When we arrived at Caernarfon Victoria dock marina we went to the harbour office to pay and found they had a lot of printed handouts for transiting the notorious Swelly rocks between the two Menai bridges. The tide can run at 7-8 kts on Springs. Fortunately we were a couple of days from Neaps, so there should be a lot less tide. There had been some doubts if the tide was going to work to get out of the marina when the gate opened and get to the Britannia bridge at the correct time.
On Thursday morning my crew Mike, who is working towards his RYA Yachtmaster, and I sat down and sifted through all the information we had in the hand outs, the Almanac, and the charts. It involved looking at tides based on Dover for the information in the Almanac and Liverpool in the handouts. One very useful bit of information in the handouts was the predicted gate opening time.
We came up with a detailed passage plan that we both agreed on giving us over an hour to exit the marina and reach Britannia bridge 5.5nM. The danger was arriving too early.
Michael and Nick arrived to discuss the next section and we already had the passage plan to get us to Conwy with plenty of water over the bar and marina cill. Everyone agreed and we waited for the gate opening.
Pretty much to schedule the gate opened. We slipped our mooring on Jeddo. Being on the outside of a raft were the first boat to exit. We got outside the marina and drifted with the tide putting away fenders waiting for the other two. When everyone was ready we turned and started our passage towards the Swelly rocks. With a little over 1kt of tide we gently pushed on. Looking back I realised we were leading a convoy of 6 or7 boats. No one made any attempt to overtake and get ahead which was a bit unnerving., but we carried on. We reached Britannia bridge 3 minutes ahead of our planned 15.00 arrival. The dreaded Swellies looked like a mill pond. We pushed on following the transits and chart plotter and were out the other side in under 10 mins.
We continued on past Bangor and Beaumaris when Nick radioed to say there was a swatch way ahead that cut about 5 miles of our planned route. A closer look at charts and tides we cut across the sand. The least we saw was 3.3m under my 1.2m keels. It was like being back in home waters. A little different to the 45m that’s under the keels as I type this.
We arrived in Conwy earlier than planned. As we were pulling into our allocated berth the crew from the next berth appeared to help take our lines. We got chatting and mentioned that Mike need to get to the station in the morning to get a train and or bus to get him back to his car parked Pwllheli marina. “You can’t do that, it will take hours, I’m going home to Anglesea in the morning, I will take you there,” said Pete our neighbour. We said it wasn’t necessary, but he insisted.
It’s amazing how kind people can be. It came out he was crew on Moeller Lifeboat.
Friday morning saw us say goodbye to Mike who is hoping to be able to return a bit further on, and do some chores on the boat, then sightseeing in Conwy.
Today we are on our way to the Isle of Man. We are not sure how it is going to work as the TT races are on, so it’s going to be busy.
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Enjoy reading your update David and thanks for looking after Mike. He was buzzing having really enjoyed his short time with you.
If going to the Isle of Man, I suggest you go to Peel rather than Douglas. There is a motorcycle museum alongside Peel Marina. The facilities are far superior in Peel and it is only a short bus ride to Douglas. Look at these 2 posts from my Round Britain in 2022, sailed anticlockwise.
https://forums.ybw.com/index.php?threads/round-britain-day-83.586483/ Peel
https://forums.ybw.com/index.php?threads/round-britain-day-85.586602/ Douglas
You could also find my videos on YouTube worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/@FulmarConcerto
Hi Roger, from what we heard in Conwy, we were expecting Douglas and Peel to be jammed due to the TT races this week, so we opted for Port St Mary in the South West corner. I haven’t got round to writing up yesterday’s trip, but the wind was on the nose for all 60 nMiles, ranging from next to nothing to about F5 for the last few hours, so another day of motoring. We caught a bus into Douglas this morning and watched the warm up lap. Having waited for an hour after the road closures for the warm up we decided not to wait another hour for the race start so walked to the sea front and around the marina. There were empty berths, but the road on one side was very busy and noisy. I have no idea what Peel was like, but Port St Mary is very quiet. Heading to Ardglas in the morning.
I missed Ardglass, but visited Strangford Lough (Portaferry and Quoile Yacht Club). Belfast is definitely worth visiting. Then head for Ballycastle and Rathlin Island before heading into Scotland.