The ‘Erly Tour – Pwhelli to Fleetwod

20 June 2021 – Pwhelli to Holyhead

This passage has a number of overfalls to contend with and, remembering the pounding I took around Marloes Head a couple of weeks ago I was determined to get this one right! The first, and probably the trickiest is Bardsey sound. I had to leave the marina at the right state of tide to be able to get out but this left me too much time to get to the sound at the right time so I would either have to sail very slowly or find somewhere to wait for a bit.

I decided on the latter course of action and thought I’d go along to Abersoch again and pick up a mooring. Well, the wind was still pretty strong in there and the swell was probably close to a metre which made it impossible to pick up the mooring single-handed. After a few attempts, I gave up and carried on. Just around the headland is a small bay called Porth Ceiriad which was completely sheltered and I slipped in there and dropped the anchor for a couple of hours.

When I judged the time was right I set off again and was chuffed to bits to go through the sound in completely flat water. Result!

For the first time in a couple of weeks, I actually had wind to sail with and made good time up towards Anglesey across Caernarfon Bay although as I got further north the wind veered (that’s the wind direction went clockwise if viewed from above) so had to put in a few tacks which slowed proceedings somewhat. This had the knock-on effect that I couldn’t risk the “inside” course around Holy Island and had to go around the outside of the large overfalls there around south and north stacks and the Holyhead race.

In the end, I got into Holyhead “marina” after sunset but, luckily, because of the number of lights, it wasn’t completely dark.

Entered marina 22:30. 59 miles, 15 hours.

Holyhead Marina was destroyed in September 2018 by Storm Ellen and has yet to be rebuilt. All that is left is the main concrete pontoon that is connected to the shore. This in itself is in a poor state of repair. The “security” gate doesn’t operate and is permanently open. Most of the showers were out of commission when I visited. And yet they were still charging more than both Aberystwyth and Pwhelli and only 50p less than Milford Haven – all fully functioning marinas with excellent facilities.

To cap it all each time a ferry went in or out a massive surge swept through the harbour making the boats tied up thrash about quite alarmingly.

I won’t be going back!

The town of Holyhead itself is pretty quiet but I did find an excellent coffee shop called The Hive – well worth a visit

and right across the street a great Turkish barber where the proprietor engages in philosophical conversation rather than “have you been on your holidays yet?” type banter. A great haircut too.

The Thai Massage place next door was closed. Darn it!

I had hoped to meet up with the Taylor family – Andy, Melissa and Jack – of the YouTube channel “Sailing Melody” who are restoring an old steel boat in the yard. Unfortunately, we didn’t quite get the timing right.

23 June 2021. Holyhead to Fleetwood

Fleetwood is another tide dependant entrance and to make the evening tide I had to leave Holyhead at 06:00. Yawn!

The wind was quite light to begin with but once clear of The Skerries (or, as I referred to them – The Scaries) the wind increased to around twelve knots and, for once, I wasn’t beating into it!

Of course, I couldn’t have wind and good weather and it was overcast with light rain for most of the day. I got fed up with that after a few hours so fired up my laptop and started Open CPN so that I could display all the AIS targets, put it on the salon table, came inside and shut the hatch! Every fifteen minutes I popped my head out and had a good scan around to make sure there wasn’t some vessel without AIS and to look for fishing buoys.

On one occasion I spotted a vessel on the AIS where our closest point of approach (CPA) was only a few hundred metres. I went out into the cockpit to check it out and spotted it. It had “guard” written in big letters along the side. I called them on the VHF and it turned out that they were guarding a decommissioned oil rig around which there was a five hundred-metre exclusion. Of course, this wasn’t marked on the chart. It was probably in some “Notice to Mariners” somewhere but I hadn’t seen it. Whilst I was actually nowhere near getting close to it on my course, I was inside the exclusion zone so said I would alter course so I put in a short tack to get away far enough then tacked back onto my original course.

I was heading for Fleetwod Marina and when I had checked their website for rates and booking info I had seen that you couldn’t pre-book but that you should call them on approach and you’d be allocated a berth.

Once I calculated that I was in VHF range I started calling them but got no response. I continued to call periodically but had no response at all. Once I had a mobile phone signal I tried telephoning but just kept getting the answering machine! I was beginning to get a bit concerned but eventually, I got them on the phone and asked for a berth only to be told that they weren’t accepting visitors!

I explained that I’d just sailed from Holyhead, I’d been going a long time and was knackered. Eventually, they allowed me in and I got tied up to a berth. the reason there was a problem was that there are two marina basins in Fleetwood and the outer basin was being dredged so all the pontoons had been removed leaving only the inner basin which, I assume, is for contract berths. Anyway, I got in and the staff were very helpful and friendly. The lady in the office told me that there was a notice on the website about the closure and sure enough when I looked and clicked through about three links I found it. You would have thought that something like that would be emblazoned on the home page!

Berthed at 22:00. 76 miles, 16 hours.