John and Claire joined Moondog in Port Dinorwic after work on Friday evening, with the plan to set sail for Arklow ( 52:47.6 N, 006:08.5W) on the Saturday.

 

Unfortunately, Saturday turned out to be grey and miserable, with a cold wind and we elected to to just play in the Menai Straits that day, getting to know the boat and doing some sailing back and forth. There are worse places to be stuck ( as we will discover later....), and a pleasant day was had by all.

 

Sunday dawned much better, with a gentle forecast for the crossing to Ireland. It would be motorsailing all the way, but on balance I have learnt that it is much better to have too little wind than too much in the Irish Sea, so no complaints from me. Our key tidal gates were more or less mutually exclusive ; leave the Straits at Belan Narrows on the last of the flood tide, and try to arrive at Arklow Bank before the strong N flowing tide set in there.

 

We got to Belan a little early and just motored through the foul tide out to Caernarfon Bar, which made us a little time up on our plan. Nice sunny morning and you can see the pics of Caernarfon Castle and the Straits . We even had a porpoise to see us on our way across the Bar, and then it was just a straight line motorsailing to Arklow. A bit of excitement steering around a large rig being towed by two big tugs....not a good idea to get too close, and especially bad idea to get between the tugs and the rig.

 

Then, as feared, we arrived at Arklow Bank ( about 10 miles from Arklow itself) just as the tide was turning North...and we needed to go south to Arklow. The three knot tide reduced our speed over the ground to three knots = a long slog into Arklow as night fell. We moved closer to shore in shallower water to miss the worse of the tide, but we were still slowed down a lot. To add to our joy, the Irish have littered the place with lobster pots each with its own little bouy bobbing about, so Claire was posted to the bow on pot watch with the new torch. We did not need to get the prop tangled up in a line at this point. John proved to be a wizard at spotting pots, and quickly assumed the role of First Officer, Pot Watch.

 

We tracked into the Avoca River entrance for Arklow using the plotter and ultimately picking up the two lights we needed at the end of the entrance piers. I was glad I had been here in daylight as the river entrance sea walls came out of the darkness and we picked our way into the river. Then a quick dance around assorted mooring bouys scattered all over the river and we were tied up on the river pontoon at 2240, having left Port Dinorwic at 0830.  This was an 84 mile trip in just over 14 hours, and a good first 'real day' of the adventure.

 

 

--

Brian Whitefoot

 

Mob (44) 07721 849213