Abersoch to Holyhead. Motoring in the sunshine

The alarm went off at 7am. I was quite tired after a mere 4 hours of sleep. I weighed anchor and quickly set off, having breakfast while we were underway in order to save time. When I woke up I found out that Cervisia was the only boat anchored for about a mile around us. All the rest were a lot closer inshore. We had a really good spot though and I knew that we were really well anchored there. It did seem to be a bit weird being anchored in what seemed like the middle of the sea rather than in a bay.

The coastline on the Lleyn peninsula was pretty spectacular. One of the best bits was Cilan Head. This is the location of an amazing rock climb called Path to Rome tha I have always wanted to do. It looked really stunning, traversing a big cliff on horizontal breaks above the sea. It looked pretty wild.

I had a bit of wind in Bardey Sound so we were able to traverse the Sound quite quickly and in glorious silence. It was interesting to sail this bit of coast as I have been there many times on the Three Peaks yacht race. I known the spots where we try to edge through the Sound against the tide and the spots where I often see my nieces supporting us from the cliff tops. It was much more leisurely today.

The wind died about an hour after we went through the Sound. I then had to get the engine on and we motored in a straight line across a glassy sea towards Holyhead. The Gogarth cliffs looked spectacular on Holy Island. I could see some climbers on them. We got round North Stack just in time. There is an amazing tide race there. I could see the waters swirling around and about to change in a contrary direction. The tide was then against us properly into Holyhead harbour and it took about an hour to cover the 3 miles into the marina.

It was quite weird stepping onto solid ground after 3 days at sea. There wasn't really much to look at in Holyhead. I walked a couple of miles to the out of town Tesco to fill the fuels cans and then found somewhere to eat in town. This was not as easy as it sounds and I didn't eat particularly well at an Indian restaurant. What am craving at the moment is fruit and salad so I will sort that out at Tesco on Monday. I do not have many stored on board at the moment and I need to also sort that out. One thing I really need is some good spring water that I feel confident about drinking when I am at sea.

On Monday I am going to go for a walk on Anglesey. There are some quite strong northerly winds forecast. As I am going to be sailing north, this would be a real pain to deal with. I am going to set sail again on Tuesday when I am promised winds from a sensible direction. I think the next stop will be the Isle of Man, but that does depend a lot on the wind direction.