his yacht on one side of the pontoon and dinghy on the other. En route we saw the one laid up ship this year:

You can tell that the world economy must be picking up, the river had been full a few years ago.

For the terminally numeric and those hoping for maintenance news:

The trip was quite a quick one despite not leaving at the optimum time for the tides. We ran at 1650 rpm and as it was nice and calm, averaged a good speed over the ground. We took 29.5 hours from the Cardiff barrage locks to the mooring at the top of the Fal. Probably our quickest ever on that run.

Fuel burn was around 300 litres which averaged out at 1.4 litres per nautical mile travelled through the water.

Maintenance - well there was none to report luckily. The winter layup didn't seem to have upset the boat too much. The Autopilot lost its navigation input a couple of times as it has over the years but instantly regained it. Still no idea why this happens on the odd trip. Most strange.  The main engine threw out a little coolant after the wide open throttle run approaching Falmouth. This was the first long / hard run since we changed the gearbox oil cooler O rings which meant draining and refilling the coolant. Maybe we overdid it a little when topping up - will keep an eye on things.

All in all a very satisfying first trip of the season.