The Last Leg

I knew on Saturday evening that if I wanted to reach Porthmadog the following day I could do with an early start to make full use of the rising tide, although with a 10 hour journey ahead this would naturally entail pushing into an ebbing tide too.

Tzu leaving Old Fishguard Harbour Anchorge

  Geology dictates that you cannot use the full flow of tide out to sea to best advantage and duck into the coast where the tide flows slower as the Sarn Badrig juts out to sea for some miles thus meaning you need to pick which 'end' of this you go round and live with the tides you get given.   Sarn Badrig is the Welsh for "St Patricks Causeway" and presumably he used it to walk to Ireland.  

I thought I was leaving early on Sunday morning at 5am but as I raised the anchor from the lovely anchorage at Old Fishguard Harbour I noticed that one of my seven neighbours from the previous night had already upped and gone.   I set a course to the Cardinal buoy marking the end of Sarn Badrig which is almost in line with a direct course from Fishguard to Porthmadog. 

With a forecast for some wind from the east later I expectantly raised the mainsail but what little wind there was was blowing from exactly the direction we were going. 

Although gently motoring our speed over the ground was around 6 knots as we were getting the benefit of 2 knots of tide.  Later, after the tide turned, we were losing 2 knots due to the tide which dropped the speed significantly and even with an increase in expensive engine revs we struggled to see close to 5.  

On the run before Sarn Badrig I was delighted to see dolphins come to escort us personally home, the best welcome I could wish for. 

The Sarn Badrig cardinal buoy.  Its a "West" cardinal. 
but you already know that from our earlier page 

After we turned slightly at Sarn Badrig the wind rose and shifted a little so that we were able to sail 'properly'.  The ETA shown on the plotter tumbling rapidly to the point that I had to take down all the sails outside the estuary to avoid ploughing full speed into what was, to me after a five year absence, an unknown drying estuary well before high water.

The fairway buoy for Porthmadog harbour was duly found but as this can be judged as a landmark only as its not too near the channel I started to look for a green or red buoy in the vicinity.   I was quite happy to not be rushing into the harbour as it was 2.5 hours before HW and it is recommended to enter +/- 2 hours to this point but that first buoy took a lot of looking for.  The weather at this point being quite windy and Tzu rolling around like several Red Funnel ferries had recently passed on their way to Cowes.  

The waters in the estuary are much calmer than just a mile away

We pottered slowly and carefully up the estuary from buoy to buoy till we were met by a welcoming party from Porthmadog Sailing Club (well, just Bob.   Thank you Bob!)  and assisted with mooring on the scrubbing pad outside the club to sit the night and low water out before moving onto a proper trot mooring the following morning. 

After checking the mooring lines on our new mooring "Welcoming Bob" and I moved Tzu from the quay wall.  This was no mean feat as by now a swell was marching in from the sea and the currents around the quay wall were 'interesting'.  After a succesful departure I realised we'd left the dinghy, which we would need to get back to shore, tied up to the wall.  A swift return and more 'interesting' manouevering later we had retrieved the dinghy, moored Tzu up and the Odyssey was officially complete.

Leg:              65.7nm

Total Trip:   440.8nm

Postscript

Although Tzu's Odyssey was offically over, mine wasn't.  After being collected from the club by my applauding family (my blog, I'll write it how I like) I needed to retrieve the car from Southampton.  This entailed a train journey that visited 29 stations across Wales and England, some waiting around, a bus journey and a 5 hour drive home.  

Thank you for taking the time to read this record. I hope that I've entertained you and that you take some encouragement or a nugget of information from these pages. I've deliberately left out a list of GPS co-ordinates, hourly weather conditions, compass headings and the like as I think they can make for a rather dry read.  As I said some time ago, I'm just an average bloke who needed to move his average boat closer to his house but if you have questions, ask away!

Steve. 

PPS - The name "Tzu"?   possibly connected to Chinese Philosopher Lao Tzu who might have said 

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step".    

 Rather fitting I think