Day 14 May 29 Milford Haven to Kilmore Quay
Refuelled and entered the lock at 0854 as arranged - you have to pre-book your locking out times - and left with 2 other yachts, down the empty haven westwards, rounding St Ann's Head at 1100. The day started dull and slightly drizzly, with NO wind! There are decisions to make on this course about the various rocky headlands and offshore islands with warning in the almanac about severe overfalls and lost ships off The Smalls, a group of rocks whose name belies their importance as a hazard. To go round the Smalls adds on a good hour or so to the passage, so we decided that under the prevailing calm conditions we would steer a course inland between The Smalls and Skomer Island, and just live with the bumpy ride for a while. It turned out not to be too bad, though we rocked around quite a bit in the heavy swell. This passage crosses the ends of two Traffic Separation Schemes for BFS plying the Channel, and we used the radar to check and dodge the relative courses of a couple of BFSs and one large Irish Ferry. (For those who don't sail with us, a BFS is our standard generic term for a Big F*****g Ship!) The rest of the passage was enlightened only by several more close encounters with dolphins, who again arrived regularly at 15 minutes past each hour in the middle part of the afternoon, so more photography and video was of course indicated, and Cate has again uploaded some nice film to Facebook. The lovely mammals are so close you could lean out over the bow (we did) and touch their backs (we didn't), and it was a thrilling experience again. We made the entrance to Kilmore Quay (quite a tricky one) at 2000, after a passage of 69nM, bringing us to a total of 567 at the end of our second week. The smallish marina, shared with a large fishing fleet, has a unique method of access via the locked gate: the HM when we called in on VHF gave us a mobile phone number, which you have to call when outside the gate. This gives an acknowledgment beep, and if you're lucky on about the third go a yellow light comes on and the gate unlocks. The same system should open the door to the facilities ashore, but didn't, and the HM told us in the morning that that door doesn't open in the evenings, so you have to use the public toilet next door if necessary (it wasn't). We cooked chicken in white sauce with a tin of ackee (a first and probably a last for both of us) and retired.