In the last couple of blog entries I have attempted to bring
you up to date with what we have achieved with Wendy Woo, both in terms of
ongoing maintenance and also repairs and upgrades. In this post I am going to cover our ‘Big
Journey’, leaving the familiarity of Milford Haven Marina and heading out into
the open sea.
Back in 2019 when we made the decision to buy Wendy Woo and make her both our home and source of adventure we envisaged summers spent cruising around the seas, spending most nights at anchor and only occasionally entering marinas to replenish supplies. Our winter months would be spent tucked up in safe harbours sheltering from the worst of the weather, picking up work where we could in order to fund the following year’s sailing. Unfortunately, reality sometimes has other plans and so it has been for us.
Sailing Wendy Woo from the south coast of England to Milford Haven was meant to be the first stage of a longer adventure. However, we became ‘stuck’ there due to a combination of factors. One of these factors was that we became comfortable and safe in the marina. We built up friendships, recognised the convenience of railway stations and supermarkets, and became familiar with our surroundings. We started to question why we had left the security of living in a house. Also, the longer we stayed the more nervous we became at the prospect of open sea sailing and the vagaries of the weather. We needed to move on.
Now, before I go any further I want to clarify something. I have titled this blog entry ‘The Big Journey’. To some people what I am about to describe is a mere jaunt along the British coastline. We often hear of people planning their TransAt (crossing the Atlantic Ocean) or heading off to The Med, but that’s not us. The thought of spending weeks crossing oceans with nothing to look at other than water and sky does not fill us with excitement. We’re also not about ticking boxes on a bucket list. I am not decrying those that do, and long distance sailing (especially solo or short-handed) is a significant achievement, but not for us. Ever since buying Wendy Woo we had a desire to head to the west coast of Scotland. Nearly thirty years ago we spent our honeymoon in the area and we have had some family holidays here too, but always from the land. To see this coastline from the sea would be something else. And so it was that this spring we started to plan seriously for heading north.
As with any journey, and especially one involving sailing, there is a great deal of planning to do before setting off. We started obsessively looking at weather forecasts, tidal predictions, navigation charts, and talking to lots of people who had done, or planned to do, what we wanted to do. Gradually a plan came together. The collected wisdom of the people we talked to was to head for the Irish east coast and work our way north until we could cross back over to Scotland. The Irish east coast has many more options for anchoring or harbours than the west coasts of Wales and England. However, there was one major hurdle – crossing the Irish Sea.
Like many areas of the world’s seas and oceans, the Irish Sea has a reputation of being violent and intimidating. Large tidal currents flow in and out and strong winds can whip up the sea state alarmingly quickly. Not in a Southern Ocean kind of way, but challenging enough to make us nervous about crossing over to Ireland.
A chance conversation with another couple of boat owners in the marina led us to agree to travel in convoy. The loose plan was to leave Milford Marina and head for Arklow in Ireland. But the weather and predicted sea state had to be right. We also wanted to arrive in daylight. The distance from Milford Haven to Arklow is about 85nm and would take us 17 hours provided that we could maintain 5 knots. This meant that, given we wanted calm weather, we would be motoring most, if not all, the way across.
Conditions started to align for a departure date of 20th May and so, at 3 o’clock that morning we slipped our berth in Milford Marina for the final time and headed out through the lock gates on freeflow. Our journey began.
We rounded St Anne’s Head as the sky was starting to get light and headed due west to clear Grassholm Island before pointing the bow at Arklow and motoring on. Initially we had a light breeze and the tide to help us, but they soon died away so we increased the revs to maintain 5 knots and keep up with our travelling companions. The surface of the water was like silk and we had a pod of dolphins escort us for a while. It’s always a thrill to see them playing around the boat.
We gradually saw the Welsh coastline disappear behind us and our sailing companions pull away from us in their faster boats, but knowing that they were out there with us gave us great comfort as we willed the Irish coast to appear. And after many hours the Irish coast did indeed appear (funny how that works!) We anchored in a small bay just outside Arklow for the night after 17 hours of motoring. It was an amazing feeling – we had finally faced and cleared the hurdle of our mind, the Irish Sea.
The following morning we raised the anchor and headed north for Dun Laoghaire. It was another calm day but we knew that strong winds were on their way and we wanted the shelter of a marina once again. We were on constant watch for fishing pots along the coastline, of which there were many. Catching one of these lines around our propeller could be disastrous and they are a significant concern for many sailors. We motored north for about 7 hours before arriving at Dun Laoghaire. The marina is vast and the entrance was very busy with boats of all shapes and sizes coming and going.
I had telephoned ahead and been allocated a berth and one of the marina staff was on hand to help us tie up. Knowing that strong winds were imminent and would last for a few days we booked for a week to give us chance to explore the area and Dublin.
Neither of us had been to Ireland before and, stepping ashore, we were struck by how ‘European’ the town felt. Zebra crossings and road signs in particular gave the impression that we could have been in mainland Europe. Dun Laoghaire itself is a vibrant town with good restaurants and bars. We met up with our travelling companions to savour my first (and second) pint of ‘real’ Guinness on Irish soil. Delicious as it was, I could not face a third pint in quick succession.
A daughter of a friend of ours from Milford Haven lives and works in Dublin so we met up with her to say hello and also get some tips of places to visit and eat. It was great to get some tips that avoided the usual tourist traps, thank you Aphra.
