| Date | Saturday 29th April 2006 – Monday 1st May |
| Time | 1000 |
| Tide UTC | 29 1130 7.92 2351 7.74 0548 0.71 1810 0.81 30 1212 7.56 0632 0.94 1852 1.20 1 0032 7.45 1256 7.08 0717 1.28 1935 1.66 |
| Crew list | Carolyn and Glen plux Roxie |
| Distance | 42.8 miles |
| Time | Location |
| Outward: Saturday 29th April | |
| 1014 | Set off |
| 1109 | Swellies |
| 1120 | Brit. Bridge |
| 1535 | Llandwyn (Mermaids Cove) |
| Return: Monday 1st May | |
| 0833 | Llandwyn (Mermaids Cove) |
| 1124 | Brit. Bridge |
| 1130 | Menai Bridge |
| 1230 | Mooring |
The weather forecast from WindGuru Pro for the weekend predicted very light winds and warm and dry. We left the beach in the dinghy at first float and congratulated ourselves on getting off so quickly. John Lomas also left at roughly the same time.
Soon after we had got on the boat we realised we had left our brand new coats on the beach, so we sternly told Roxie to stay and set off back to collect them. On the way back we noticed a shape in the water – Roxie, deciding she was going to go ashore! So we met her on the nearest beach, loaded our now smelly wet dog onto the dinghy and went back to Jenna. By now our early start had degenerated into “on-time”!
We then followed the fleet (Enigma and Stargazer) to go through the swellies. We entered just on slack water. Halfway through we saw Stargazer come the opposite way (having turned around), with Des shouting had we seen his tender. Apparently he had just noticed that it was no longer attached. Suzie then appeared on her 50hp little rib, just at the right time so we sent her off after it. She saved Des about 20 minutes and he re-joined us shortly after Britannia Bridge.
We had planned on contacting Derek Jones on Cloth Porridge at Caernarfon. He had shored up to the pier near Morrisons and was doing some shopping; we radioed him when he was in the supermarket! He and us and a couple of other boats then talked about the destination – Derek had heard that a couple of other boats were in Aber Menai and that it was crowded. After a bit of banter we all elected to head straight for Pen y Parc. There was the usual formidable current:
Crossing the Bar was no problem, whereupon we came across our first real winds of the day at 20 knots. We sailed on to Pen y Parc with some speed. There was then a second con-flab over the destination with several boats believing Pen y Parc to be too exposed and wanting to go to Llandwyn instead. We heaved to for a while to see what the decision was. Llandwyn was elected as our destination.
Llandwyn or Pen Y Parc?
We noticed that several club boats had very poor radios. After the Bar Cloth Porridge led the way onto the beach in Mermaids Cove. It was dead calm:
Calmness at Llandwyn Island
and we took to the ground very smoothly. Shortly thereafter we had front and back anchors out and were walking Roxie in the sunshine. Thereafter we sipped beer and wine in the cockpit in the late afternoon sunshine, with Jenna firmly on the ground:
Drying out in Mermaids Cove
A barbeque had been planned on the beach, so we organised ourselves and got things ashore. By now the tide was coming back in; I lifted Roxie off the back diving platform and we walked the dinghy ashore.
The boats that joined in our barbeque were: Cloth Porridge, Jenna, Stargazer, Enigma, Safari, and Adela. We found a good spot to set our barbeque up. Des came ashore in his dinghy, which then very quickly refloated on the rising tide prompting Des to go running after it in some haste.
Adela's crew made their way ashore with Des helping, unfortunately the lady somehow managed to fall in the water and soak herself:
Adela’s wet crew member
We then settled down to the important business of enjoying the company with wine and beer: As the night progressed, Derek made his trademark pancakes: Around 2200 we made our way back to the boat which was by now well floating in dead calm conditions.
Derek Jones' Pancakes
Sunday 30th April saw a slightly less pleasant day which was mainly overcast and a bit cooler with lower air pressure. However, it was warm enough, and we had some friends over at about 1130 for lunch. We helped Derek who was climbing his mast fixing an anemometer for his new wind speed electronics. He couldn’t quite get the lead down the mast so decided to put it down the shroud.
Stargazer also stayed on anchor the whole day, with the other boats heading off to Cable Bay for a sail, returning in the evening.
That evening Derek cooked us some very delicious stuffed peppers with mincemeat and spaghetti, that we ate aboard Cloth Porridge whilst leaving Roxie on Jenna. It was getting windy by this time so we tied a line between the two boats to help us get back in the dinghy. We spent the evening drinking wine, beer and playing cards.
At about 2200 when we returned to Jenna we were very glad of the line which made getting back much easier. I tied the dinghy to the line to help prevent it getting away. At this point the wind was about 20 knots and blowing directly onto the stern, with high tide. The night itself was a bit unpleasant – we were floating for almost all of it, and the wind turned to blow directly onto the bow. I kept checking the boat’s position and noted that CP had gotten much closer. The dinghy had also got tangled in the line between us and had lost an oar. Derek was up at this point as well and recommended untying the line between us. I re-tied it and went back to bed (not much sleep though).
At about 0400 we settled back onto the beach, the wind died right back and we had some sleep. When we awoke in the morning, the dinghy had lost it’s other oar and our fender had wound up on the beach. It appeared that Cloth Porridge had dragged it’s back anchor which explained it’s proximity. We decided it would have been better to loosen our back anchor (which had been firm).
We had breakfast and made our plans to return back. An 0830 start was decided, which would get us back to the swellies in plenty of time to hit the slack at 1229 – we wanted to go through an hour early at 1130. We heard there was a lot of radio traffic between Stargazer and Enigma at this point. It had seemed that Des’s tender painter had got itself around his propellor, and his batteries were pretty dead from not running his engine on Sunday. His radio also didn’t work very well except on channel 69 so calling the coastguard was a problem.
Derek Jones set off to hand his handheld VHF to Des, who by now had decided that he needed the lifeboat to come and rescue him. A dramatic VHF handover then occurred: VHF handover, Cloth Porridge to Stargazer We then all headed off to the Bar as Treadour Bay lifeboat was on it’s way. Holyhead Coastguard were unsure about crossing the bar – TB have an Atlantic 75 like Beaumaris. The sea up to the Bar was moderate with up to 3m waves:
The Straits were much calmer and we were able to use the whole of our Genoa, and didn’t need to raise the main. We hurtled down the Straits with a good tailwind and strong current helping us.
We arrived at Britannia bridge at about 1030 – too early we though to go through, although Enigma and Safari both went through. We moored up to a mooring outside Plas Newydd and had a cup of tea and cake. We made our way through the Swellies at 1130 and took the tide all the way back to our mooring.
Later we found out that Des had had a bad night as well – he had dragged his anchor, which then pulled Enigma’s anchor out. He had also had Porth Dinllean’s all weather Tyne class lifeboat come out to take him over the bar and into Victoria Dock:
So all in all an exciting trip and one that Des Founds may earn himself the Rock Trophy for! Lessons learnt: – only ever have one pile of stuff on the beach to put into the dinghy – Be careful if tying boats together overnight – make sure the oars can’t get caught up – Don’t rely even on an up to date Wind Guru weather forecast – prepare for worse (which we had in actual fact).
Lessons Learned