Falanda Sailing

Whilst still anchored in the bay, we discovered the Water Pump on my engine was starting to wear, so I needed the parts before we could safely get moving again. Luckily, a friend in Milford Haven was able to pick us up, and help us find the bits we needed, for my engine, and the tillerpilot. This was amazing because otherwise we'd have had to chance the engine, and wait in Milford haven to get the parts. The people in the Marine Electronics place were very helpful, and soon discovered that we'd had so much water washing around the cockpit whilst going through the straights, that the tiller pilot was completely full up! They didn't have another pilot big enough for Falanda in stock, so ended up putting the parts from the old one, into the casing of the smaller one - therefore giving it maximum power.  We then moved in alonside the town dock, which I was a bit nervous about, having never dried out like this in Falanda before. Luckily both boats settled in nicely, with Amaryll...

 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 ...

After being stuck in Conwy for almost a week, excaping the SW blow, we're aiming to set off again tomorrow morning!  We've met loads of people here, and have once again been blown away by the kindness of complete strangers. We were  driven to Tesco on our first day here, and met a family sailing on their boat, with their two daughters. Although Tuesday was spent varnishing (the entire boat), and chatting to other boaters, a couple were kind enough to come down with a bag of fresh food, including a freshly baked cake!  The rest of the week turned into a rainy, windy blurr, (plus a small attempt at schoolwork) untill we were invited round to the house of a local sailing instructor, who has his Mini 6.50 here in Conwy Marina. It was nice to have a home cooked meal, and hear all about his racing!  Tomorrow we're hoping to get through the Menai Straights, which still seems kind of terrifying, despite all the help and advice I've had from the locals. I've also been advise...