Sailing to Dun Laoghaire Ireland

Looking back through the passage at East Gap Rock

After our fantastic morning ashore exploring Tresco and the Abbey Gardens it was time to catch the tide and start heading north.  The most direct route out of St Helen’s Pool was through the passage to the north but our pilot book said that it should be used with caution due to the rocks.  On our way back from being ashore we had taken a look from the dinghy and so long as we avoided the shallow weedy bank on the left-hand side it seemed perfectly safe to depart that way.

Looking back through the passage at East Gap Rock

We raised the anchor at 1410hrs and found that the route out between West and East Gap Rocks was no drama at all in the conditions.  The water was so clear that we could see down and pick out the deeper water and any rocks even without using the transit that we had identified.  Fairly quickly we were clear of the Isles of Scilly and heading north.  The tide was favourable but the wind was still very light so, as expected, the passage north started with a few hours of motoring.

Our standard downwind sailing setup

By 6pm the southwesterly wind had built enough for us to start sailing so we poled out the genoa and braced the mainsail boom with a preventer, our standard downwind sailing setup.  We were heading north up the Irish Sea and the plan was to keep going as far north towards Scotland as we could whilst the wind was favourable. 

Sailing overnight 29-30 July all went well.  The wind was a steady 15 knots and BV made good progress sailing herself at 7 knots with the Hydrovane steering.  Visibility was down to about 3nm in drizzle but our AIS was still functioning so any ships out there could see us and we always had one of us on watch looking out.

At dawn the wind started picking up a bit so we reefed down.  Even with the smaller sail area we were sailed faster at 8½ knots.  Perhaps as a result of the extra motion because of the sea state, the GPS aerial on the AIS system failed again and this time no amount of wiggling and tightening seemed to bring it back online.  We could still pick up any vessels transmitting an AIS position but they would not see an AIS signal from us. 

Aside from that it was routine passagemaking.  We dodged the odd ship, increased sail as the wind dropped and ran the watermaker to fill up the fresh water tanks.

At midday a standard voltage check whilst writing the log confirmed that there was a problem with our DuoGen towed power generator and that it had stopped producing 12V power (it later transpired that it had blown a fuse).  It wasn’t a major problem but it was irritating because when we are sailing the DuoGen covers all of our normal power usage.  We’d now need to run the generator every so often to keep the batteries topped up which is not a very efficient way of doing things because the generator is massively overpowered for that task.  But I did think that I had the parts on board to fix the problem so the question was whether or not to start doing that whilst we sailed along.

A mid-afternoon update on the weather helped with the decision making.  Overnight our helpful southerly wind was going to veer to be an unhelpful north-northwesterly.  We could still progress north but it would be much slower as we zigzagged up the Irish Sea beating into a 15 knot wind.  Nicky studied the options and Dun Laoghaire, just east of Dublin, was the logical choice.  We’d be able to get in there at any state of tide (or weather conditions), it has an excellent marina and good shops. Reed’s confirmed that there was a chandlery so we might also be able to get a replacement GPS aerial for the AIS as well as fixing the DuoGen and restocking the fridge.  At 1450hrs we set course for Dun Laoghaire expecting to arrive there in the middle of the night.

Motoring into Dublin Bay.  The red lighthouse just east of Dun Laoghaire visible ahead

Late afternoon we got a mobile phone signal so Nicky called the marina at Dun Laoghaire to let them know that we would be arriving and agreed where we could moor up.  Sadly the chandlery would be closed because Monday was a Bank Holiday in Ireland.  We pressed on and progress was good sailing at 6½-7knots.  A bit north of Wicklow the wind backed to the south [Ed:  !!] and dropped away so we motored the last 10 miles or so to the marina, with the wind filling in from the north, as advertised shortly before our arrival.  With heavy rain showers coming through, the visibility was down to less than 2nm.

Nicky’s phone call earlier to the marina had given us loads of mooring options; most of them in the centre of the marina.  However, there was also a space on an outside pontoon heading north.  Perfect for us to moor to in the dark of the middle of the night.  We tied up at 2305hrs, put the covers on BV and went to bed quite excited about what this unexpected stop in Dun Laoghaire would turn out to be like in the morning.

Dun Laoghaire, Ireland

Tresco Abbey Gardens

Old Grimsby

On the morning of Friday 29 July we rode the dinghy ashore to the beach at Old Grimsby.  We couldn’t have asked for better weather; clear blue skies and almost no wind.

New Grimsby Quay

Looking across New Grimsby Sound towards the islands of Bryher (R) and Sampson (L)

We had a lovely walk across the centre of the island from Old Grimsby to New Grimsby.  Both villages seemed to be primarily composed of holiday cottages and the centre of New Grimsby also appears to have been redeveloped with tourism in mind.  We saw very few motorised vehicles and noted that the communal recycling and rubbish bins which serve all the homes and other properties on the island are all enclosed in wooden enclosures so that the brightly coloured bins won’t detract from the beautiful rural surroundings.

