30 May Bangor (N Ireland) to Tobermory

The winds have really started to frustrate me.  We've had straight headwinds for 7 days and there's no sign of improvement.  From Bangor to here it was either flat calm drifting or 15-20kt straight on the nose.  We had some great beating out of Bangor and again past Oban, but we spent over an hour trying unsuccessfully to round the Mull of Kintyre against tide and wind, and we spent many hours drifting aimlessly with the sails flogging as the waves roll the boat.  More annoyingly I've had to use the motor more that I'd expected so we're rapidly closing on the point where we will need to find a Yanmar dealer to carry out the first (50 hour) service on the engine, or they'll void the warranty.

On the positive side the Grey Seals were something really special, plus the weather (wind aside) is amazing.

At 07h00 we were met by more dolphins.

The scenery is now very Scottish

At lunchtime we reached Tobermory.  Very pretty but super touristy.  Fish and Chips then sleep!

30 May Mull of Kintyre

All together now...sing....Mull of Kintyre, a mist rolling over....etc

We left Bangor Marina at the insane time of 5.50am to head towards Scotland. Another beautiful, sunny morning. We were beating most of the way as once again, the wind was against us. After 6 hours we reached the Mull of Kintyre and the tide turned against us. John spent a fruitless hour or so trying to make decent headway to no avail. So on went the engines and we motored close to land; actually to get closer to the headland, we had to motor through the mist and it was a bit like that old Hollywood musical called "Brigadoon" going back in time....oooh eerie.

Anyhoo, once through, the sun shone again and I decided to have a snooze and catch up on my zzzz's, only to have John thundering into the saloon to get the camera and catch photos of the locals who had decided to join us for a leisurely swim and get some breakfast while they were at it.

They were so graceful. We spent a magical hour just watching them dive for fish. There were so many of them surrounding us and out to sea, wherever we looked there were Grey Seals. John estimates 50 or so.. They reminded me of meerkats as they kept bobbing their heads up to look at us and then they would slide back under the freezing cold sea. Awesome !

Finally, we left them behind and rounded the Mull of Kintyre.

We are journeying again through the night towards our next destination, Tobermory.

28 May The River Ribble & Preston

We had a leisurely sail from Conwy to Preston, enjoying the sunshine and the bird sanctuary on the route up the River Ribble.

Inbound we were joined by a different bird of the sky, piloted by Pete Kosogorin and the BAE company photographer Ray Troll.....how lucky that they spotted us and took some great photos!

We took one of them...

Arrived at the lock to get into Preston Marina

But had an embarrasing situation when the lock master said to sail into the marina and the throttle on the engines didn't work! Luckily Jez Newsome was on hand to help temporarily fix the problem so we could get to the pontoon

After mooring, it was time to Party !!!!!

Loads of our friends came by to see us and have a beer or two and it was great to see everyone. We thank you for bringing booze and champagne and your company.

Mark & Antoinette Holton and their family pitched up on saturday afternoon to say hi.
Gill Pendleton, Rachel and James also added to catching up with dearly missed mates. Sadly, though we had to leave at 3.30pm when the lock gates opened to head off to Northern Ireland. We were given a send off by the local steam train though.

The weather was fair and calm again and we had yet another lovely sunset to view and then we hit dusk and approached the Morecambe Bay gas fields. They look very eerie from far away; something from a sci-fi novel or a Dr Who episode. We were advised to give each rig a 500m gap.

We had said farewell to our shipmate Jon Herod in the morning so now it is back to John and I to handle sailing our boat across the seas at night on our own....come back Jon !!!

Having told you all that we were heading to Belfast, unfortunately they couldn't accommodate us due to celebrating the Belfast Titanic Maritime Festival (do they not know who we are ! ) we headed to Bangor Marina, care of Sean Ellis who rang a few people and saved the day by getting us a berth there. It turned out to be the better choice, sunny and very picturesque and with an added bonus of getting to see our relatives Yvonne and Bertie as well as Sean and Andrea and Eloise.  No photos but a must see if you're ever in Northern Ireland.
We are heading off further north to Scotland tomorrow with no firm destination confirmed because it's all about the winds and the tides and tomorrow the tides are neap.
Night night.

28 May Videos

27 May Conwy to Preston

04h00 start for boring tide reasons.  However, the bonus was a great sun rise as the fog lifted and lots of photos

There are lots of wind farms in this part of the Irish Sea.  We spend a good 3 hours weaving through one particularly huge farm. 

Jon was slightly confused about where we were.  The picture looks tropical but the truth is evident in the background.  He's old and easily confused!

Not much wind so we took a chance and launched the drone.  The first pictures of Bitter Sharp with the sails up.  Really pleased.  Now we just need some with the big Code 0 up.

Perfectly on time, just after the drone was recovered the dolphins turned up.  Although we've had many dolphin encounters already this week, this was the first time I managed to catch them on camera.

All in all a very strange morning.  Having lived on the Fylde for 8 years I was certain we would have strong westerly winds, low cloud, drizzle and brown water.  In fact we had a gentle easterly breeze, blue skies, blue water and dolphins.  Things have certainly changed since we left!

In Preston Marina tonight.  Hopefully we'll catch up with many good friends.  Tomorrows only exit (because of tide) is 14h30.  If the weather forecast is OK we'll aim to set off and overnight sail north.  Maybe Belfast?

26 May Conwy

John writing under Julie's account ...

How the hell did we get in here?  More to the point, how the hell are we going to get out at 04h30 tomorrow morning?  Wish I'd known they were going to allocate us a double space which was almost exactly the width of our boat before committing to the entry .... Might need to send the drone on a recce next time.

At least it's a pretty place, we have a hose pipe to clean off a week of salt, and there is a very posh restaurant (not sure we met the dress code after a week of sailing, but we managed to blag our way in).

From the restaurant it was very clear who wins the big mast competition

Very clearly necessary since we are also potentially the lightest boat in the marina.  That's how it works, isn't it .... ?

Shooting for Preston tomorrow (Friday evening), dep Sat possibly, for Belfast Sunday night, maybe?