Penarth to Milford Haven

As always, a spell of nice weather coincided with some very early tide times. Escaping from Cardiff ideally we would lock out through the barrage around an hour before high water. Then we get the supercharged tide help pushing us west for several hours and we are in the wider bit of the channel by the time the tide turns against us - where it runs much slower. Yes, high water on our chosen day was around 5am so we endured a 3:45 alarm. Actually we didn't, as always when you set an alarm, you wake up well beforehand, In this case, well was a good 90 minutes. So, a little bit sleep deprived, we prepared to head off on our first proper trip of the year.

For some unknown reason, the autopilot which had behaved perfectly during our test run around the bay decided to misbehave, randomly kicking into "Follow up lever" mode as we left the berth. Interesting - that mode stops steering using the manual wheel from working. Guess what we were using to get out of the marina and into the barrage lock? So, the autopilot had to be put back into standby mode by prodding a button a couple of times. Grr.

One other yacht joined us in the 4:30am barrage lock -a singlehanded man only aided by his dog. The dog was rubbish at putting out and then recovering fenders by the way. We timed it to get some visibility, rather than rely on the FLIR and radar for the start of our trip.

The forecast had promised us a nice day, and the sun peeped out just in time to illuminate one of the uglier landmarks in the area:

The now defunct Aberthaw power station. Not the loveliest of sights really.

Heading down the channel, the crew made tea using the electric kettle - you can see how the domestic alternator was rather busy supporting the inverter to power the kettle - 129 amps:

The captain knew when it was likely to be delivered too - the load dropping back to a way more normal 40 odd amps:

The route is a simple enough one, heading along the South Wales coast, avoiding the shallow bits and then rounding up into Milford Haven:

The weather conspired to help us beautifully. Initially taking the tide with us we were heading along at a nice rate:

9.8 knots over the ground, only 6.4 or so through the water at a leisurely 1600 rpm. Very economical. There was very little other traffic about bar this guy who was anchored right in our path:

and the picture shows just how calm the sea was. This wind strength kind of explains it:

0.8 knots true wind speed. Wow. In fairness it did go up to around 3 at times. You can see how little the boat was moving by the roll and pitch angles:

and that was with the stabilisers inactive. Amazing weather. As we approached Milford, Martin and Inge on Malaspina reported that the south anchorage at Skomer was pretty empty so we decided to head there, make a slightly longer trip and go and enjoy the puffin antics again.Then, they reported that a mist was developing - we could see what looked like the start of a bank over to the west so we opted to just head into Milford Haven. Tiredness played a part in that decision too. So, we dropped the hook in Sandy Haven bay and relaxed enjoying the late afternoon sun. Great first trip, shame about the early start really! Around 12 hours out to sea in very benign conditions is a great start to the cruising year.

Meanwhile, Martina nd Inge were enjoying the delights of the Skomer anchorage and the puffin antics. As they are both commercial pilots we think they found the puffins landings a little bit "bumpy". To explore the area, they took their kayaks and paddled through the nearby caves too:

We added in their picture as we've never paddled through there - not got any kayaks on board, lots and lots of other "stuff" but a kayak free zone.

Maintenance news:

The autopilot's bad behaviour when we started off was strange, it was perfect when we did our trial run around the bay in Cardiff shortly beforehand on. When it fired up at just after 4am, it was OK then suddenly changed itself from standby to follow-up mode (ie control via the follow-up lever in the pilothouse). Hitting the button on the follow-up lever to put it back into standby mode didn't switch it back either. Most different, strange and annoying behaviour. You could hear what sounded like a relay trying and failing to latch in the "brain" of the unit. Out to sea, it repeated this self induced switch to follow-up lever operation a couple of times when we were in "navigation" mode (ie following a course sent by the Furuno navigation kit) which was equally annoying. As we got further into the trip, so it happened less frequently. A self healing issue? Never happens with a boat it seems.... Well, maybe it is a case of never say never? Our fingers are crossed. The autopilot is a key bit of kit for us, you don't hand steer a Nordhavn for long, just in and out of berths and trickier areas. 99% of the time we are on autopilot.

Fortunately we have a redundant setup with two autopilot computers and two power steering pumps fitted. If the worst happened we will swap over to the other computer and pump. If it is the follow-up lever itself that is misbehaving, we can unplug it or replace it with a used but good spare we have on board. Hence we were happy to leave Penarth and see how things developed.

On a more positive note, the recently tinkered with stuffing box on the main engine prop shaft was just fine. It dripped nicely and stayed at a most tepid 20 degrees or so (Centigrade that is, Fahrenheit would be very bad indeed).