Skomer Island to Scavenger / Oxwich Bay

We had a good night at anchor at Skomer. I think one of the other boats didn't have as good a night as us. It had started north of us and ended up south of us. I don't know what happened to them in the night, but it probably a sorry little tale.

It was a pretty windy morning despite us being in the shorter of the cliffs. There were puffins, Manx shearwater and gulls buzzing cervisia, whose decks were liberally plastered in puffin dung. Getting the anchor up required a couple of attempts. I had obviously got a good placement. We were off by 0900.

The first bit of the sailing was really good. We had bright blue skies and a good fresh wind from the port quarter. We absolutely flew along, despite sailing against the tide. These conditions continued all the way to Linney Head where the wind suddenly changed direction completely and then died to nothing. This was very perplexing given the conditions we had had before and the weather forecast. I guess of there was anywhere to have to motor, this was no bad spot as the scenery is very good along that bit of coast: there are lots of rock climbs to admire. Strangely three seemed to be no climbers on any of the routes.

We had an excellent dolphin display in Carmarthen Bay. It started off with a few dolphins jumping around Cervisia's bows, but later on there were dolphins jumping all around the boat: some of them jumping clean out of the water. You could see little groups of them all around. It was so cool. I love the Bristol channel dolphins.
The dead calm continued until we got under a rain cloud at Worms Head. It started raining and it looked like it was going to be a miserable couple of hours to the anchorage. However there was a really good wind associated with the rain and we tanked along really well into the headwind. The wind dropped again once the rain stopped, but we were still able to sail along quite nicely in a light wind to Oxwich Bay where we are now anchored.

I have applied the Beale school of anchoring. This entails getting the whole lot of chain and rope out rather than calculating an exact amount. This seems to work really well. The rope seems to lie at a really nice angle (that makes it look like Cervisia is pulling on the anchor). This is not meant to be the best anchorage in the world but the anchor seems fairly well settled and it is really calm here. The best thing about this anchorage is the rock architecture. The nearest bit of rock to us has the classic route Scavenger on it. I would love to get up tomorrow and climb it on my birthday. It will be high tide in the morning though (unless I get up really early: which won't happen). Now I am more confident with the anchor, it would be really nice to come to places like this and go climb some rock.

Tomorrow might end up being a big day. I can't really think of anything clever to do to ensure that we make it. I could get up at 4am to catch the early tide, but that doesn't classify as being clever. If we can make good progress against the tide in the morning then we stand a chance. Hopefully we will have a good wind, but I don't dare to hope too much. I have worked out that if we get to Penarth / Cardiff (which is totally feasible), I can leave cervisia there for a few days and then pick her up one evening next week.

One thing that feels a little odd is that I have been on board now since basically Dublin: that is 3 full days. It will be 4 days on board by the time I get to portishead. It is odd how a small space like Cervisia can end up becoming your world.

The Sun goes down on Oxwich Bay. The crag in the background is Little Tor: home to an excellent little E1 5b rock climb. Cervisia is anchored.