South West Walesing (if that is a verb?)

After our early morning arrival, we just about managed to drink tea, snooze a bit and then summon up the energy to wash the poor grubby boat off. She had not been treated to a proper wash off for a while and one little rain shower during our overnight trip had deposited a fair amount of Sahara sand on board that had to go. The walk up the hill to the little Co-op shop in Neyland woke us up though. We had a visit from Simon, the yacht surveyor friend who happened to be doing a survey on a yacht here - he is about to take his beautiful wooden yacht off the the Baltic - way braver than us about what might happen if Brexit happens!

As Neyland is a little bit "constrained" (ie lovely setting, great Marina, poor sad little town main street) we had booked a hire car with the nice "we pick you up" Enterprise people. They duly did so and we were let loose on South Wales in a Vauxhall Mokka. Yes, strange car (or at least the version we had was). It felt like many recent General Motors Europe engineered products - OK but.

Where to go? Well a soggy afternoon in Haverfordwest (the big smoke locally) was enjoyed. Then we went to see Fisherman's Friends, the happy, low IQ needed to enjoy it film, was ideal for us. The Palace cinema in Haverfordwest was opened in 1913 and has enjoyed little refurbishment since. The 1960s style display panel no longer showed the film information:

but closer up it displayed the handiwork of several spiders. Their logo is pretty neat and fits the old established independent picture house well:

The information underneath it said that tickets were sold strictly on a first come first served basis. We were prepared, we arrived about 15 minutes before the film was due to start and found the doors locked. They stayed locked for quite a while, then we saw the staff removing the panels from around the ticket counter and refreshment sales bit. The excitement built as they let us in. Yes, you guessed it, we were the entire queue.

They still dish out the old style tickets from the lovely old machine embedded into the counter top. After dispensing two, the man immediately tore them in half. A blast from the past for you:

No idea why as we were the only customers they had. Still, you have to follow process. We were in screen 1 (big area, a circle seating area upstairs as well which was cordoned off). By the time the film started, we were part of a select little band of 13 hardy souls. No idea how many braved the film in screen 2.

It was a lovely retro experience and we hope that the business survives in the days of Netflix, cheap DVDs, streaming etc. Oh, the seats were not too uncomfortable either considering their vintage. There was no evidence of horsehair stuffing either.

A wander around Tenby and Saundersfoot had to be on the agenda too. Chilly but still lovely Tenby:

with a few brave souls getting sandblasted down on the beach. The ferries to Caldey Island and the monastery (in the distance on the picture above) were halted owing to the weather conditions. Poor monks, no noisy irritating visitors or printed newspapers being delivered to allow them to catch up on things like Brexit progress. Maybe being a monk isn't all bad?

Saoundersfoot was pretty quiet:

with only a few hardy souls and their dogs enjoying the beach there. We enjoyed a nice coffee shop then scuttled back to the car for a warm up. General Motors engineered heaters are, we can happily report, fine.

We had an even colder walk around Pembroke and didn't venture into the castle as owing to the winds most of it was closed to visitors. The promised storm duly arrived and for a few hours it was unpleasant. Lots of noise from the bimini cover which we foolishly had not removed for its own good. Also from the fenders, lines and anything not firmly bolted down. This kind of summarises it really:

We can confirm that it was a 10, not a feeble little force 8 gale. Once it had all died down, we took a little trip across to Penarth to catch up with Lorna and the 2 Ps - Pip and Poppy:

plus a very pleasant lunch with Steve and Bron the spaniel.


Maintenance news:

The Captain decided to top up the steering system oil reservoir as the level had dropped a bit in the year since it was last done. The access is pretty poor and you cannot simply pour oil in as a funnel will not fit. We end up using a syringe to squirt the stuff in and then dig out the bike tyre pump to re pressurise the system:

The unit is well hidden away inside the pilothouse helm position - luckily we only need to access it for checks on level / pressure and pump it up very occasionally.

Then a less enjoyable job. the grey water tank pump was not switching on automatically. It worked OK when on "manual" but it was clear that the float switch was not triggering it on "automatic" any more. Lovely job, take the top off the smelly tank time. The float switch is attached to the pump out pipe and not really accessible via the small hole that removing the fluid level senders gives you. It would have to be a major job, taking the top flange off the tank to get better access. Knowing how the holes at the bottom of the float switches can get gunged up, a hopeful captain gave the area a good blast with a hose, sucked out all the water and grot from the tank and then added some Noflex digestor:

to try and clear out any sludge left in the float switch. The next morning, adding water to the grey tank the pump kicked into life and has behaved since. We are still crossing our fingers. At least the tank had a clean out.