Day 16 Friday 3rd June. The bee and me to Ireland

Left Milford Marina at 5.45 am. The place seemed pretty good value at £15 for 2 nights. They were very friendly too. I'd recommend the place. The sky was cloudless and even Milford looked good as the sun rose. The tug boats were active maneuvering large boats into harbour. I wondered if the bigger the boat is the more tugs you need or whether the 3 on this one is the norm i.e 2 to provide movement and the one at the rear connected by a long rope to provide the steering. Maybe by the end of this trip I'll know the answer.

The forecast was for a force 3/4 North easterly. This,coupled with the flat sea promised perfect conditions to get to Ireland.If i was pummeled by the sea off Padstow, it looked like it was going to pamper me today.Just outside the entrance to Milford there is an interesting bit on the chart. Not a place to go diving me thinks!

I had left early to benefit from the north running tide. It was springs, so the water would be moving at its maximum. Just north of Milford is Ramsey Island and some really strong tides run between it and the mainland if you are going up the Welsh coast. The tide between Skomer and Skokholm, which was my route did not provide the same tidal escalator but it still pushed be between the islands at over 9 knots.

The view back to the two islands was superb. It looked more Mediterranean than Irish Sea in these conditions.

Way off to the west was Grasholm and it looked like it was covered in snow. i guess it.s the guano from the bird colonies.

Today I would be motor sailing the wind was too light to move Hylje at much more than 4kn and it was a long way to Ireland, with the tide turning against me at the half way stage. The flat sea and motor on just over tick over meant that I was doing about 7kn most of the time. That's good for me because 5kn is the more usual average.

About half way across St George's Channel I was joined again by a pod of dolphins. This time I moved right to the bow with the auto helm coping with the steering. From there i was able to look right down on them and hear them blow when they surfaced. I don't know what the odds are for this happening, but I feel privileged for it to have happened twice already.

Shortly after the dolphins left me a bumble bee arrived ad settled on one of my sail bags. Where was it going? Was it an Irish bumble bee? Was I going the right way for it? I didn't see it leave, but it was with me a long time. I hope I helped it a bit.

My main approach to navigation is to enter way points into my hand held GPS once i have studied the charts this then gives me a rhumb line displayed on the screen and a separate track line for my passage. I steer the boat to keep the track line on the rhumb line or parallel to it. This is not the same thing as pointing at the chosen destination quite the opposite I may be pointing at an angle to the destination in order to counteract the tide. I make adjustments to my bearing and effectively slide along the rhumb line. Close to Ireland with the tide pushing me back down the channel I was pointing about 33 degrees up stream from my destination. The old way was to calculate the heading to take account of tide.However it is not easy to predict what the tide will be doing all the time and its a complicated series of geometric calculations. my approach works for me. purists may be critical

This post is largely about tided. I find them fascinating. Reeds Almanac describes tides as GE horizontal movement of water that takes place because of the vertical change in sea levels.It provides an interesting chart to show how the water flows around the British Isles when the water is returning. It shows that the Irish Sea fills by water flowing in from the top and the bottom. This means that at a point in the middle which is called the "amphidromic point". It is near Arklow. Here the tidal range is very small because water is running in from one direction as fast as it is going out in the other. The pilot book describes this as the " fulcrum of the tidal sea saw". All this means is that i shall have some interesting conditions to deal with and as I move north the tide will be doing that way for a lot less time than its coming the other way.

When you are trying to work out which way the water will be moving the charts base their information on the times before and after high water at Dover. It is strange to note that when I was in Padstow the time of high tide there was almost exactly the time of low tide at Dover. That's a difference of 6 hours.

I arrived at Wexford at about 5pm. It's a fascinating approach.It sits at the top of 3 mile wide and partially drying lagoon. It used to be a major port but in 1925 the sea swept away a mile and a half of the protecting Rosslare Point sand pit. Its name comes from the old Norse  Waesfjord or shallow inlet, the entrance needs to be dredged and it twists and turns between the sand banks. There were terns diving for fish in the shallows next to the channel and seals bobbing up around me to investigate me.

I entered the harbour and drew up along side a young guy in an Etap 23 who was tied onto a fishing boat. he gave me a complete rundown and suggested I tie up to the fishing boat behind because it wouldn't be going anywhere.It was then into town to do the blog and grab a Guinness, I think today is the longest passage so far.72nm over the ground 82nm through the water, 80 miles or so. All under a blazing sun. my face is glowing!