I got up this morning pretty early and went out to the local petrol station to stock up on diesel. There is the chance that I will have to motor some of the way and I really need a stock of fuel to be able to do this. I guess this isn't rocket science. I was out of the marina by 930 and chugging out into the Cleddau estuary. A lovely wind picked up here and we had a great sail out of the estuary past the massive oil and gas tankers and into the open sea. The open sea is a real contrast to Milford Haven. Just 5 miles out from Milford Haven lie Skokholm and Skomer islands. These islands are a real paradise for birds. As you sail between the islands, there are puffins and Manx shearwater flying by. It is a wonderful sight. I landed on Skomer a couple of years ago and I found it to be the most amazing place. You feel like an alien there. The island so obviously belongs to the birds. It is one of the most amazing places I have been to.
The nice wind continued past Skokholm and Skomer islands but died just short of Ramsey Island. This island is also a bird sanctuary thought there were fewer interesting looking birds in the sea around it. There were some fine looking guano covered cliffs. They looked like they would be good climbing objectives if it weren't for the birds. I think it is one of the few places where climbing is banned.
With little wind and a big tide about to start against me, I had to motor. We motored close to the shore to try to escape most of the tide. We made excellent progress in a sheltered bay at the north end, but when we came back into the tidal stream, it looked like a massive river. We made very, very slow progress against this. Deciding that this sort of thing was futile, I headed for Whtesand Bay which is sheltered from the tide. This bay is just below St. David's Head. It is a well known surfing beach. There is little wind at the moment and none from the west, hence there is no swell and it is ok to anchor here. On the way over to Whitesands bay I had to ensure we didn't get swept into the infamous tide race between Ramsey Island and the mainland. I had been warned about this race: at times it is a place where white water kayakers fear to tread and is clearly no place for a contessa 26.
The original plan had been to just wait a couple of hours for the tide to change and then to carry out. However once we were anchored it was was evident that there was no wind and if we carried on it would be a dull motor over to Fishguard. I am hence going to anchor here overnight and to carry on tomorrow morning. It seems like this will be a better place to set off from if the wind is a northerly as predicted. I have never slept at anchor overnight before, so this will be a bit of a learning exercise. I have been here for 5 hours now and we seem to be pretty well attached to one place so I am quite confident. I have an iPad app that should warn me if we move too far from where we originally anchored. It seems to work.
One thing that is weird here is that most of the radio stations you can pick up are Irish. It is all fairly depressing. All the adverts are about sales, companies offering to buy your old clothes for 1 euro a kilogram, festivals that you only have to pay a deposit for (I guess the other bit is on credit) etc. The presenters seem quite cheery at least. I'm hoping to avoid the republic as it is known as being very expensive. It would be nice to go to Northern Ireland. It all depends on what happens with the wind and the weather.
At the moment it is raining!
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