Puffin Island, 24th June
The things that pop up in my brain in the middle of the night. I suddenly woke up with the thought that I had left the cockpit sea cocks in a closed state at the end of our last (muddy) trip. With all the rain of the last few weeks, we would probably find Sea Ghost pretending to be a U-boot with her mast acting as periscope. That ever hopeful part of my brain told me that the harbour master would have noticed the identity change and informed us of its submerged state.
After the muddy mess of last time we came prepared with an outboard to be mounted on the dinghy transom. A yamaha 3.5 tested in the garden the weekend before. This would allow us to get to the mooring independently of the current in the river Conwy...in theory. The theory only works if the engine does so too.
True orange men
I took Meryl up in the Dinghy up towards Sea Ghost. We just managed to get there when the engine cut-out. Climbing on board we noticed quickly that my fear of a flooded boat was an accurate one, just not the amount.
The cockpit was full of water...well water...more green slurry. The two cockpit lockers had
also filled up leaving a green battery and ruined depth gauge behind.
Lesson learned the hard way.
Clouds over Wales
After some delay Sea Ghosts´ outboard started and we took her along side Conwy harbour wall. With all crew on board and gear loaded we set off for the floating pontoon to stay the night. My attempt to tilt the dinghy outboard out of the water displayed another slight anomaly in that the petrol tank started to empty itself in the dinghy. So that petrol leak problem discovered before buying the engine wasn't quite solved then.
June 25th
The next morning a further test drive of the dinghy exposed its unreliable character. We decided to leave the dinghy behind at the mooring buoy and set off without.
The lighthouse opposite Perch rock
At 9:30 we left the pontoon on an outgoing tide. Forecast was wind NW 3 or 4 with a slight sea state. Sounds excellent. We motored out of the channel up to Fairway. At 10:30 we killed the outboard off and started tacking towards Puffin Island, with 30 minutes legs.
The views towards the Snowdon mountains were impressive with black skies producing a lot of misery for those venturing into the mountains.
Can anyone tell me how deep it here is?
The wind was not the F3 to F4 as predicted but closed to F1 or F2. Around 12:00 with Puffin Island not closing much we decided to motor a bit more. We motor sailed around the West side of Puffin Islands enjoying little puffins fishing around us and even a large seal swimming past..
At 13:30 we dropped the anchor just off buoy B2 in the outer road towards Beaumaris. The sun came out and it was suddenly very warm. Lunch was lovely on the dead calm water.
After lunch we slowly motored towards the East side of Puffin Island with Meryl at the push pit looking out for jelly fish and sand banks. After 3 jelly fish a sand bank message came back and we watched the boat easing herself over the 2 meter water standing over the bank.
Jelly fish counting
We had a bit of wind to help us but when we left Puffin Island astern and set back for Conwy, the wind disappeared again and the help of the motor was required to ensure we would arrive back in Conwy this weekend and not the next. We were both amazed how deceptive distances are as on the way up to Puffin Island it looked so close from Fairway. The map showed a 6NM distance (10km).
Sailing along Puffin Island
Once back in Conwy channel we noted the compass course from buoy to buoy to allow us navigate the channel with much less visibility.
Back in Conwy we had another struggle with the outboard to get us ashore. When I had dropped off Meryl and half the gear at the jetty, the engine cut out and refused to start. A very kind couple, arriving in their dinghy with working outboard offered it to me to pick Timo and Geke up.
The boating world is full of very friendly and helpful people. Ready to go home. Oh, bugger, did I leave the sea cocks open or not....