What's that yellow thing

up in the sky? Sun, you say. Well, I never.

We had some time free, Thursday to Monday, as it happened, and, it looked like the yellow thing might be around for a lot of that time. Louise got home from work at 10:30hrs, and we were loading the dinghy and locking the car at Dale by 12:30. Sunny and warm, with light winds.

Louise wants to enter Ishtar for some races this winter, with an all female crew from the yacht club. I think it's a great idea. Without us men barking orders all the time, it will give her (them) a chance to sail on their own terms, make their own mistakes and learn their own best methods.

With this in mind I barked orders at Louise to sail the boat around various buoys in the Haven, as if it were a race. Louise quickly got the hang of it, and we were soon off sailing downwind, passing Monk Haven on the way.

Monk Haven is a tiny cove just NorthEast of Dale. The beach has a wall at it's back, set with rings for fishing boats to tie up to. The valley behind was part of the Trewarren estate and there is a walled garden and fish ponds, in a dilapidated state, but beautiful, nevertheless.

We sailed further along, past the Behar buoy opposite the entrance to the Haven, and marking a second world war shipwreck

Behar buoy with divers on the wreck

Enjoying the sailing, now, I ordered Louise to take us around the next bouy, the Montreal rock buoy, marking the rock of that name, in the entrance to Sandy Haven.

Montreal rock buoy with Sandy Haven caravan site behind.

From there, we headed South, towards Angle bay, and then across to Watwick bay. We crossed the shipping channels quickly, and avoided getting too close to a big tanker leaving. Not as close as some, anyway.

Louise sailed us back Northwards and into Dale, putting Ishtar on the morning as the afternoon sun dipped in the West. We'd just put the kettle on when our friend Huw, and his son Matthew paddled out in their inflatable kayak. They asked us to join them in the Griffin for a pint.



We agreed to go ashore later. Louise cooked up a curry (King prawn Jalferezi with onion bhajias) and we set off for the pub. There we met up with Dave, who was staying on hus boat, Caswyn. Just after dark, about 10pm, our friend Paschall turned up, on his junk rigged kingfisher, 'Sui'. Paschall had just sailed down from Oxwich, and was hoping to get across to his native Ireland the following day. More important tasks were attended to first, however, in the shape of three pints of Guinness. It had been a hot day at sea for Paschall.

We took the dinghy back out to Ishtar at about 23:00 and slept soundly.

After a bit of a gap

....not having been to the boat for 5 or 6 weeks after I fell in the garden and tore ankle ligaments,

we finally got back to Ishtar and moved her from a mooring at Llangwm down river 15 miles to our own mooring at Dale.

Louise wanted to do this trip through the busy port of Milford Haven single handed, so I took Tigger in the car and went for a few walks, while she did just that.

Over to Louise.....
The first thing I had to sort out when I got onto Ishtar was a small tree trunk that had attached itself to the mooring.  Unfortunately the current was too strong due to the 7.3m tide and I had to leave it.

I got myself ready and cast off.  I had put the main sail up and had put the anchor out on deck with 10m of chain already cleated off just in case I had an emergency and had to stop somewhere in a hurry.  Off I went in the beautiful sunshine..... for about 20 seconds until I heard the sound of the grease hose to the stern gland rip off and hit the prop shaft.  A quick about turn, I put Ishtar back onto the mooring. 

2 hours later, up to my elbows in grease I had managed to sort the problem out and I set off again.  By now I had missed the tide and was going to be punching the incoming tide for the next few hours.

It was nerve racking doing my longest single handed motor sail and with our recent diesel problems neither of us has any confidence in our engine.  Its very unfortunate really because the engine has always performed well, all the breakdowns have been fuel related.  I was listening carefully all the time to the pitch of the engine and kept my eye on the speed, nervously watching for any hint of trouble. 