Tresco Abbey

Tresco Abbey was built on the site of the old ruined Tresco Abbey by Augustus Smith a Herefordshire landowner who took over the administration of the islands in 1834.  He took the title of Lord Proprietor of all Scilly and remain in that position for 38 years until his death in 1872.  Not only did he transform the prosperity of the islands, but he also established the internationally renowned Tresco Abbey Gardens in the 17 acres that surrounded his new house.

Abbey Pool

Tresco Abbey remains a private building though the gardens are open to the public.  The entrance to the gardens was on the other side of Tresco Abbey so we followed the road, past the Abbey Pool (and the island’s helipad!) and into the visitors’ centre.

Red squirrels leaping across from the tree to get to the nuts at the feeding station

Tickets purchased, we started to cross an ornate bridge into the gardens but stopped to watch a red squirrel trying to reach a feeding station, already occupied by another squirrel.  The metal bin lid stops the squirrels from getting onto the feeding station from below, so they have to take a flying leap from the nearby tree and then try not to skid past the food box on the slippery top of the bin lid.  It took the squirrel we watched a great many attempts and kept us entertained for several minutes.

Inside, the gardens were quite charming.  Terraces stepped up the south-facing slope and were divided up into separate areas.

The Gulf Stream helps to keep the air temperature higher in the Isles of Scilly than in the rest of Britain and Augustus Smith began the development of the gardens by planting conifers around it to act as a windbreak when they were fully grown.  This windbreak planting was continued by his descendants as was the development of the gardens.  As a result of the Gulf Stream and the windbreak plantation, the gardens are both sheltered and warm and there are a wide variety of plants growing in abundance that would not survive anywhere else in the British Isles.

Looking out across St Mary’s Road at the island of St Mary’s (L) and St Agnes (R) 

The disadvantage of the conifer screen is that there are relatively few views out across the islands from the gardens…….

…..but the views inside the gardens more than make up for that!

The ruins of the original Tresco Abbey

Plumb Island, Great Crabs Ledge, Lubbers Rock and Tresco Flats beyond.  Sampson Hill on Bryher to the right

On our route back to Old Grimsby we walked up the western side of Tresco which gave us spectacular views of New Grimsby Sound and Tresco Flats at low water.

Looking NW up New Grimsby Sound

New Grimsby to the right.  Cromwell’s Castle right side of the Sound, Hangman Island to the left

Once at New Grimsby we cut across the middle of the island to get to the eastern side and back to Old Grimsby.

View from BV north towards the passage out between St Helen’s Island (left) and Team Island (right)

On our way back to BV we took the dinghy out through the passage between St Helen’s and Tean Islands.  The pilot book is full of warnings about this passage but leaving via that route would save us a lot of time, so we decided to recce it.  We found that it is rocky on either side and that close to St Helen’s Pool we would need to make a couple of turns to keep BV in the deepest water.  But the water was so clear that we were able to spot the deepest areas from the dinghy and picked out some transits to help us get BV out safely after we had had some lunch.

Tresco Abbey Garden, Tresco, Isles of Scilly

St Helen’s Pool The Isles of Scilly

We lifted the anchor in Crow Sound at 1555hrs on 28 July for the short 2.4nm transit to St Helen’s Pool.  The tide had risen enough that it was an uneventful crossing of the shallows and as we approached St Helen’s Pool it was clear that we weren’t the only people who had thought that it would be a nice place to stop.

(Top) At anchor, looking southeast towards Crow Sound (Bottom) St Helen’s Island

The pool already had several yachts anchored in it and more arrived as we settled at anchor and took in our surroundings.  We had last been here about 17 years ago and had been the only yacht in the anchorage!

Our neighbours, all sitting a different angles in the light winds and tidal eddies

Looking towards Old Grimsby on Tresco

To the southwest of us was the island of Tresco and we could see the sandy beach and houses of Old Grimsby.  Our plan was to go ashore there in the morning and walk to the other side of the island and visit the Tresco Abbey Gardens.

But for now it was time to sit in the cockpit and enjoy the evening sunshine.

The clear skies and millpond like sea made for some nice sunset pictures.  I couldn’t decided which one to include, so I’ve posted all of them!

St Helen’s Pool, The Isles of Scilly

Alderney to The Isles of Scilly

We left Braye Harbour at 9am on Wednesday 27 July.  It meant that we experienced a messy tidal flow as we headed west and a bit north to clear Burhou, the Casquets and all the off-lying rocks but Nicky had worked the plan so that we would start to get the benefit of the westward tidal flow as we crossed the shipping lanes which we had to cross heading north.  There was no wind to speak of, but we had calculated that that we needed to motor most of the way towards Land’s End or risk getting trapped in the English Channel when the winds started to build briskly from the west in a couple of days’ time.