And so, having booked to stay in Dun Laoghaire for seven nights, the weather window started to appear after four and we made the decision to forfeit the extra nights in favour of getting further north before the next weather system would be upon us. The wind was quite brisk for departure and, once again, the marina staff were on hand to give us assistance. What we hadn’t appreciated was that there was a yacht race in progress in Dublin Bay and we had to cross right through the fleet. Furthermore, the water was very choppy and there were several commercial ships entering and leaving the port of Dublin. Needless to say, the first hour or so was full-on concentration and a test of seamanship. However, once we had rounded the headland at Howth things calmed down and we made for an anchorage at Skerries for the night. This proved to be a calm anchorage although we did ride over our anchor chain which meant that it rubbed against our keel for a good portion of the night.
The following morning we headed further north. I had picked out a potential anchorage off Newcastle Harbour which looked like it would give us shelter from the breeze that was set to pick up from the south. We managed a good sail north with both wind and tide in our favour for a change and anchored off this small harbour. However, as the night wore on the wind really started to pick up and I became more and more anxious that the anchor would hold. The swell also got worse and we were being rolled around to such an extent that sleep became impossible. As it turned out, the anchor held fine but as soon as it was light we continued on our way. Our sailing companions decided to strike out for Bangor in Belfast Lough; however, we felt that it was too great a distance for us and so made for Portaferry in the entrance to Strangford Lough instead.
Entry into Strangford Lough and Portaferry is a challenge to say the least. It’s best to time your arrival for the start of the flood tide and head up the narrows with the tide. Portaferry itself is on the north shore of the narrows and is quite tight. Our timing was pretty much spot on and we ‘shot’ up the channel making about 9 knots over the ground. Wendy Woo has never gone so fast! However, to enter the marina you have to make two 180 degree turns and navigate through a very tight neck to round the breakwater. I made the first turn to turn us into the tide and our speed immediately dropped to 2 knots. It then felt like I was driving Wendy Woo up on to the beach before making the second turn to head straight at the pontoon. Thankfully there wasn’t enough time for us to accelerate too much before the harbour master was able to grab our lines and secure us alongside. They say it’s good to raise your pulse rate every now and again, and that certainly did it for me!
Portaferry is a lovely small marina in a beautiful setting. The ‘facilities’ are extremely basic; however, the feeling of open space, mountains and forests, and lots of wildlife were a tonic after the busy-ness of Dublin and a couple of sleepless nights. We ended up staying there for 6 nights whilst another storm passed through, but we made the most of getting off the boat and stretching our legs with some good walks. I want to say a big ‘thank you’ to Padraig, Portaferry’s harbour master for his assistance, and his very welcoming and friendly approach. He runs this small marina single-handed and always had a smile on his face and a willingness to help anyone. I highly recommend making a stopover at this place. Of course we were constantly looking for the next weather window to get us further north.
We left Portaferry with the ebb tide in a reversal of our arrival procedure and shot back out into the Irish Sea to head north once again. We motor-sailed towards Belfast Lough making good progress until we hit a foul tide. Rounding Mew Island on the southern entrance to Belfast Lough was a real struggle. We had about 3 knots of tide against us and it seemed to take forever to turn in to the Lough. However, we made it eventually and anchored in Groomsport Bay for the night. Once again this proved to be a very uncomfortable anchorage with a side-on swell and very little sleep. We made the decision early the next morning to head for Bangor Marina a little further in the Lough to wait out the next set of storm winds forecast.
Bangor Marina became another extended stay. We needed a two-day weather window to cross the North Channel and make it to Campbeltown and then Tarbert, but every time we checked the forecast there were very strong winds to the northwest of Ireland. We ended up spending eleven nights in the marina waiting for our moment. In retrospect this gave us a better overall impression of Bangor and Belfast. On initial arrival Bangor seems to be a run-down seaside town/harbour and, had we not stayed longer we may still have that view. However, over the following days we got to explore the area much more and really warmed to the place. Also, we might not have made the effort to visit Belfast, a city that has had a difficult past.
We found Belfast to be a really vibrant, authentic place, and actually preferred it to Dublin which, on reflection, was perhaps trying too hard to fit the stereotypical ‘Irish’ experience. Having said that, both cities warrant further exploring which we hope to do in the future.
And so finally the weather gods smiled upon us. We left our mooring in Bangor Marina and pointed Wendy’s nose at the Mull of Kintyre. We could see it way off in the distance across the North Channel and we had the tide with us for the next 6 hours so we made good progress.
However, after a couple of hours the visibility reduced and rain started to fall so we lost sight of the Mull for most of the way. We could see our destination on the chart plotter but all around us was grey sky and grey water.
and after 9 hours of motor-sailing we entered Campbeltown Loch and anchored up in flat-calm water and sunshine.
I’d like to end this post by saying a big thank you to Daryl and Evelyn on Carpe Diem and Chris and Jacqueline on Hussar IV, for encouraging us to slip our lines from Milford Haven and leading the way across the Irish Sea. Having made the decision to sail in convoy it made it harder for us to talk ourselves out of going, and knowing they were out there with us was a big comfort.
In my next post I will talk about some of the sailing we have done since arriving here in June. Until then, thanks for reading this somewhat lengthy post.
Very enjoyable blog Dave, nice to know you are settled and enjoying 🏴🏴😎
ReplyDeleteSteve, Milford 😎
DeleteThanks Steve. There's so much to explore up here
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