Speedwell of Rhu Ship's Log

29 th of July 2012 - To Milford Haven

Sunday 29 ^th July

We were off our anchor by 0800. We passed Strumble Head and the lighthouse followed closely by two other boats. The wind was on our nose and there was quite a swell off the headland so we took our course a little further off shore than the other yachts. This meant we were able to get a better angle on the wind once past the light house and could sail toward Ramsey island.

It was still a bit rough, due to having had north westerly winds for a few days. We had a couple of knots of tide in our favour, however. We had decided not to go through Ramsey sound. Instead our passage plan took us along the west coast of Ramsey island. In retrospect this wasn't the best plan as the overfalls were pretty fierce. However, we got to see the spectacular west coast. With full revs and 3 knots of tide, we were soon through the rough patch and we sailed more gently, across St Brides Bay, passing 5 oil tankers at anchor, toward Skomer. We got to the north harbour and picked up a mooring buoy. We had a quick lunch and made friends with the local herring gull. There were a few trip boats and dive boats, but the yachts we had left with carried on through Jack Sound, presumably to Milford Haven.

The bay was very pleasant, but with the swell and wind coming from the north west it wasn't very shletered so we decided to try the bay on the south of the island, where you can anchor but not go ashore. We worked out that if we left quickly we should still have an hour of fair tide to get us through Jack Sound, between the mainland and Skomer Island. As we headed through, one look at our speed and we realised we had got the tides slightly wrong. However, we got through at 2 knots over the ground using full revs again. Fortunately it wasn't far. We motored into the south anchorage, which was beautiful. Unfortunately, for some odd reason the wind and swell seemed to be coming from the south west on this side of the island, straight into that bay again.

We decided not to stay the night there either and, after a quick explore, we headed instead for Milford Haven.

We past St Ann's Head and entered into Milford haven which is a huge natural harbour with oil refineries and deep water channels for the oil tankers. Despite this, it was pretty quiet when we got there. We anchored in Dales Bay north west of the fort. (Of which there are many)

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