Leaving Braye Harbour

All went well until 1325hrs when we had crossed the eastward shipping laneand turned back onto our westerly heading towards Lands End.  The engine revs dropped briefly and then recovered; both of us heard it and knew immediately that something was not right.  Ten minutes later the engine revs dropped off again but recovered when we pulled the throttle back.  Our assessment was that the fuel supply to the engines was being restricted by partially blocked filters.  The worst case was that this was due to diesel bug contamination which would mean a complete clean out of the fuel system.  We’d need a decent sized boatyard to get that work done; Plymouth or Falmouth were the most likely locations to find that sort of help but they were a good distance away.  Dartmouth was a possibility, and it was closest.  So, at 1350hrs we turned to head towards Dartmouth running at reduced speed with 1700rpm set. That seemed to be low enough revs to keep the engine running smoothly. 

There was still no wind to speak of and we had another shipping lane to cross.  We really needed to know a bit more about what was wrong with the fuel supply.  Perhaps the disturbed seas as we had left Alderney had shaken the fuel up enough for some contamination at the bottom of the tank to be sucked up into the filters.  A bad case of diesel bug contamination however could potentially block the filters and pipes completely.  Clearly, we didn’t want that to happen and end up drifting in the middle of a busy shipping lane.

Our engine fuel supply line has a special device to catch any diesel bug debris before it gets to the first filter.  If we had a bad case of diesel bug that unit would be full of the contamination; we knew it had been empty and clean a couple of weeks previously when we had carried out an engine service, though we hadn’t had time to change the fuel filters then.  So, when we were right in the middle between the 2 shipping lanes, beside the Channel Light buoy, we shut down the engine and started drifting whilst we checked.  Removing the diesel bug catcher, checking it, reassembling and bleeding any air out took about 10 minutes. We were very relieved to find the diesel bug catcher was completely clean.  So, we hoped that the problem was just a build-up of debris in the normal fuel filters; they were due a change.  However, changing those would take much longer and potentially would allow lots of air into the fuel supply which can take some time to clear.  We didn’t feel that there was enough space between the shipping lanes to change the fuel filters if there were any complications.

Instead we continued on with reduced revs to cross the second shipping lane and then on towards Dartmouth. Eventually, we felt that we had enough sea room to drift whilst we worked on changing the fuel filters. Changing them went very smoothly and we got the filters changed and the fuel system clear of air in just 20 minutes.  The engine ran smoothly again at full power – problem solved! 

Much relived we set our course towards the Lizard, just east of Land’s End, and continued west on a glassy sea.

At nightfall we switched onto a 3-hour watch system with one of us asleep below whilst the other worked the boat.

Not a great picture but it does show a bit of the blue phosphorescence in our wake

Throughout the night we were regularly visited by dolphins and we also experienced some really bright blue phosphorescence.  The edge of our wake was picked out really distinctly in blue and when the dolphins swam past it looked like we were being overtaken by bright blue ghosts.

Looking back at Land’s End and the busy shipping lane we had had to cross

Land’s End is another busy shipping area with a traffic separation scheme.  Once we were past the Lizard, Nicky, who was on watch, had to time crossing behind a series of ships approaching Land’s End.  Our direct route to the Isles of Scilly would clip the traffic separation area so on my watch there were some more ‘wiggles’ to dodge ships and a short leg off our direct course to cross part of the shipping lane heading at 90 degrees to the line of the TSS.

Entering Crow Sound

Thereafter it was an easy sail into Crow Sound, just northeast east of St Mary’s, the largest of the Isles of Scilly.  We wanted to move on to other anchorages but the tide was too low for that, so instead we anchored in Crow Sound at 1340hrs aiming to move on in a few hours.  Whilst we waited, Nicky checked in with Customs and Immigration to let them know that we were back in the British Isles.  Meanwhile I looked at MarineTraffic to see if we recognised any yachts in the Isles of Scilly but instead discovered that out track had stopped a few miles northwest of Alderney.  We had been picking up ships all the way here but they would not have been able to see a signal from us; not great when we had been crossing busy shipping lanes.  Running the diagnostics showed that the dedicated GPS aerial for the AIS had failed.  A bit of wiggling and tightening and it came back online; looks like we had a loose connection at the GPS aerial.

