Almost there

A frustrating couple of days. We left Neath yesterday morning, after arranging for my father to give us a lift. When we met John at the boat, he said we'd be delayed as the forecast had worsened. We'd stay with him at Saundersfoot and get a lift back to Neath today.

Gutted.

By 22:00 last night it was looking better again, so once more we began to anticipate.

Spent today doing last minute jobs on the boat, a final fresh food shop and then set off for a shakedown sail.

That was when I started to smile. The way Chelone cut through the water, her 75hp turbo charged engine purring was nice enough. When we raised the mainsail and felt her 17tonnes heave forwards it was even better.

Louise and I showed the others how to reef the main, and shake out the reef again. We then steamed under the cleddau bridge and everyone had several turns at each job in the man overboard procedure. All good.

We returned to the marina and nervously checked the grib files for wind strength. All systems go. We leave at 07:00 Sat, tomorrow at first light.

So, Louise is warming a curry for us. The others are dropping off their cars and arranging lifts. A few hour kip and then, at last, we leave.

Countdown

Just spoken to the skipper, John and it's a go. Looks like tomorrow or Saturday.

Last minute goodbyes, lockdown the house. Deliver Tigger to my mother, organise a lift to Neyland, move into our cabin, then it's goodbye UK for a couple of months.

A huge mixture of emotions. Exhilaration, excitement, nervousness, anticipation, worry and so on. Ah well, too late to do anything now. Let's just go and see what happens.........

M.

Test post

This is a test post from a google nexus 7 tablet. If all goes well, i`ll type the blog entries on passage using this and then upload them when able.

Chelone floats!

Apologies for the delay on this post. I managed to type the title in on my phone a couple of days back, but I could not get it to accept any text......

Friday morning. The alarm went off at 05:45. A quick coffee and Louise, Tigger and myself piled into the camper van and headed off down to Pembroke dock to watch Chelone being launched. An hour and a half or so later, on a cool damp October morning, we approached the boat, hanging on straps in the launching cradle.

John turned up soon after, and before we knew it, the driver of the launch cradle was moving Chelone towards the slip. Around 16 tonnes of expensive sailing boat, dangling by a couple of nylon straps.

Just before going in, I grabbed a tin of antifoul and painted over the places where the pads of her cradle had been. I could only just reach.

A few minutes later she inched her way down the slip and into the cold waters of the Haven, at just about the top of the tide.

And that was that. Engine on, a short trip of about 50 yards and she was tied up on the pontoon.

Then we split up. The boat needed to be taken a couple of miles down river, to Neyland Marina. Our van, John's car and Ross' (the other crew member) car were parked at Pembroke dock. Someone needed to drive a car across the Cleddau bridge to Neyland Marina. I really wanted Louise to go with the boat - she's worked so hard these last few months, so many night shifts, putting money in the bank so we could afford to go. I jumped in John's car with Tigger and we drove the 15 minutes to the marina, leaving John, Louise and Ross to take the luxury trip.

As is usual when relaunching a boat, there were many checks to carry out. With a new engine, too, John spent an hour or so tightening glands, checking water and oil pressures and so on. Tigger and I were not that bothered, and, soon enough, I saw Chelone coming down river,

under the Cleddau bride and turning into Neyland Marina.

Louise was at the helm!

I was very surprised. She waved at me and didn't seem at all nervous. John then took over, and expertly turned Chelone around before going astern into her pontoon berth. Louise and Ross tied her up and they let Tigger and me in through the marina gate.

I had thought that was that, but there were still a few jobs that needed doing. The dinghy had been in John's garage for 18 months, so I set about scrubbing that. Louise did a bit of sewing on the sprayhood, and did some cleaning on deck, helped, or rather, watched, by Tigger.

Chelone's teak decks look beautiful in the sunshine. Tigger looks less happy. I wonder if he knows he won't be coming with us, and will, in fact, be parted from us for over 2 months, the longest time by far in the 10 years or so since we had him.

We spent Saturday evening in the van. Unfortunately, the leisure battery had given up the ghost, so we drank a few glasses of wine by candle light. we managed to get a new battery in Haverfordwest on Saturday. John and Suzie, the fifth crew member, had arranged a lunch at Neyland marina, and kindly bought us all a meal. Suzie's parents were also there, and a friend, Steve, as well as John's mother.

That evening, we went to Dale. Louise, Tigger and I walked up to WestDale beach. Then we had a bit of fun. We found a large (2ft by 2ft) block of a yellowish waxy substance washed up on the beach. I told Louise it might have been ambergris. When we got back to the van, she looked it up. Once she realised its potential value, she decided that she must go and get some. Now. She set off with a rucksack, hammers, knives and so on.

By now it was getting dark.



An hour later she came back up the steep cliff path, puffing and sweating, her rucksack full of the stuff. It didn't have the musty odour of ambergris. It didn't contain embedded squid beaks like ambergris does. It didn't burn with a smoky flame like ambergris doe, either. It was wax. We were not millionaires.

