Good company and some succesful work

A great weekend in our home port - even if we didn't leave the mooring. It was mainly spent upgrading and repairing some of the minor damage suffered last weekend !

We had an excellent Saturday night with Joe and our neighbouring berth holder, who un-fortunately arrived too late for dinner, but not too late for a glass of very passable claret and some good conversation.

It was good to see the Autohlem successfully power up (just a minor tweak there)  The wind instrument problems seem to relate to not carrying out the linearisation of the anenometer during the calibration process (whatever that is ?)  Next time out, we need to do the bumps and turns required for to properly calibrate.  

New mooring lines fore and aft have at last been respliced and fixed on, and the main sheet traveller has been repaired and modified to give us some more control - as shown in the photo.

The new traveller / control lines

I think this should see us out for the rest of the season (...although if Santa was passing the Barton store on his way to our house!)

Most importantly of all, the loo brush is now also  fully secured in the heads - all crew please note.

An action packed return to Pwllheli

Something for everyone in return leg.
Starting out sunny and flat it soon became  overcast with winds freshening, backing and some squally rain.
A maginficent dolphin encounter as we passed Sarn Baedrig - with a pod of four breaking the surface line abreast swimming alongside and diving under the bow wave. Sorry - no pictures this time.
Many thanks to Bill for excellent work at the helm.
The weather closed in from this point onwards, with more rain and higher more variable winds, culminating in rather a hot landing at Pw. Many thanks to Ian of Rebellion for his help on hand!
And forgot to mention the puffins we saw - flying and diving into the swell !

Hello Aberystwyth!

Our first visit to Aberyswyth - great sail down - up to 7 knots over the ground and some lumpy seas.

North of Sarn Padraig - some lumpy seas

Bill relaxes for a while whilst Clive takes a trick at the wheel

On our visitor's berth in Aberystwyth

Gps chart plotter

Yea for the new garmin chart plotter adorning the helm - even if it is on a temporary bracket !

The trireme sail

Spending help from Jonathan and Rob at JKA for their help with the massive genoa, known as the trireme sail, once again adorning our forestay. 

<<note to self>> Must get their web site on our links when access to a full version of blogger allows

Warm front passes,

After literally weeks of high pressure, a low has broken into the cycle and the warm front prophesied by the surface pressure charts blew through in the early hours. 

Of course it all sounds much worse at night, and the wind didn't make F5, but there was much rocking, some rain through the port lights and the extra rigging that a ketch carries caused some extra moaning, so it sounded like a real storm at sea.

Now out to check round for any real damage...

Another visitor

This cheeky chap came to visit us. Watch out for the funny walk right at the end.

Another sketch of pwllheli harbour

Firmhelm office & yard to the left, the old harbour master's office + tender store to right

Fresh bread this morning!

Made some fresh bread this morning using this recipe which I have adapted from John Vigor's books (ackowledgements):

Mix 3 cups of self raising flour with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 2 teaspoons of sugar

Add a small bottle of beer - supermarket 'belgian' type lager sold in stubbies will do

Pour the mixture in to a greased bread tin

Cook in the oven until its done

On a comparative scale , delicious!

Our neighbour upstream

A lovely boat on the next pair of piles upstream from us. It's not clear whether they have brought this boat from the Isle of Wight or the owner is just commenting on two of their female acquaintances...