View towards St Martin from our position at anchor in Crow Sound

Crow Sound, Isles of Scilly

Braye Harbour Alderney

 All went well with Nicky’s father’s operation and so on Sunday 24 July we loaded BV up with lots of victuals and moved back on board.  The weather wasn’t being particularly helpful with light wind forecast for the afternoon followed by stronger westerly winds with gusts of 30 knots overnight.  Our original plan had been to head directly towards Falmouth or, ideally, the Isles of Scilly to position us for sailing up the Irish Sea towards Scotland.  Strong westerly winds wouldn’t help with that plan but we were keen to get going so we decided that we’d use the initial light winds to get going roughly towards Plymouth and then overnight, when the strong winds kicked in, we’d bear away to have a more comfortable sail ending up at Dartmouth.

Heading out from St Peter Port

The winds did not play as forecast.  We moved from the QEII marina into St Peter Port to refuel which took an age as they only had one diesel pump working and a long queue of yachts waiting.  Finally, an hour later, at 1500hrs we started heading north up the Little Russel.  The islands of Herm, Jethou and Sark looked beautiful in the sunshine but there was barely a breath of wind.

Brehon Fort with Herm to the left, Jethou to the right and Sark in the distance

We continued on hoping that the forecast light wind would show itself once we got north of Guernsey.  It did for a short time and we got 40 minutes of sailing but it was so light that the tide was sweeping us east faster than we wanted.  If the 30 knot winds came as advertised, we’d have a really hard beat to make Dartmouth rather than our hoped for reach.  Recognising that, ultimately, we were trying to get west towards Land’s End we had 2 choices: head back to Guernsey or accept a bit of easterly and move on to Alderney until the wind became more favourable in a few days’ time.

Anchored in Braye Harbour, Alderney

Alderney became the new immediate destination, and we arrived in Braye Harbour 2½ hours later at 1900hrs.  The anchoring area had lots of free space, so we elected to stay there and have a slightly different view from our last visit 4 days previously.

As the sun set, we studied the weather forecast.  We’d be in Alderney for at least 2 days due to strong westerlies, there would then be a period of 3 knot winds from the north clocking around to the southeast and then the wind would pick up from the southwest.  We wanted to catch those southwesterly winds to head up the Irish Sea towards Scotland.  However, for the next 2 days we’d be going nowhere, so it was time to enjoy some more of Alderney’s charms.

The forge at the 200-year-old watermill

For some unknown reason, neither of us was any good at taking photos on Monday 25 July.  We walked around Crabby Bay, past Doyle’s Battery and up past Fort Tourgis.  There we turned east to pick up a track along the Bonne Terre valley.  However, before we took that path we made a small excursion back northward to take a look at the watermill site.  There has been a watermill there since the 14^th century but the building we saw was a little over 200 years old.  It is being restored by the Alderney Society and we spent a long time talking to a couple who were working on demolishing a tumbledown dry stone wall and rebuilding the wooden gutter that would feed the stream water onto the top of the 5m high waterwheel.  On our way out they suggested that we had a go at pumping the bellows in the mill’s forge, another area that had recently been restored.  It was fascinating to hear what they had achieved so far and where the project was going.  Well worth the diversion from our planned track.

Pretty lanes in St Anne

The rest our route took us up the stream that fed the watermill, past the St Vignalis Garden (St Vignalis first brought Christianity to Alderney) and the into the pretty lanes at the western side of St Anne.  A stroll down the hill took us back to the inner harbour where we had left our dinghy. A nice circuit.

France clearly visible, the Alderney race running quickly westward, and Fort Raz at low water (R)

Tuesday 26 July saw us out and about again with our hiking shoes on, this time exploring the eastern end of the island.

German WWII Naval Range Finding position Marinepeilstand 3 – ‘The Odeon’

We’d come east to visit the 1943 German WWII multi-level naval direction finding tower known locally as ‘The Odeon’.

Looking out to the northeast from inside the Odeon

This unique building was part of Hitler’s ‘Atlantic Wall’ designed to prevent the Allies from invading Europe. German Naval observers would spot any approaching allied ships and coordinate accurate artillery fire to sink them.  However, advances in radar and optical range finders meant that the other 5 triangulating towers were never built on the island, so this tower was instead used by the Lufwaffe as an anti-aircraft command post.  Recently restored, the building and presentations gave an insight into the immense defensive building work constructed on the island during WWII and, more chilling, the prisoner manpower used to achieve that and who were housed in concentration camps on the island.  A dark side to Alderney’s history.

Fort Corblets (R) and Château à L’Etoc (L) either side of Corblets B­­­­­­ay

Corblets Bay

From the Odeon we walked along the beautiful Corblets Bay beach stopping at the camp site café for lunch.

From the campsite, the logical path to take was around the coast and up to Fort Albert.

The climb gave fabulous views back where we had come from….

…. and once around the western side of Fort Albert, down into Braye Harbour.

We had been totally spoilt by the weather and had enjoyed 2 great days out exploring Alderney, but along the way we had decided upon a plan to depart in the morning and see if we could get out towards Lands End before the wind built from the southwest.

Braye Harbour, Alderney