The following morning, I took a picture of Louise with her 'treasure'

So. Now we wait. John wants to do a 'shake down' sail and practice man overboard drill, and we need to pack the boat properly, but we just wait. The weather for Biscay does not look good at the moment, but may improve this week. It's strange. We can't wait to set off, and we know we will, but, as each day passes, we wonder when that will be.

So, we wait.

Working on Chelone

Last week, it was up at seven, walk to Stromness Harbour and go diving in Scapa Flow. This week it's up at seven, drive to Pembroke dock, work on the yacht that will soon be on it's way across Biscay.

John, the skipper had a list. I was given a tin of varnish and a brush

Whilst Louise was given various cleaning duties, and started packing some of our things into our cabin in the Forepeak. She appeared to be enjoying working on the boat.

John has been very busy whilst we've been in Scotland, and Chelone is just a few cosmetic jobs away from being ready to tackle Biscay and the Atlantic. She may be in the water as early as Friday, with a shake down sail for us all planned soon. There is even a possibility of us leaving port on Sunday, so we watch each weather forecast with a keen interest.

So, sanding, three coats of varnish, cleaning, scrubbing, refitting metalwork removed for sanding, and the day flew past. Another crew member, Ross, joined us around 4pm, after finishing work on one of the Range boats.

Louise and I left at 17:00. A brief stop to walk Tigger, who'd been very patient all day, at Carew Castle.

And we watched a Heron and a couple of shags hunting fish which swam up the river with the oncoming tide, as the sun set.

Orkney above water

The pattern each day was very similar. We'd usually rise at 07:00. Donna would let herself in around 07:30 and cook porridge, toast, bacon, eggs, beans, sausages, has browns, tea and coffee. We'd leave the house and walk down to the boat, often accompanied by a stunning sunrise:

The John L would then putt putt down the Flow to the dive sites. The skipper would give us 20 minutes notice. We'd suit up, kit up, dive, dekit and the put on dry clothes. We'd often be watched by the skipper's dog, Hector:

We'd the have tea, coffee and snacks in a warm saloon, whilst bottles were filled before we started over again. At around 16:00 we'd arrive back at Stromness. A beer in 'The Flattie bar' and then we'd walk back to the house around 17:00. Fun, and easy.

Between dives on Tuesday, we visited the war musuem at Lyness, on the Isle of Hoy.

Seeing the dull, muddy steel wrecks, rusting hulks in the deep, cold and dark was one thing. The museum brought everything to life.

Portholes, bells, photos, clothing, logbooks, audio clips, the whole place was alive with arifacts dating back 100 years.

There were also some truly amazing multiscan sonar images of the wrecks. The best of which were of the HMS Royal Oak, a British vessel sunk by a U-Boat attack:

We only had an hour at Lyness, and I'd hoped to go back there later in the week, but we didn't manage that. We did visit another maritime museum, though, this time at Stromness:

The smaller of the two bells in the above photo was from the Dresden - the first wreck we dived. As well as a large number of finds from the German wrecks, there was information and artifacts dating back to the age of sail, items from men who sailed with Captain Bligh, of the Bounty, as well as from Captain Cook's expedition. The Orkney people were some of the first to hear of Cook's death in Hawaii, when the resolution visited in 1780.

When diving a couple of the wrecks, particularly the Brummer, we noticed loose plating, and, even, movement in some of the structural ribs. It's clear that the Scapa wrecks will not always be there, and the items in the museums may be all that is left to mark these historic wrecks.

Following the loss of the Royal oak in 1939, Winston Churchill initiated the building of the 'Churchill Barriers', which effectively blocked off some of the entrances to Scapa flow to enemy submarines, and now serve as links between the islands. On the way to see these barriers, we called in at 'The Italian Chapel', built by the Italian prisoners of war who worked on the barriers.



With a strong Easterly wind picking up towards the end of the week, the sea was breaking across one of the barriers,

making the crossing quite 'hairy'.......



Going back a bit further in history, about 4000+ years, we went to see the Ring of Brodgar

and the fantastic, 5000 year old village at Skara Brae



It was the diving we came for, though, and it just kept getting better. A water pump failure on Wednesday saw us joining another group of divers aboard the 'Jean Elaine', diving on the Kronprinz Willhelm. Almost upside down in 36m or so, we did manage to find a couple of the huge 12" guns, on a day that belied the North of Scotland in October feel

Best of all though, was the James Barrie. In deteriorating conditions on Thursday, with Gales forecast for Friday and Saturday, we chugged into the waves for two hours to the South entrance to the flow. It was not nice now, and a couple of people thought about not diving. We all piled in. At 20m I could see people letting go of the shot line. The wreck was in 41m, so why were they doing that? Then I saw the wreck. Almost all of it. In clear blue water, with visibility in excess of 20m. At 120ft long and 666 tonnes, it was much smaller than the battleships we'd come to see, but the visibility was so good, it really does rank amongst my best ever dives. Sadly, our dive computers were well loaded up, and the swelly conditions meant that long decompression stops were a poor option, but we all, nevertheless, surfaced buzzing with excitement.

