Across Cardigan Bay

August 11, 2021

We had expected monday to be a pretty grim trip through the Straights, but as soon as we entered the main channel at Conwy (just outside the marina), the decks became awash with seawater.

With the wind well over a force 6, and a short choppy sea, the spray from the bow was constant, and smashing into our faces like hail. This made visibily poor, and we had a hard time just trying to look where we were going. This made tacking up into the straights hard work, and slow progress.

Once in the Menai Starights, we were already running late, and the wind didn't ease, so we had a pretty unpleasant ride through the Swellies. The Swellies is a narrow stretch in the Straight, where the water gets pushed through, between the underwater rocks and Islands.

Navigation is tricky, and your not recommended to go through any later than High Water Slack. Arriving more than two hours late, we rushed through at over 12kts, meaning our transit was extremely fast (we were through in not much more than 3 minutes), and terrifying. With the strong spring tides, Falanda was pushed in all directions, making it hard to steer through the narrow gaps.

When we were off Port Dinorwic, Dad decided he wanted to stop, so after a quick discusion with me, I had to follow suit and pick up a bouy.

The convosation was something like this:

"I'm cold and wet, I need to get changed, we're stopping."

"but Dad we have to get through by 3.15pm.."

"Your cold too we're stopping."

"but....."

-"I'm cold, and wet, pick up a bouy now."

"Dad..."

"ahahr we're stopping"

Although I was extremely frustrated, I couldn't win against Dad, so we ended up locking in to Port Dinorwick. There's a sand bar at the other end of the Menai Straights, so we could only get out untill 3pm, meaning it would have been tight, and we couldn't afford any wasted time.

Pulling into the harbour, I though we would miss our weather window, and would have to there for over a week. I didn't fancy catching the next tide, as we would be completing our transit of the Straights at night, and arriving late at Fishguard, against the wind. It felt like the end of the world, but after getting out of my waterproofs, and checking the weather, things seemed a bit better. The southerlies weren't then forecasted to come in untill Tuesday evening, and after some thought, I decided we could make it.

At 10pm that evening we locked out of Port Dinorwick, in the pitch black. The first obsicles were the mooring bouys, right outside the lock, and with no moon, we had no chance of seeing them.

After that there were the shellfish farms, unmarked on the chart, and the Navigation bouys. With so many underwater dangers in the channel, there were loads of flashing bouys, that all merge into one mass of lights. Then the lights of the cars, and trains seemed almost blinding, completely taking our attention away from the route.

Once out of the Straights, it became more straight forward, and we soon passed through Birsey sound, and entered open water. By that time the sun was about to rise, so I tried turning on the autopilot, so I could go pee. Soon, however, I discoved it wasn't working, so told dad I thought it had got wet. "Its designed to get wet, don't be silly."

After manual steering for 19 and a half hours, I was knackered when I arrived in Fishguard, and quickly dropped the anchor. Once dad arrived he came over to have a look at the tiller pilot, and after it blew a couple of fuses, we concluded it had got wet.

I had also heard a couple of stange noises in the engine, as we neared the harbour, but couldn't see anything major so had to leave until we got in. Dad joined me once anchored, and we found that the bearing on the fresh water pump was beggining to go.

We will be stuck here at anchor in Fishguard untill Sunday, with nothing here, so will write again with updates soon.

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