There were two problems for us. Firstly, High tide on Monday at Cardiff was 09:38 in the morning, and nearly ten o'clock at night. Louise had to be in work by 10pm, and leaving Ilfracombe at Midnight on Sunday evening appealed to neither of us. Secondly, Ishtar is a fin keel boat. The others are mainly bilge keels, twin keels that can dry out in harbours that do so. Our last trip to Ilfracombe had been a very rolly affair, anchored outside in the swells whilst everyone else slept, ashore inside the harbour.
Bearing in mind that our friend Tom had an unused mooring in Llangwm on the river Cleddau, we made a quick decision to join the club cruse as far as Oxwich, and then head down to our summer cruising grounds in Pembrokeshire earlier than usual.
We set off from our pontoon in Cardiff just after 6am, the sound of diesel engines drifting across Cardiff bay, with the scent of coffee from the boats, clasped in the gloved hands of the cold, bleary eyed sailors, as we entered the 06:30 lock out.
As part of our ongoing learning curve, I retired below and left Louise to it. She raised the sails and set off, doing everything, checking position, making entries in the log, watching the depth sounder, marking the charts, adjusting the sails, judging when to tack, constantly busy, making decisions, sailing Ishtar the nearly 50 miles to Oxwich, the sound of just the wind and the water far nicer than the sound of the engine earlier.
There were boats all over the Bristol Channel, tacking this way and that, some close inshore, others further out. Louise sailed all the way, only finally switching on the engine when the huge spring tide meant that our tacking upwind was almost taking us backwards.
Louise had never anchored before, and was keen to try. She made some mistakes, but eventually heaved over the great hook and 35m of chain, motoring gently astern until the boat jerked to a stop as the anchor bit. We joined some friends aboard their yacht for beer, wine, japanese rice crackers and other nibbles and drinks, Louise delighted, and rightly proud of her growing achievements as a sailor.
As the sun set over a crowded anchorage, we returned to Ishtar and settled in for a peaceful night, rocking gently, the sound of the waves lapping against Ishtar's sides.
High pressure had dominated the UK over the previous three weeks. The forecast had that set to change. The warm, calm sunny days, with frosty mornings and light winds would be replaced by wind and rain before Easter was over. Typical UK bank holiday weather.
When we awoke and upped the anchor at 6am on Saturday, that change had already started, as we set off from Oxwich westwards, Louise once again helming as we passed the Helwick bank and started our crossing of Cardigan Bay.
I simply could not believe it when, a few hours later, our engine cut out again and refused to start. The dreaded 'diesel bug' had plagued us last year, but all new fuel pipes, switching to white diesel instead of red and dosing that with a bug killing chemical had, we thought, solved that problem. Deeply disheartened, I rigged up a fesh Jerry can and we limped into Milford, our tail between our legs.
Our spirits were soon raised as the sun came out again, and the spectacular blues of the spring sky were simply stunning as we passed under the Cleddau bridge and headed up river.
The tide was huge. Up at Bristol, the other end of the Bristol channel, the difference between high and low tide was around 45 feet! In Milford, it was a much more reasonable 25 feet difference. All that water moving in and out every 6 hours showed:
Tired, but relieved that we'd made it safely, we opened a bottle of wine. Trying to discover what had caused our engine to stop would be best left until morning - it was starting to get dark anyway. The last time we were here, Louise had absolutely loved sitting on deck, listening to the folorn calls of an owl in the oak woods. As she sipped her wine, tonight, she called down to me 'My owl!, I can hear my owl!'
Another peaceful night. We slept in the forecabin - the new bedding and upholstery Louise had worked so hard during the winter to make was supremely comfortable, and we slept well.
