Route

Route

Notes

Friday Night Meeting

We got together as a group on Friday night to discuss options. We had Sylvan, Ocean Mood, Alfresco, Synergy, Hwll Dda and Genesis. Between us we came up with the exact route plan as above. And if you believe that... Actually, we decided Porth Dinllean followed by Aberdaron was a reasonable and achievable goal. We knew Abraxas were already under way in Caernarfon and had word that Meganza wanted to join us.

Saturday 31 July - Beaumaris to Victoria Dock
We set off in high spirits for Porth Dinllean. As we got closer to Caernarfon we jointly decided that crossing the bar in the good SW F5 we had experienced was not a good idea. Some of us went into Victoria Dock and some to Abermenai. We noticed the weather decrease as we walked into town on the way to the Royal Welsh YC. We decided a good bet would be Aberdaron the next day.

We passed Rod's (LOM from Moelfre) on the to Victoria Dock:

Sunday 1st August - Victoria Dock to Aberdaron

We had word from Abraxas that she was en route to Aberdaron so looked forward to meeting up in the Ty Newydd pub. The sail through Bardsey was finely timed and sure enough Abraxas was waiting for us when we arrived. We managed to hijack a table overlooking the bay and watched Meganza turn up and Charles row ashore. It looked like he was had seen a barbeque but when he saw it wasn't us he started back to his boat. Derek from Abraxas then demonstrated his fitness by running along the beach to intercept him, shortly thereafter all 8 boat crews were in the pub socialising. On the way back to the boats, the surf had built up and my mobile phone proved it was not of marine grade by failing to recover from being dunked in some salty water.

We noticed many boats going the wrong side of the buoys on leaving Caernarfon - maybe forgot the changeover buoy?

When we got to Aberdaron, it was pretty calm:

Monday 2nd August - Aberdaron to Fishguard
This was to be the longest sailing day - crossing the whole of Cardigan Bay in one go. Given our boat sizes were between 25 and 38 feet we all stayed together and arrived within a couple of hours of each other. We had a small amount of wind to help us, but everyone had to motor sail at some point to make time. Crossing the bay for the first time, some boats were worried that Aberporth Marine Control were going to start shooting at us. Sure enough, halfway across, they started up on the radio "Vessel at position N52 24.888 W4 51.014, this is Aberporth Marine Control, Over" followed by several more"Vessel at Position X, Over"
and we realised they were tracking our fleet across the bay. Genesis called them up to explain, and to everyone's relief they reported that they were not firing that day. Not quite sure what we could have done if we were in the middle of the bay in a boat capable of doing 5 knots! When we got to Fishguard we were warmly greeted in the Ship Inn, a pub that we came to know very well over the next week. We decided on an early start to Solva the next day, and the promise of a day off. We had to negotiate Ramsey Sound at LW slack the next day. Hwll Dda and Meganza were splitting off at this point, as Hwll Dda only had a week off.

Tuesday 3rd August - Fishguard to Solva
An early start but a quick finish was promised. Not very nice, but not very frightening weather greeted us.

Slack in Ramsey Sound occurs right in the middle of the tide - not entirely expected.  I was quizzed on this by Synergy and Alfresco at 6am - gah!

Some boats barely made it through Ramsey Sound before the adverse tide built up too much, we realised setting off a bit earlier would have been a good idea. However, as we came into the beautiful harbour of Solva, the clouds cleared andthe sun started beating down. The harbour master gave us a warm welcome and we went ashore to book all 15 of us (6 boats) into the Old Pharmacy restaurant. The restaurant coped admirably and split the bill into boats.

Solva is a very small harbour and we rafted 3, 2 and 1 deep. As we floated up, we felt a bit like being in a zoo as people strolled along the busy harbour wall looking at our boats. Nothing to complain about though - as the comments were all "What a nice bunch of boats", although someone remarked it was typical to see boats in a harbour and not out at sea! As this was our first day off sailing it made us all roll our eyes. The showers were also a bit of an experience, apparently the ladies featured a very cute mouse.
The next day was a rest day - the harbour master took us to the local garage where £180 of fuel was bought between the boats. Genesis and Ocean Mood went to the excellent Indian (no draught Indian beer though) behind the Ship pub.

