We left for the start of our great adventure on Thursday 15 April at 7.30 in the morning. Graham the vicar of our local church St Andrews and his wife Mary were there to wish us good luck and wave us on our way. A big thank you to all of you who have wished us good luck and expressed your wishes that you hope we enjoy the journey.

We had intended crossing the channel and hugging the Welsh coast hoping to reach Tenby as our first stop. However the weather had other ideas. We left the pontoons in relative calm and a good wind, but 5 miles out the wind started gusting 26 knots so we decided to run with it to Illfacombe. By midday things had calmed down a bit, and we had a good sail in to Illracombe. All be it a cold day. It was a bit windy and lumpy for the first trip of the season which meant that the crew quickly got their sea legs. That was after one of them lost their breakfast, and the other didn’t because he had not had any and then wondered why he felt sea sick.

Friday 16 April.

A slight delay to our schedule brought about by a technicality meant that we didn’t depart Illfacombe until the Saturday. On arrival at Illfracombe on Thursday we realised that we had a slight leak and having paid a princely sum for a new electric toilet, for one I was not going on holiday with no toilet, and two, if it was leaking it was going back. This would have meant a return to home. Investigation revealed that the toilet was O.K. and that my plumbing was at fault. Yes even the best get things wrongs sometimes. A trip to the local chandlers on Friday morning to purchase some brass fittings, and hey presto it’s fixed and I’m not depressed anymore on only our second day. Any way what’s the rush, we’re on holiday. We spent the rest of the day musing around Illfracombe playing on the beach and in the rock pools. It turned out to be a nice sunny day and by the afternoon the wind had dropped. In the evening we went to the local yacht club to use the showers and have a drink before moving on to the Prince of Wales to listen to an R&B band. Sounds good? Actually they were rubbish and we were in bed by 10 o’clock.

Saturday 17 April

We left Illfracombe at 7.30 am on the Saturday and headed for Skomer Island off the West Wales coast dropping anchor in the South Haven just after 6 pm. It was a sunny windless day so we had to motor all the way. As there was no wind the sea was almost flat, which whilst it made for a pleasant journey we couldn’t sail it which would have been nice. Enroute we were followed by a fishing trawler the “Our Jossie Grace “. It was trying to read the name on the stern of our boat. They were doing a survey on behalf of one of the power companies who are considering installing wind farms in the Bristol Channel. Knowing what they were up to we called them up on the radio and asked if we could help. They said yes and asked the name of our vessel and took a picture, so we did the same. They were monitoring the names and types of all vessels travelling up and down the Bristol channel.

With the exception of one noise we had a relatively peaceful nigh at anchor in the haven. We were awoken by a sound which resembled us dragging our anchor. I dived out of bed to look out of the foreward hatch, and all was calm, pitch black but calm and wewere still lulling about in the haven. I returned to my bed and remembered someone else telling us about a similar experience. It was the birds flying into our rigging in the dark. Twang! Later on one or two decide to take a walkabout on our deck Thankfully they didn’t leave us anything!

Sunday 18 April

We ventured out of the South Haven of Skomer island at around 7 am. Two miles out and there was no wind, having motored all the way there from Illfracombe the previous day I was not prepared to motor all the way to Ireland, so we turned back and picked up a mooring bouy in the North haven. The island is a National Nature Reserve and managed by the Wildlife Trust of South & West Wales. We went ashore just before lunch to look around. We were greeted on the way up the path and asked to pay a landing fee. We expected this and as it was only £7.50 for adults and children were free we paid up. Not bad value really as we were also using their mooring for the night. We weren’t alone on the island as there were also 2 or 3 boat loads of bird watchers and holiday makers, as well as the permanent island staff and volunteers. We took a picnic and had a nice day looking at the wild life, rabbits, pheasant, gannets, hundreds of puffins and of course the dreaded sea gulls. Farming on the island ceased in 1949 and has been managed as a nature reserve since 1959.

You have to keep to the paths but some of the puffins make their nests so near to the path you can almost touch them.

Returning to the boat at the end of the afternoon we saw about 20 sea lions on the beach. They weren’t so obliging as the puffins were to have their photo taken and took to the water as we approached.

 Monday 19 April.

We left the Skomer island North Haven at 6 am bound for Ireland. With a 20 knot northerly wind it was a bit chilly but we had a good sail and arrived at Kilmore Quay marina www.wexford.ie/kilmore/index.htm on the South East corner of Ireland at 5 pm. We didn’t see any other leisure sailors and only a few commercial vessels. Ten miles out from Kilmore Quay we were joined by a school of about 20 to 30 porpoise who danced around our boat for about 20 minutes. It’s always exciting to see them duck and dive around the bow wave and under the boat. The marina is run by the council and as we arrived at 5 o’clock there was no one there to greet us. Hence we are stuck in the marina until the marina manager turns up for work again tomorrow.