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.

Falmouth to Neyland (Milford Haven)

Alarm clock setting. Not fun but has to be done sometimes. The run to South Wales from Falmouth normally takes around 26 hours but with the BIG spring tides if we were careful in how we used them, could be done way quicker. If we left at the wrong time then we would burn a lot of fuel for no good reason.

The plan looked like a 9am departure (so not too early - happy crew!), pushing a little tide down towards the Manacles and then using the ebb tide all the way to Land's End if we cruised at around 6.5 knots. Then, all being well, we could get the back eddy form the tide around Land's End and have assistance all the way up the coast and for several miles north of it too. Afterwards, to avoid arriving in the early hours of the morning, we could drop our cruise speed a little to pitch up as some light was arriving. Not that we don't already love and trust the FLIR! It looks a bit like:

The kink in the run to Wales was because we allowed the tidal streams to push us around a little rather than fight them. You don't see the little kinks that were caused by a flotilla of Belgian fishing boats.

It was a misty start, heading south from Falmouth we saw the usual gaggle of anchored big guys, including the Stena Ice Max, a huge drilling ship with some impressive capabilities:

Rather than quote the quite incredible numbers, read website information on her.

Talking of gaggles, there were plenty of pot markers around the Manacles as usual and heading down towards the Lizard. As the wind was not too wild and despite the strong tides which can cause spectacular overfalls off the Lizard, we were able to cut inshore of the "calm / safe" offshore route, We were smoking (OK, smoking for a Nordhavn 47) along (for non-technical people, look at SOG, which is speed over the ground):

We actually got up to 11.3 knots but the camera was not out then. Dolphins joined in on the way to Land's End as did some misty foggy stuff. The new radar was busy. As we got closer to the turn north so the promised couple of metre waves on the nose appeared but they were a nice swell off the Atlantic with a long wavelength so no nodding into and over them was needed. Going around Land's End the mist cleared a bit:

Well, we did say "a bit". Visibility was pretty bad until we were well into our crossing of the Bristol Channel. Hence Longships lighthouse was shrouded in grey too:

We had timed things to take the tidal back eddy north with us and for once it worked perfectly, more rocket assistance as we headed up and away from the north Cornish coast. We pulled a little power off  - 1475rpm - crossing the Bristol Channel as 1) we are mean and wanted to cruise at a very economical speed and 2) we wanted to arrive in Milford just as it started to become light and take the tide with us up through the estuary to Neyland. The night watch view now is a little bit like this:

with a relatively empty FLIR screen to amuse us:

as you can watch the antics of the birds very clearly. The white blob on the screen is one. Later on the antics of 5 fishing boats kept the crew busy trying to second guess their next twists and turns. As the evening was a suitably balmy one, the pilothouse door remained open and the crew got to hear some dolphins surfing passed and peered over the side to watch them in the dark whilst the captain slept.

As we approached Milford entrance, so did a tanker. We went into the eastern entrance and slowed down for him to pass just as day was dawning:

Just out of the big boys channel to the south were innumerable pot markers of varying quality. Right where everything bar the big ships is supposed to transit the main harbour area. Words fail again. Still, with a big spring tide pushing us hard, we roared up to Neyland. The crew went out to deploy lines and fenders only to find we had a passenger come stowaway:

This little guy had been with us for a while based on the number of calling cards distributed around the walkway. You can see a couple in the picture. Rumour control says that he/she is a Manx Shearwater and that half the UK population of them live on the tiny island of Skomer, our favourite anchorage nearby. The crew, suitably gloved, picked up our intruder and he/she happily flew off with no attempt to peck or defecate on the nasty interfering human. Later on the crew read that as they so rarely have any human contact they are not scared of us (silly bird) and that they tend to fly at night to avoid being caught by nasty seagulls when returning to their burrows. We hope that the crew did not condemn this little one to a grisly death. 

Arriving at Neyland the marina did not answer the radio calls or the phone. We nosed up the river, looked for a free hammerhead (could not see one) and so squeezed onto a small finger to wait for someone in the office. Arriving before their 7:30am start time was not ideal - one downside of the record fast passage from Falmouth. Having made contact with the rather late to arrive dockmaster we moved to our allocated spot, settled down and enjoyed tea and a snooze. What a way to celebrate our arrival.

The trip that normally takes around 26 hours was only about 22 this time thanks to careful use of the strong spring tides (and luck that the captain's half thought through rough plan sort of worked out). Nothing dramatic to report, the wing engine got a little run, we learned more about the new electronics and the boat behaved all OK. No nasty bumpy bits, just a nice long wavelength swell to contend with. Our fastest ever trip around from Falmouth went pretty well really.