Thursday 5th August - Solva to Fishguard
A relaxed mid day start and a good sail at last back through Ramsey Sound and we were back in Fishguard. We managed to find a launderette in Upper Fishguard (just up from Nisa) and we felt refreshed.

Ever appearing was the rather frightening Ferry!

We had a few days off in Fishguard, with variable weather making the crossing to Aberystwyth an aborted one.  The Ship Inn in Lower Fishguard made us very welcome, and we stayed an extra day for Lifeboat day:

The wall was fabulous - £5 a day, includes electric and water. The system they have there is long metal rods down the wall, with rings that go up and down.  Tie on to the rings - no need to work out how long your lines should be.  Marvellous!

Friday 8th August - Fishguard to Aberystwyth

The following day promised calmer conditions, which were delivered:

We were lucky enough to encounter some dolphins:

We took a day off in Aberystwyth and looked around:

We went up the hill to see the Camera Obscura, which was rubbish.  No actually, it was very interesting mainly to show what a weird bunch the Victorians were.  This was the view with eyeball mark 1:

We took the train up and walked down:

9th August - Aberystwyth to Aberdovey

The next day wasn't an early start - we had to leave on a rising tide to get into Aberdovey on a rising tide.  As we left Aberystwyth, the swell at the entrance was very big, with little water.  Fortunately, we made it fine.  A good sailing day.

We got to Aberdovey very quickly, ahving to go out a bit to avoid the Patches:

We tied alongside the wall.  This has the worst ladder in the world, as it was set into the wall and you had to lean out to get onto it from the top.  And it was quite hard to judge the rope lengths:

Easy to misjudge!

We were visited by a Swan family:

We had a picnic / barbeque on the second night, and watched new club boat Mentor come in.

A good bit was the disabled showers in the yacht club, you get the whole room to yourself.

11 August - Aberdovey to Barmouth

Another short little trip, we got into Barmouth at high tide.  Quite a nice short sail for us in the sunshine:

The first thing we did in Barmouth was look at our old boat, Jenna:

She was looking well cared for.

We went alongside the wall and had Abraxas next to us.  When we settled we were at a crazy angle - so we went down the pub.  Ocean Mood were in a worse position.  We actually got asked by somebody how much a ticket was for a ride - they must have thought we were a jolly boat!

Later that evening, we were in the best pub we could find having a meal when Nigel came in to report the boats were jiggling around like crazy things on the wall.  It was nearly high water, and apparently that always happened.  Anyway, Jerry was starting to get memories of his nightmare in Mevagissey when his boat was scratched.  We all decided that despite the low price, Barmouth was a complete rip off.  Full of Birmingham people were being fleeced by the locals.  The meal we had was awful, I visited a butcher and got some terrible bacon and sausages, and we got some scones from a baker that were terrible.  Barmouth is off our list I'm afraid. 

12th August - Barmouth to Pwllheli

We had planned to go to Porthmadog but the vote on the way was to go to Pwlhelli as the sea was quite rough.  Option of last resort really - Pwllhelli offers little shelter, and it is exorbitantly expensive.  Still, it does have a nice yacht club

13th August - Pwllhelli to Aberdaron

Aberdaron again, and a perplexing question over when Bardsey slack is.  It was blowing pretty strong northerly (F6)

 so the south facing beach did off some protection:

There were some interesting sand sculptures on the beach:

Saturday 14th August

The next day we took the earliest estimate of Slack in Bardsey - I think this when you get a back eddy appearing against the flood.  We managed to get all the way back to Beaumaris, radioing Victoria Dock that they were going to get visitors (Sylvan and Ocean Mood) later on.

On the way past Menai Bridge, the next club cruise was setting off:

Lessons Learned

• Fishguard is cheap - £5 a night
• Solva is also cheap - £10 a night
• Aberystwyth is dear - £31 a night
• Pwllhelli is ridiculous - £32 a night
• Get some very large blow up ball fenders for staying on walls.
• Use the disabled showers in Aberdovey - you get the room to yourself