Aborted trip to Cemaes
| Date | Wednesday 16th August 2006 - Saturday 19th June 2006 |
| Time | Wednesday 1645 - Leave mooring 1730 - Realise we've left the pump behind 1830 - Back on mooring Thursday 0630 - Leave mooring 0730 - Puffin Sound 1615 - Arrive Castletown Saturday 0800 - Leave Castletown 1745 - Puffin Sound 1815 - Back on mooring |
| Tide UTC (Beaumaris) |
16 0316 7.03 1548 6.46
1005 1.75 2231 2.07 17 0421 6.43 1701 6.07 1112 2.23 2349 2.41 18 0543 6.00 1826 5.95 1232 2.51 19 0710 5.90 1944 6.13 0116 2.43 1352 2.49 |
| Crew list | Carolyn and Glen |
| Distance | 6.2 miles aborted trip 64.7 Outbound to Isle of Man 63.8 Return to Beaumaris |
Aborted trip to Cemaes
Isle of Man and Back
We worked pretty hard on the Wednesday to make sure the boat was ready to go - loaded with water, fuel and provisions, radar reflectors hoisted. We had planned to leave after high tide and ride it around to Cemaes. We had made all the calculations regarding tide and determined a magnetic course of 356 degrees to take us to Castletown from Cemaes, leaving at 0545 UTC. Unfortunately, not too long after we set off we realised we had left the dinghy pump on the beach where we pumped the tender up. We decided that it wasn't a good idea to set off without it, so came back to Beaumaris, and would set off direct to IoM in the morning. We re-did all our calculations for Puffin Sound to IoM and determined a new course of 344 degrees magnetic. As with our last trip, we would be taking little notice of the GPS other than to take hourly fixes.
Next day we set off bright and early at 0630. We had a NE close haul wind, but there wasn't very much of it, and slight sea state. So in the event, to make our journey shorter in time, we motor sailed most of the way.
The visibility wasn't brilliant - about 5 miles. For the first umpteeen hours, we encountered no other boats at all, and most of the journey we were completely alone, horizon to horizon with no land or other vessels in sight.
At 1430 we were taken unaware by the Mersey Viking, a fast good looking ferry that goes from Birkenhead to Belfast:
Mersey Viking
It had already taken action to avoid us - and had had got alarmingly close before we had spotted it over our left shoulder. We had kept a good look out as well. Within minutes it had crossed in front of us:
The Mersey Viking crossing in front of us
We checked the charts and we were passing over the squiggly pink lines indicating high speed craft (see above chart). We then spotted a number of other ships (Sea Truck being one), but none of them passed as close as the Mersey Viking. We kept our course exactly the same as you are supposed to.
On the last part of the 10+ hours to Castletown, the sun came out and we begun to feel that the end of the journey was near. We tried several times to raise the harbour master but to no avail.
Glen, thinking of the first pint in Castletown
Our approach into Castletown was spot on - our calculations had been correct. The first part of IoM visible was Langness Point:
Langness Point
The Red cardinal marker greeted us into the bay:
Castletown red buoy
We noticed another boat gingerly edging her way into the harbour:
Entering Castletown
This boat had decided to take the end ladder of the wall, leaving us to squeeze in the middle. We did this fine, but the bigger boat elected to move anyway.
Soon we were tied up to the wall and heading into town for tea. We went to the Tapas bar, they had no tables inside but offered a table on the upstairs terrace (outside). We decided to risk it - it wasn't actually raining but did threaten. Anyway, the food was excellent, washed down by a rather nice Pinot Grigio.
Later in the Glue Pot pub, we met up with some people who had gone onto the wall in front of us on another bilge keeler ("Imminent"). We invited them back to our boat, which was probably a mistake as Glen promptly disappeared off to bed leaving Carolyn to entertain them!
Roger, skipper of "Imminent"
The next day, we took the steam train to Douglas. It was raining and windy all day, with poor visibility - we hoped it would clear up for the Saturday return trip home!
We finally encountered the harbour master as we were preparing to leave. We had done the honest thing and left a note with contact details in the office, but in the event we paid him and got the up to date weather forecast from WindGuru. He only charged us for one night as we had no access to facilities such as showers (and perhaps because he wanted me out of his office as soon as possible lest his nose explode from the smell).
The journey back was accompanied by another reach of less than 10 knots in a slight sea. We noticed a problem with the water pump - it was dripping. So every hour or so we pumped the bilges out (it was only a cup full or so, and the electric bilge pumps got rid of it in seconds).
This time we kept an eye out as we crossed the pink squigglies, but didn't see anything. We estimated visibility to be 5-10 miles (depending on which direction you looked).
After about 27 miles, we noticed some yachts on the horizon. We knew the club had planned to do a trip to IoM on the Saturday, so I went below to call "Any North West Venturer Boat". John Lomas answered and he confirmed that him and another new member boat were going across. He was the only entrant, but was getting bored with the sailing as there was very little wind - despite the forecast 4-5 occasionally 6! It was good to make contact with another Venturer.
We noticed some Puffins in the sea on the way back:
Puffin
There were two of them but the elder one dived for cover.
We were actively looking forward to encountering some big boats on the way back, finally we had some company north of Anglesey:
Ships, at last!
There were quite a number of ships crossing in front of us this time. We did not hit any of them.
We got a good picture of Ten Feet Bank, resplendently guarding the Straits, with Dinmor in the background:
Ten Feet Bank, with Dinmor in the background
As we entered the Straits, we came across Sarico:
Sarico
We also saw Skye, but couldn't photo them in time.
We had a plan to get back to our mooring in time to get to the fish and chip shop in Beaumaris by 1930 (when they close). We made this with 15 minutes to spare!
When we looked at the track we had made (aside from the hourly fixes on the chart), turned out to be pretty direct - different from our last trip, so we determined this was either because the tide was less fierce, or because our leeway had cancelled it out. In any case, our course calculations were spot on.
LESSONS LEARNED
Big ships can get to collision range in less than 10 minutes - so take extra care when crossing pink quiggly lines
You can make a pretty straight line to IoM sometimes.