A brilliant week's diving. We emptied the boat on arrival back at Stromness.

A few beers were imbibed that evening. With winds gusting towards 50mph the following morning, we worried about crossing the Churchill barriers at 06:30, and whether our catamaran ferry at 07:45 would run. In the event, although the weather was rough, neither gave us any problems.

We left the ferry after a one hour crossing around 09:00, and, after a long drive, arrived back at Mike's place in Gloucester at 20:00. A quick change of cars and we were off again, dropping Jason off in Port Talbot just in time to pick up a takeaway at 22:00.

So, what had started off as a quck detour to get in a couple of dives before we set off on our main trip, turned into something we will always remember in its own right. We made new friends in Andy, Dickie and Anne, and are looking forward to getting back up to Scapa Flow for some more diving whenever we are able to. Plus, of course, we all feel that sense of loss you feel when coming away from Scotland. I'm sure we'll be back up there soon.

In the meantime, we have a sailing trip across the Atlantic to keep us occupied......

An Orkney Diversion

Frantically planning our Atlantic crossing, working, organising money, houses and pets, it was easy for us to dismiss the diving holiday to Scapa flow we'd booked earlier in the year. We'd just jump in the car, drive up, do a couple of dives, drive back and get on with it. Right?

Scotland won't let you do that. Ever. It gets under your skin and demands attention. And when you've finished with it, you leave a part of yourself there. Watch 'Local Hero' for details........

Louise drove. We picked up our friend Jason from Port Talbot and spent the night with another friend Mike at his home near Gloucester. Up at 06:00 and Mike drove the first leg, the four of us and four sets of dive it in his car. Drivers swapped, coffee was drank, and LPG (the car has a conversion) was filled. By 18:00 we were sitting in the loudest bar I'd ever been in. In Inverness. A dozen or so Inverness Caledonian Thistle supporters went through their repertoire before heading off to their evening game. We met Dickie and Ann, as well as Andy, from Neath SAC, and our diving companions for the week. Curry was eaten later.

By10:30 am the following morning we were at Scrabster, waiting to board the ferry.

Slight hitch - the ferry operator required photo identification. Something to do with the fact that Islanders get a discount, and 'outsiders' had been trying to claim this too, we found out later. Our 20 year old photos in our diving logbooks were all we had, and that was good enough. A strong Northwesterly wind made Louise look like a badly photoshoopped fake, as we passed The Old Man of Hoy, but it was genuinely this windy.

I got a more brooding shot of the sea stack later, as the others enjoyed a beer in the bar.

We landed, and offloaded all the diving gear onto our dive boat for the week; The slow, but strong, stable and warm John L

Stromness was beautiful. Narrow streets, floored with ancient flagstones, and just dripping with history.

Just about every house displayed evidence of the maritime history of the place. From Killer whale bones, museums, plaques to seafaring heroes, to ancient wells where historic vessels watered.



It was clear within an hour of landing, and well before we headed off to Lidl in Kirkwall to stock up with food for the week, that we were not just going to drop in for a couple of dives, as we'd thought before hand. There was a huge amount to see, above and below the waves, here in the Orkneys.

An early start on Sunday. We were due to be on the boat by 08:30. We left the house and walked the flagstones towards the John L.



The John L is a converted river tug. Extremely stable, with a dry area for between dives, plenty of seating and a galley. Below decks is a wet area for suiting up and storage. The deck itself is large and spacious. She has a compressor and carries Oxygen for Nitrox mixing.

As we readied ourselves for our first dive I didn't know what to expect. Seven warships from the German Grand fleet, scuttled in 1919 remain. Many others have been raised in salvage operations over the years. Those that remain are the three Konig class heavy battleships, the Konig, Kronprinz Wilhelm and Markgraf, and four light cruisers, the Brummer, Coln II, Dresden II and Karlsruhe II. We were to start with the Dresden.

It's impossible to put into words the feelings one gets when diving on something like this. Lying on her port side in 30m of water is a huge 100 year old German battleship. Her 6" guns pointing forwards. It would be easy to spend several hours looking into every nook and cranny, swimming down deeper, then up over her hull. Surrounded by fish, and with plenty of encrusting life. Quite frankly, I'd never seen anything like this in over 20 years of diving. Truly awe inspiring.

As this was our first time here, I wanted to make sure we didn't get lost, so once we'd relocated the shot line, we didn't stray far. With 8 metres of visibility it was difficult to get lost anyway. We made our way up the line and back to the boat. Buzzing. The others had seen it all before.

We dived the Karlsruhe, Coln, Brummer and Kronprinz Wilhelm too. Some of them more than once. We also dived the F2, a WWII german escort boat and a barge that sank whilst salvaging her, the YC21. I managed to get this shot of the 6" gun on the F2.



The conditions were not great for photography. Many of the wrecks lie with their superstructure facing North, and with largely overcast October skies, it was easily light enough to dive by without torches, but not great for the camera.