The forecast promised a suitable 40-hour window in the weather (SW veering NW 4 or 5 occasionally 6 later) for our escape from the UK from Swansea to Crosshaven (Ireland) on Monday 14 May. The weather, unusually, had listened to the forecast and did what it was supposed to do, so we took our usual course of heading straight into the wind and tide. The familiar sight of the pointy end digging into the sea every 5^th wave was strangely comforting…at this point at least.

Later, on David’s watch (thank goodness – can you imagine the stick I would have got if it had happened on my watch!) he came down into the saloon to plot our position at about 23:00 and had an “Oh sh*t!” (edited version in case children read this blog) moment when he stepped into water. The water was only an inch or so deep, but it was inside the hull and over the floorboards, not outside the hull where it should have been. When he and Lawrence weren’t able to clear the bilges with the automatic and manual bilge pumps, they decided to wake me up to help bail. Boaty people always joke that the best type of bilge pump is a frightened man with a bucket – well I have to say that a frightened woman with a Lakeland baby bucket must come a pretty close second! As Cape pitched forwards and backwards, a small wave went up and down the length of the saloon floor – this was marked by a number of wine bottles bobbing around in the bilges (I should have taken a photo for the blog…). As Cape rolled to one side, the wave went with it and the wine bottles followed, disappearing under the floor before making a brief reappearance in the gap as they crossed the centreline to disappear under the floor the other side as Cape rolled the other way. I think that the technical term for this is a corkscrew motion (pun intended).

I knew the situation was a little more serious than the boys had let on when David called Milford Haven Coastguard to warn them that we "might need assistance". I thought this meant that we might have to abandon ship, but David says it would have been to deliver us a slightly larger pump. Lawrence said he would have thrown himself overboard rather than be saved by his ex-mates in the RNLI. However, woman-and-baby-bucket-power made all the difference and we slowly got the better of the water in the bilges. My first thought when I emerged from my bunk and saw the flood was that the keel bolts had sheared and that we were going to sink without a trace within seconds. Apparently that was a girly overreaction, and I was reliably informed that I would have known that this was happening because there would have been a head-high waterspout in the saloon. Lawrence said that his main concern was how to get from his bunk across the saloon to his oilies and wellies without getting his socks wet… Bethany slept through the whole thing, while Bryn woke briefly but didn’t seem unduly concerned at seeing all three adults swearing and bailing madly.

Luckily, we were only about 3 hours away from Milford Haven, so we headed back to the holding pontoon at Neyland Marina – I’ve never been so relieved to see the little green and red lights blinking the way in the dark.

So where was the water coming from? We knew that water could come in where the chain passed through the windlass (electric winch on the bow for pulling up the anchor), but that should not have accounted for the sheer volume of water we took on so quickly. We think that what was actually happening was that as we dug into the waves, the small locker lid on which the windlass was mounted was lifting and letting in more water – as the bow rose clear of the wave, the locker closed shut again. When we didn’t dig in, we didn’t take on water. Sealing this locker is another job to add to the list of things to do…

After a couple of hours of mopping up, we knew luck was with us when a seagull left his calling card on Lawrence’s new throwing-up suit (bright yellow Guy Cotton oilies, which up until then he hadn’t managed to wear without being sick….ha ha ha) (that bit was David’s contribution to this blog). On this note we made a decision to carry on for Crosshaven and to make our second attempt at leaving the UK that afternoon (Tuesday 15 May). The weather was still playing ball, so we crossed the bulk of the Irish Sea without incident but then had to detour North to avoid a stronger force 6 head-on wind – the choice was to go where we wanted, wetly and slowly, or to go North, quickly and dryly (no I don’t think that’s a real word either). In spite of the detour, we got into Crosshaven 22 hours later, less than 12 hours behind our original ETA. What’s more, we have a nice mooring which was easy to get onto (and off when we need to) and only a short walk from the Royal Cork Yacht Club bar!

Since being here we have dried everything out (again!), started school in earnest, checked out the Guinness, Bethany has found a friend (with a very Irish name she can’t remember) on a neighbouring pontoon, and I have been on my usual hunt for a wireless hotspot. We have launched the Walker Bay, but high winds have stopped play on the dinghy sailing front for now. We found an abandoned prawn pot and, baited with a mullet head (Lawrence’s spear gun 6, mullet 0), caught 41 crabs, a lump of something that we couldn’t identify and 4 prawns – plans for a prawn curry were abandoned and we released the whole lot to catch again another day.

41 crabs, 4 prawns and a lump of something we couldn’t identify.

Plans for a prawn curry were abandoned.