Milford Haven to Bangor (Northern Ireland)

After our rather early 3:45am alarm the day before, a 6:15am wake up felt like a nice lie in somehow. Only it wasn't. Still, it did mean we got to enjoy a lovely sunrise:

which made the industrial bits of Milford Haven look less, well, "industrial" and ugly. The anchor was retrieved together with a fair bit of the sea bed and we headed off, timing the trip so we had a fair tide west to St David's Head and then around the corner as we headed north. We also wanted a fair tide running close to the Northern Ireland coast at the other end so our departure was arranged around that.

The sun was out, and leaving the haven around 7am seemed almost like mid-morning. Here is the little lighthouse at the entrance bathed in early morning sunshine:

and how everything looked from the pilothouse:

We passed Skomer, admired the many puffin antics and rounded the headland and rocks to head north rather enjoying the calm weather and seas. All pretty quiet too, several tankers anchored in St Bride's bay but very little on the move:

The day continued to impress. Light winds, slight seas and deep blue water:

We happily trundled along at just over 1600 rpm, watching some TV, being amazed at how far offshore we could still pick up a mobile phone signal thanks to the new antenna and all in all rather enjoying the trip. A pod of dolphins came to play with us for a while and that always adds to the excitement.  Naturally, at the helm you need to have all the critical things close to hand:

By evening time we were off the North Wales coast, only we could not see it as the route takes us pretty much up the middle of the Irish sea. We did get to enjoy the colours of the sunset though as some night time clouds built up:

The wind picked up a fair bit, from the NW,  so the trip got a little bumpier but nothing too dramatic, just more noise from the waves against the hull and the stabilisers had some work to do. Overnight things were pretty quiet, until during the crew's watch, a gaggle of fishing boats appeared ahead of us. The crew probably has a less pleasant and not to be repeated collective noun for fishing boats though, so she woke up the Captain to navigate through the gaggle:

Actually it was easy, no course alteration needed for that lot, just a minor detour for one lone guy a little later on. Sunrise was welcome although the captain had enjoyed watching the seabirds on the FLIR (infra-red camera) bobbing about and then taking off ahead of us. The sun said hi nice and early:

and the wind had eased and shifted a little too, pretty much spot on as per forecast. Here is the route we took, including the run from Cardiff to Milford the previous day. You can see the one long leg up the Irish sea, nearly due north, of over 150 nautical miles. 

which takes quite some time at our 6.4 knot cruising speed.

Approaching the Northern Irish coast, we actually slowed down a bit, dropping to 1475rpm because we were about an hour ahead of our expected timing. Mainly because the sea had been so calm meaning our average speed was higher than we allowed for. We slowed to allow the tide to turn and help take us up the coast, inside the Copeland Islands and on to Bangor. The engine had a wide open throttle burn as usual to clean up the exhaust and piston rings, whilst the crew prepared the lines and fenders:

You can see how blue and calm the waters of Belfast Lough were. Such a treat and probably the easiest and fastest (31 hours) trip up the Irish sea we've had. Berthing was simple too, we called Bangor marina on the radio, the lovely and helpful Victoria answered and scarily remembered our names as well as the boat. Ken and Debbie were waiting on our allotted berth to take the lines as we backed in. All good. 

Rather tired we managed to wash the salt from the hull, walk around the town to get our legs working again and consume a rather wonderful raspberry and white chocolate scone too. After getting our second wind, Keith and Bailey the Jack Russell popped in to say hi. Bailey is the best trained little dog we've met and he had fun trashing one of Izzy's already well chewed toys:

It felt like we were in our third home.

Maintenance News:

Perhaps things do fix themselves. The autopilot behaved impeccably for the whole 31 hours. No funny relay clicks, no switching itself to follow-up mode. Maybe the contacts were a bit corroded from the enforced layup whilst the captain's shoulder was recovering from surgery and they cleaned themselves up in use? 

Nothing else to report, the machinery and electronics all worked just fine. Bit reassuringly boring really.