Tag: Wales

The journey so far from Portishead to Kinsale has been a lot of fun. I think we are getting in to the swing of things and the nerves of leaving the UK have diminished over the last week. Its dawning on us now that the boat is truly home for the foreseeable future and the whole world lies ahead. Its been lovely too to have Ethan and Caleb on board, although they are already eating us out of house and home!

The day we left Portishead, the weather wasn’t very nice. The Bristol channel was putting up a fight as usual, with the wind on the nose gusting up to 30 knots and a short sea. Not to be daunted, we were prepared to put up the fight when with 2 hours our new furler that had been put on during the re-rig at great expense decided to start chafing through the furler control rope. Unable to fix this at sea, we were forced to turn on the engine and motor the rest of the way round to anchor in Swansea Bay off Mumbles Head. Not a great start!

The same day we left, our good friend John also sailed out of Portishead on his mission to cross the atlantic too!

Safely at anchor the next day in the Mumbles and with the furler issue fixed (fingers crossed) imagine our surprise when the red arrows suddenly flew across the bay over the top of Azimuth?! They really didn’t need to put on such a show just for us as we set off on our journey! Turns out that this was the weekend of the Swansea Air Show, unknown to us! And here we were in the bay with ring side seats to the whole event. In the right place at the right time? That never happens to us. That would explain why there were also so many other boats in the anchorage, where previously we had never seen anyone anchored here before We decided to stay, especially as it was still blowing hard out in the channel, and enjoy the show.

After a great weekend, we left the mumbles and set sail for Dale in Milford Haven. The Bristol channel other ideas, so after 6 hours of tacking, we gave up and went to Caldey Island just off Tenby instead! The next day we tried again, and had a great sail in to Dale dodgy the two firing ranges on the way.

Dale is a great place to anchor and we stayed for a couple of nights looking for a weather opportunity to cross the Irish Sea. At 130 miles, you need the right wind, and definitely not on the nose. Given the price of diesel these days, we don’t want to motor anywhere anymore, and now we have all the time in the world we don’t have to!

Ethan declared he was desperate to go to a pub! So we decided to take a visit to shore in Dale and visit the local shop and pub. We also went for a walk along the coast path which turned out to be very picturesque and well worth a visit if you are ever in the area.

The beer tasted really good after the walk, and so did the pizza takeaway from Dale Yacht Club!

So we were sat in Dale, looking at the weather for the crossing, and it didn’t look very promising, nothing consistent for days. What appeared was some short bursts of Northerly winds the next day interspersed with patches on no wind. So we decided, what the hell, lets just go for it. The crossing turned out to be a long one. The wind was actually as predicted, so we had periods of sailing at 9 knots interspersed with hours of being totally becalmed in flat seas in the middle of the Irish sea buzzed by fishing vessels and passenger ferries.

Finally we arrived in Kinsale about 8pm in the evening and motored in to the spectacular entrance of this vibrant town.

We have had a great time in Kinsale and were there for nearly a week. This little town is steeped in history. The Spanish invaded in 1601 and held the town for a month until they were kicked out again by James 1st. He built a fort at the entrance to the harbour to protect it. The spanish left their mark though with countless references throughout the town. In 1682 Charles 2nd built a much bigger fort that dominates the entrance to Kinsale which is shown in the picture above, and you sail in past it.

We had a chance to meet up with our freinds Niall and Bernadette whom we purchased Azimuth from on that fateful day 4 years ago, where a deal was struck in the pub! We have never regretted it since, and it was great to see them again and share sailing stories, and talk about all our plans ahead. It was also a great treat to see Zora sail in to Kinsale the day after we arrived and anchor up in the river right next to us. Sam and Rosie joined us for a raucous evening hosted by Niall and Bernadette on their fabulous boat La Courette in castle marina. Many thanks to them and we look forward to seeing you again before we depart Ireland!

Here’s some more pictures of us enjoying the delights of Kinsale!

A few days in to the stay we were delighted to welcome Ethan’s friend Joe back on board Azimuth for a couple of nights. The lads went out for a big session in Kinsale one evening!

Despite Ethan’s hangover, the next day we talk a walk round the harbour and visited Charles Fort which was a great afternoon out.

I tried to recreate a moment in the Pearce family history involving our kids sat on cannons…. Not sure it worked that well?!

Finally we had to say goodbye to Joe and Ethan. Ethan is off to start a new working life in Belfast. We wish him all the best of luck and we shall miss him! STAY IN TOUCH ETHAN!!

Time to move on down the coast and revisit some more of our fave anchorages and explore some new ones ….

Saturday 4th September, 2021, Kinsale to Dale, Milford Haven

We woke up with thick heads! Both feeling hung over and had not slept well. So we headed in to Kinsale to get some supplies for the trip back and then pulled up the hook after some lunch and with a heavy heart (and head) started the long trip back to Wales.

The winds weren’t ideal for the trip back, but now we had no choice if we were to make it back in time for Vinnie to start college. Sailing on a schedule never works! It was a good start though, as we sailed out of Kinsale Harbour doing 8 knots on a beam reach. The forecast for the wind was from the South East and was due to veer further South later. That never happened! We had to fight our way across the Irish Sea. The sea state was not too bad, but the wind angle meant we could do one tack all the way up the coast to almost 15 miles from Dunmore East on the South East corner of Ireland. Then the wind completely died.

We motored for 6 hours directly towards Milford Haven towards the Traffic Separation Zone just off the first of the Smalls. Now the wind picked up again and we tacked our way across the TSS. Finally after waiting almost 24 hours, that Southerly wind kicked in. The last 25 miles were bliss with 6-8 knots at 60 degrees apparent which whisked us right round St Anne’s Head and into the entrance to Milford Haven. We motored the last couple of miles in to Dale and dropped the hook with a big sigh of relief.

165 miles in total; 28 Hours of sailing, and the 8th crossing of the Irish Sea! Arrived Sunday 5th August @ 1700.

Monday 6th September, 2021, Dale to Portishead.

No rest for the wicked as they say. There was still 90 miles to go to get back to Portishead. In the end it was very easy. The wind gods decided to take a couple of days off. We were sad to be leaving and entering the muddy waters of the Bristol Channel once more, but we were looking forward to being re-united with Vinnie again!

We motored the whole way to Combe Martin, taking advantage of the strong tides. We saw a huge pod of dolphins, which is rare to see in the Bristol Channel in our experience. The the dreaded fog descended and we had to very slowly edge in to Combe Martin Bay to drop the hook for a 6 hour rest whilst we waited for the next tide.

Off again at 0100 to catch the tide….

It was a beautiful starry night as we motored back up the channel. We could clearly see the milky way, Jupiter and Saturn. It was a quick motor back on the Bristol Channel super highway, averaging 9 knots and as the sun came up, we were on the last leg up to Portishead. Finally we arrived at 0700 with an easy lock in and tied up at our old berth…. like we had never left!!!???