Round Britain for the RNLI Blog

The Mulberry is a great pub actually in the Conwy marina in which I spent my last evening at Conwy. That night the staff and customers were incredibly generous and just that evening over £400 was raised for the RNLI. The staff decided to donate the big bottle that was for the RNLI to my trip and it completely filled my collecting bucket!

If you go to Conwy marina please drop in to the Mulberry… you won’t be disappointed.

Visit their web site at http://www.themulberryconwy.com/

Last night I went for a walk and Bangor looks like a great place to stop. The marina is at the heart of the town and it looks a lively and vibrant town too and while out I found a really great Indian restaurant – Taj Tandoori. The service is excellent and the food quite simply superb and if you find yourself here and fancy an Indian meal then you must go there. They have a web site here.

BTW I am not sponsored by them and I mention them purely as an Indian food fan!

When is summer going to arrive? It is the solstice today and it is officially summer but you wouldn’t believe it from the weather. There is a deepening low passing by at the moment and gales are forecast over the next couple of days so I will be going nowhere for a while, yet again. But I have interenet access and shore power on the boat and the marina is right in the centre of town so I should have lots to do.

I will post weather updates at least daily.

UPDATE: It is raining here now.

If you have been following the blog then you will know that I had an aborted attempt to get to Bangor, Northern Ireland, earlier last week. I aborted that trip due to the big seas off the northern tip of the Isle of Man. Well this time I had a westerly wind and after talking to several local fishermen and to the harbour staff I decided that it would be better to go south. This would allow me to carry the tide north for the entire length of the trip and the wind would not be on the nose but more from my aft quarter… a much better situation.

The forecast was for a westerly F4, occasionally F5 but decreasing to variable F2-3 during the afternoon. Normally I would not accept a F5 in the forecast but everything showed that things were calming down and also as I was now going south I had options of Port St Mary or peel should I not like what I see. High tide was 1311hrs so I departed Douglas at 1145hrs.

The sea outside the harbour was flat but Douglas was on the sheltered side of the island and I planed until very suddenly the sea got up uat Langness Point. I had previously been warned by radio that the Langness race was up so I was ready for it and moved inshore to go inside round Langness Point. This race looked absolutely horrendous with huge standing waves but there was a strip of about 200yds on the inside that was easily passable although lumpy.

Talking to the fishermen back at Douglas I asked about going through Calf Sound… the sound between the main island and the Calf of Man, an island off the southern tip. The answer from all of them was it will be lumpy but easily passable. I don’t know if fishermen have a different idea of what “lumpy” and “passable” means but it didn’t work out the way they said it would! The entry to the sound was some of the biggest sea I have been in on this trip. I could see the calm water just the other side of this band of disturbed water. Once in the sound itself it was very calm and sheltered and I thought that was the main job done but not so. It was a little confusing because the water in the sound was flat but right across the sound, full width, was a strip of white water and breaking waves. Oh dear! How was I getting through because I certainly wasn’t going anywhere near that. I was safe where I was and would remain safe there so I edged up to the rough water and took a long, good look. The waves were at least 3-4m and right across… or where they? I noticed that on the right hand side there was a band, about 4 or 5 boat widths wide, that had absolutely no waves at all. Perhaps I could get through there? My concern was that there might not be enough water near the rock and the other fear I had was that I would set off and find that I had missed something which meant that my exit was blocked. I could clearly see that I could get through and my exit was clear… so in I went. It worked superbly. In fact, it was so flat that once through the narrow bit I was planing and skirting around the edge of the overfalls and out into the Irish Sea. So, beware fishermen’s advice… well worth asking but they , like the rest of us, do not know everything about their local patch.

Once into the open sea it wasn’t at all bad. I would say that the sea was moderate mostly but with the tide behind me and wind off my aft quarter it made for an easy passage at 12-14kts. I could clearly see Ireland at about 15nm and once I was within 10nm from the coast I started to move into its lee, the sea dropped and from then on, right to Bangor, the sea was flat.

The decision to go south was a good one and although it added a few miles I am certain that it gave me a better crossing overall as well as giving me a couple of bolt-holes that the north route didn’t have. As expected, I am finding the biggest challenges at overfalls and when passing through sounds… they have many ways to catch you out and great care is needed.

The trip was 65nm, duration was 5hrs and fuel used was 86ltrs. Once again, duration and fuel worked out almost exactly as planned.

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