01/07/18 Pembrokeshire
Saro's Gyda
Derrick Thorrington
Sun 8 Jul 2018 15:57
The next decision
was whether to try to continue east and have a good look at the Bristol Channel
or whether to head north to Pembrokeshire and then to Anglesey. The winds for
the next few days favoured Anglesey so off we headed for Milford Haven. From
Padstow area this was a mere 70 miles, a day sail!
After making this
decision we were treated to the most glorious sunset in the west and a
simultaneous moonrise in the east. Amazing!
East
West
Initially there was
no wind so we had to motor for the first hour. The wind then suddenly arrived
from the NE and aalmost immediately built up to a F6. We had a great sail in the
sunshine, this time visited by Bottlenose dolphins as well as the more common,
Common dolpins! We marvelled at the size and power of the bigger bottlenoses
compared to the prettier and smaller commons.
After dashing along
for 8 hours the wind suddenly stopped so we motored the last 2 hours, finally
coming to anchor in West Angle Bay in the entrance to Milford Haven, a gorgeous
rocky armed bay with a big sandy beach at it's head.
We spent the
following day walking around Angle Headland, enjoying the interesting little
village on its lagoon on the opposite side of the headland and couldnt resist a
dressed crab salad at the little cafe on the beach before returning to Saro's
Gyda. (D rowing, A swimming as usual! You can imagine the comments that we
get...)
Angle Dinner. Moules
a la cidre et creme. "Hand gathered Polzeath mussels"!
Skomer was our next
port of call. We were keen to see if there were as many puffins there as when we
last visited in 2007. We were not disappointed. We found our way into the little
bay on the south side of the island, into a world of puffins, puffins,
guillimots, puffins, razorbills, puffins and fulmars with a few oystercatchers
to make up for the raucous din put out by all the auks en
masse.
What a
treat!
The wind was not
being very helpful for going to Anglesey, consistantly blowing from the N or NE.
More debates as to where to go. Whilst pondering this we enjoyed a few more days
in Pembrokeshire, anchoring off St Davids Head on another (non) surfing beach
and having a good circular walk and then revisiting one of our favourite little
ports, Solva, set in a deep cleft in the high cliffs. An extremely pretty
village, harbour and rugged hills surrounding. Very friendly harbour master who,
on our first visit encouraged us to dry out against the quay due to a forecast
gale and then announced that there was no charge as we were "Stormbound"!
Lovely.