The Plan...
Friday 25th June 0700 lock out - 1 Hour before high tide at Cardiff - heading west to Oxwich - or, if we can make it, Tenby...
Saturday morning 26th leave Tenby - head for Skomer Island - spend 3 hours at anchor before heading back as far as Oxwich again if we can make it.
Sunday 27th stay at Oxwich (Three Cliffs Bay) wait out some bad wind, then get going back to Cardiff....
The Crew...
As always in this stage of my sailing career when I visit somewhere new or somewhere I am slightly unsure about I try and take some competent crew with me, so Captain Dan - my sailing instructor / yacht master is on board to lead - as well as Tig - who, as crew, sailed to Iceland and further, and Andy who has been on several sails with me.
Left to right.....
Captain Dan, Tig, Andy and me...
The Sail - in summary...
We had a mixture of dead calm waters to a force 6 with 4 / 5 ft waves - plus as we were mostly doing over 12 hour sails we had the full force of the second highest tidal system in the world - The Bristol Channel lol, so speed at some points was a little over 2 knots!
Going out - we had the wind behind us and so we managed to sail from Cardiff Bay to Tenby under sail, no problems other than the Captain being a bit sea sick - it wasn't so much that it was rough but I guess a small breakfast and the anticipation of the sail got the better of me, anyway as ever my say on sea sickness is just get it out - you will feel better soon after.
We made it in one go to Tenby Harbour where we found a nice anchorage with a pretty steady night, and a nice view of Tenby Harbour (no sign of Wally though lol!)
Early morning start on Sat over to Skomer Island took us about 3 and half hours - which was absolutely amazing! The anchorage here is brilliant, sheltered from almost all wind directions, crystal clear water - and amazing puffins and seals to play with. We anchored just behind a boat that had about 6 divers out - I can only imagine how nice their dive was. We quickly deployed "Big Yellow" my tender and took it in two-man turns to go have a little look around - stunning, my first up and close with puffins - photo is not so good [new camera needed one day!]... but blissful.
After a spot of lunch - pasties :-) it was back towards Cardiff - but just as far as Three Cliffs Bay - this was perhaps to date the most spectacular encounter I have had with our native Harbour Porpoise; at times we had 5 or so riding our bow wave - tilting over to look up at us watching them, and also splashing around at the stern if we hadn't noticed them, it's such a wonderful thing to view, and such a pleasure - I did get a little excited on this video but I don't think you can blame me...
After a pretty decent sleep at Three Cliffs Bay we waited around for a few hours until the wind was predicted to die down, and so that we had less time to battle against the outgoing tide, the plan was to hit Porthcawl at slack tide and catch the incoming tide into Cardiff high water to help take us in against what, at its best, was set to be a force 5. We set sail at 1130, the wind didn't let us down, it got very choppy - but again we didn't feel unsafe or in danger - under motor we came in towards the shore and further out depending on where the less wave breaks seemed, it worked for us mostly and kept us in the most comfy sea state we could find.
We even saw a dolphin just outside Jackson's Bay - which is the furthest towards Cardiff I have ever seen them so that was a nice little treat - perhaps he was keeping an eye on us?
Anyway into Cardiff at the 1945 lock in - safe, sound, hungry, tired but most of all very, very happy.
Lessons learned...
The weather and wind may look bad and considering at times we had a good force 6 I have continued to find confidence in my boat - yes it was a bit rough - yes we did rock and weave - however we felt perfectly safe - the boat took it mostly in her stride - and so my lesson on this trip was... it's sometimes not as bad as it may seem - obviously I am going to say that, I am sure one day it will be "it's worse than it may seem" but for now, all is good, believe in your boat - stay calm - sit down and be comfy and just keep an eye on your bearing.
Any problems...
UV strip coming away - Yup the high winds decided to take my already coming away UV strip to the next level - which is now - large threads and rips flapping about.
I have decided as I am replacing the sails next year anyway - as the UK isn't the sunniest place in the world - to simply remove the UV strip from my Jib sail - I am going to do a quick how to video on that over in Hints and Tips - should you be interested in how we did it.
Also we lost a cupboard door under the oven - and in an attempt to fix the spring latch I broke that too, so new latches ordered, hopefully they will fit.
The aliens...
You what now?!! Yup indeed, four pretty sensible and sober adults onboard - and at least 6 / 8 strange unidentified swimming objects lol.
The BEST way to describe them was drones carrying buoys...in the water. Now we were sailing across military firing zones in Carmarthen Bay and so it is very likely that it was something to do with them, and of course Swansea University has a brilliant marine research section and so it's also possible it was something to do with them, either way we are 100% sure that these devices were motoring under the water - well on the surface - against the tide and making great speed - very strange!
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