As we passed the fort we heard angry words on the VHF, channel 12 - the port authority channel. A tanker skipper was shouting about a yacht who, it seems, had narrowly missed colliding with his vessel in the narrow channel. We couldn't see any problems ahead, so continued on our way, passing other tankers as we did so.
Just before Milford, we saw a professional dive boat, presumably carrying out maintenence on the jetty. Compared to many dive boats, its dive flag was huge, but still not overly clear from a distance. We usually use a much smaller flag - a point I will have to think about.
Three buoys in a row then, as we passed the town of Milford on the North side of the river, the Cunjic, Milford Dock and Milford Shelf buoys.
Louise sailed on, up past Castle pill towards the Cleddaue Bridge:
From behind, we heard the roar of big engines, and had a lovely view of the Angle Lifeboat, heading up river on exercise:
Looking back towards the Pembroke Power station, we could see other yachts enjoying the same weather as us:
And then, as we passed Hazelbeach, I spotted a wall. In the middle of the next picture is a road, running up the hill. Towards the top of that road is a van parked on the left, and opposite that is a cream coloured wall. I painted that wall!. Well actually, iI was helping a friend paint it, but he was far better at talking than he was at painting, and so I ended up doing almost all of it. I think he was aware of this, and has history in these things.......
Further up again, towards Neyland, and we could see the Angle lifeboat attending what appeared to be an open day at Neyland Yacht club. There was racing there, too.
From then on it was far less frenetic. Louise sailed us up, under the Cleddau bridge into the peace and tranquility of the river. The wind dropped in the sheltered river valley and the warm sunshine took over as we passed Lawrenny and picked up the mooring at Llangwm. Louise made some lunch with Ciabattas and goat's cheese with warm red tomatoes and Olive oil as the tide peaked, and then began to gently ebb away back down river.
Sailing downstream was more difficult. A beam reach became a beat and, as we passed back under the Cleddau bridge, we could feel that the wind had picked up a lot. We were getting speeds of 27-28knots apparent wind, and, with the spring tide ebbing against this, Ishtar kicked up a lot of spray as we cut through the chop. This was more a question of getting back to the mooring and getting it over with, rather than enjoying a sail. As we passed Milford, we could see a pilot boat ahead. By now we were motoring, sails down.
We turned to pass port to port, but it turned towards us. When we again turned, he turned again to cut us off. I went below and could hear him calling Ishtar on the radio. He requested that we cut across to the other side of the river, the South side, to avoid a berthing anker in the strong winds. We obliged happily. I wondered later whether this was related to the near miss with another yacht in the morning.
As we passed Angle bay the engine pitch dropped. My heart sank, as visions and memories of recent fuel problems came flooding back. It was just a momentary blip, though, and I later thought that we may have hit a branch, or rogue piece of rope.
The pilot boat we spoke to earlier then set off out to sea for the next ship, bouncing through the chop as it sped Westwards:
The wind picked up still further, although by the time we were approaching Dale, the fetch was reduced, and the size of the waves reduced too as we rumbled into the moorings. Louise took Tigger ashore, we had some Pasta with pesto, and a quiet night aboard Ishtar with a bottle of wine.