Martin had advised me to run the engine at about 2500 revs and I was doing about 3-3.5 knots.  It was all going fine until I got to Lawrenny when the speed suddenly dropped to 2.5 knots.  I expected the engine to slowly die and I had a scary moment thinking I would have to try to sail against the tide in light winds. 

Luckily it was just the effect of the current and within half a mile my speed had picked back up.
Martin was waiting at Neyland with Tigger, looking out for me. I don't know who was the most nervous, me on the boat or him watching, knowing that if anything went wrong he couldn't do anything.

I actually felt a bit more relieved once I got past the Cleddau Bridge and was into the haven as the wind picked up a little and I had a bit more room to sail if I had engine trouble.
At various points along the route I found myself thinking "what if I broke down now?".
Once I passed Neyland the wind picked up a little and I let out the genoa, I managed to pick up my speed to about 4.5 - 5 knots.  The sky looked thunderous over Milford Haven but so far I had been lucky with the weather and it stayed dry. 

Martin rang again to ask to be picked up on the pontoon at Dale.  By now I really was looking forward to getting to Dale but I still wanted to do it all myself.  I tacked towards Angle which meant I was on a good tacking angle to get to Dale.  At the visitors pontoon I decided to drop the sails and head for our mooring.  Martin had put a new riser chain on our mooring with some new tails and they were very easy to pick up.  Once on our mooring I put the anchor away, thankfully not needed, tidied the boat up a bit and put the fenders and lines ready. 

My trip was almost over as I headed off to the pontoon.  With only one other boat on the pontoon and very little wind in the shelter of the bay it was easy and straightforward to tie up on the pontoon.  Ishtar was back home, I had made it, ok a little greasy but quite pleased with myself.  The pint of cider that was quickly consumed was very welcome and I think Martin was proud and relieved to see both boat and skipper safe and sound. 

Louise.

Doing your first solo trip is always quite nerve wracking. Doing your first trip through an extremely busy port with the tide against you, an engine you have doubts about and having to sort out mechanical issues before you leave is no mean feat. I was so proud of Louise when I saw Ishtar tied up at Dale pontoon.

Tigger was less impressed. He ran down along the pontoon jumped aboard and started sniffing around for food. We opened a bottle of wine and enjoyed the sunset.

Martin

An early trip West

The club had organised an Easter Cruise. About 12 boats had signed on for the trip, leaving Cardiff on Good Friday, Sailing down to Oxwich Bay on the Gower for an overnight stay, on to the Burry Inlet, North Gower on the Saturday, Ilfracombe on the Sunday and then back to Cardiff on the Monday.

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.

Mooring practice

(By Louise)

The weather forecast did not look good for the weekend, southwesterly F6-8 with squally showers.  I wanted to go to Ishtar anyway to refit the spray dodgers and trim the carpet that I had begun to fit last weekend.  Martin suggested that I take the boat out for a sail on my own.  The thought really scared me, not so much the sailing but taking the boat off and then back on the mooring.

Off I went to Dale and after getting the tender sorted and motoring to the boat I pottered about with the spray dodgers until I could put it off no longer. 

With the engine running and everything ready I cast off from the mooring.  The wind indicator was showing 15 knots westerly  but it felt stronger so I let out half the genoa and put the engine into neutral.  I was going 5.7 knots S.O.G.  With the engine then switched off I felt really exhilarated, I had been so nervous but now I felt excited. 

There were not many others about, certainly no yachts, so when I got near Great Castle Head I decided to head for home.  I motored back to Dale and slowed right down near our mooring. 

The last time I had tried this I managed to run over the tender's painter and I nearly sunk it, so I was very nervous.  I slowly edged alongside the tender and having put the boat into neutral I made a dash out of the cockpit, boat hook in hand, and got hold of one of the mooring lines. 

Once  I had one of our lines on the boat gently drifted back and I could then hook the other line and get the chain on.  I was delighted and couldn't wait to ring an anxious Martin to tell him that Ishtar was safely back on her mooring.

A very small step but one in the right direction.