(A cruise by Mirror dinghy around the Welsh coast)

Aberdovey

Wednesday morning I found myself with a problem. I'd buoyed the Bruce anchor used from the bow, but late the previous night in an attempt to stop Little Mischief swinging stern-to-wind in the tidal current, I'd foolishly dropped a folding grapnel over the stern without buoying it. Now it was jammed under a mooring chain - to judge by the feel of it - and I'd be unable to reach it until L.W. late afternoon; so I put an empty water container on the warp and decided to go for a sail up the estuary.

The Dovey Estuary is about 4 miles long and over a mile wide, and except around H.W. is a maze of drying sandbanks. It had started to ebb by the time I set off, but a good W2-3 behind me pushed Little Mischief slowly and pleasantly up the northern coast for a couple of miles till I decided to return, as we were having problems with the centreboard touching, and I was unsure of the channel.

Back at the Aberdovey moorings at 15.00 I found it was still too early to raise the grapnel, so sat there on Little Mischief, being entertained by nearby Church bells playing a whole range of tunes from "Abide with Me" to "An English Country Garden". Also watched parties of youngsters under basic canoe instruction; others in two dipping lug yawls learning to sail, and yet another group building a raft on the muddy foreshore. This group finally managed it and all 12 of them paddled off round the pier. There are Outward Bound and Aqua Sports centres here.

I finally managed to release the grapnel and set out for Aberystwyth at 16.30. But first we had to cross the bar. Wind W 2-3 was heading us and onshore. Tide out of the estuary had an hour before L.W. so conditions seemed likely to be similar to the previous day. But they were much worse. More and higher breaking waves, and of course they were now against us, going out close-hauled. Several times I lost the course and was tacking in between the waves, up and down like a roller coaster and making only slow progress. Once past the bar buoy I had to keep looking around to see where it was, to keep my course in the SW channel. After we'd taken four breakers on board I thought the worst was over and started bailing, but then two more big ones crashed on board, so switched to my big bucket-bailer used - for that purpose - for the very first time. Struggled on seawards and finally got clear. It had been touch and go for a long 10-15 minutes, that had excited me so much I found myself shouting encouragement to Little Mischief as though she was a horse in the Grand National and I was the jockey.

Once offshore there were only a few white caps, but a heavy, confused sea. We lay close-hauled for Aberystwyth which, after the first couple of miles, I could see 5 miles ahead. Tacking once before crossing Sarn Wallog, we reached the harbour mouth where, by some fluke of the wind, we were becalmed right at the entrance. Luckily the seas were smooth, so rowed round the corner, picked up the wind again and sailed to a spare mooring on mud at the edge of the fairway at 20.00. I'd just got the tent rigged when very heavy rain started.

But the tent is quite rainproof as it's made from very tough white nylon-reinforced PVC, and covers the whole boat in two pieces, with a good overlap at the mast. I use a boom (and gaff) crutch which fits into a slot built on the transom, and the simple but useful topping lift also takes some of the strain. As the foreward end of the boom needs to be higher than the gooseneck to give more headroom, I remove it from the gooseneck and insert my spare rowlock from the sculling socket into a brass tube screwed and glass-fibred in place on top of the boom. The rowlock then fits to the mast like jaws. Using one of the mainsail halyards, the boom and gaff are raised about 12 inches. As I rather distrust the Mirror gooseneck, this rowlock fitting in a tube is also a safety feature to be used if the gooseneck should fail.

It got dark before I'd washed up the evening meal, and so I lit two candles (the big torch is kept for middle of the night emergencies), fitting them into my new "Mirror Candle Holders" (Patent Pending). They gave a lovely warm light under the white tent, and just before getting into bed some comic from the sailing and fishermen's club on the quayside switched on a megaphone and. enquired "the price of tomatoes from the marine Percy Thrower in the floating greenhouse".

Thursday, 30th June, H.W. was at 11.40 so I slept late, until 08.15. Felt I deserved it and awoke to the first bright sunshine for some days. Before getting away at 12.30 I rowed Little Mischief across to the quay for water and a look outside. It was NW3 and, as an incoming fisherman said, "Lumpy". Back on board I made an unseamanlike muck-up of getting away from an awkward position at the quayside. Trouble is so often I don't plan my movements well enough in these situations, and of course there had to be helpful advice from the usual spectator. We slipped out of the harbour with me feeling a fool and Little Mischief, I’m sure was ashamed of me.

It was a straight, fast but wet SW passage to New Quay. Arrived at 15.00, which was 15 miles in 3½ hours. We kept fairly well offshore as the land recedes in a smooth curve all the way, and I could see New Quay from about 5 miles off. The seas were sometimes higher than I'd have preferred, and came at us in groups of 3 or 4 at a time from starboard. They could build up from nothing in literally a few yards, then I'd see them breaking white about 20 yards to leeward, but caught by only one that broke over my stern quarter.

New Quay was a surprise to me. I'd been there once before very briefly by car, and remembered just a little harbour with a few boats. Must have been Winter. In the approach now I could see a few masts over the breakwater, but nothing else except houses climbing up the steep hillside above. So I was surprised to round the breakwater and find rows of moored yachts and other boats already drying out on sand, and close behind them a beach crowded with holiday makers, well sheltered by the cliffs and breakwater. I felt rather out of place in the full sailing gear of oilskins and woolly hat among the swimmers and sun worshippers.

I attached Little Mischief to a spare mooring, fore and aft like the others, and went ashore to do a little shopping. Then returned to find she had dried out nicely on the blocks, on level sand, so I put the tent up from the outside. Almost a new experience.

The following day I wanted to get to Cardigan; about 15 miles. H.W. was 12.00 but I started earlier, at 11.20. The forecast said SW 3-4 so I couldn't expect a fast passage like yesterday. It was in the most careful seamanlike manner that I left the mooring among all those pretty yachts.

We were only about ½ mile from the breakwater and about 300 yds. offshore, sailing slowly in the lee of New Quay Head when I had what, to me, was a new and wonderful experience. Made me feel like a real blue water sailor! It started when I happened to look round to starboard where a yacht leaving harbour at the same time as us was heading northwards, and I saw a big splash some yards in front of her bow. Wondering what could have caused it, I watched and then saw a bloody big fish jump out of the water near the yacht - then another - then two together. A school of porpoises!

The yacht moved on northwards and as I watched I could see from the surface splashes that the school was heading to cross our course. Soon Little Mischief was in the middle of them, playfully jumping right out of the water, singly, in two's and three's. On both sides I saw some swim up to us a few feet below the surface, then turn away. The finale to the show came - and it was a finale because afterwards I saw only the occasional splash as they moved away - when four porpoises leapt out of the water about 10 yds. off our port bow, in close line abreast on our heading. Must be real show-offs to do that when they know someone is looking.

After that almost anything would be an anti-climax, and the rest of the day was just that. About 13.00 the wind increased 3-4 with many white caps as the ebb stream struggled against the SW wind. We tacked on and off shore, but only made good 3 miles between 12.00 and 15.00. (With hindsight I think there was no help from the ebb stream as it would be diverted offshore to W by New Quay Head). Then I saw a small shingle beach set in the high cliffs with a narrow valley going inland, a few houses, and cars on a tiny promenade. It was called Cwm Tudu and I decided to go in and review the situation. After chatting awhile on the shingle to a Mirror owner on holiday without his boat, I decided to stay, possibly for the night. My new friend collected a few healthy looking men from the beach and they pulled Little Mischief over a bank of shingle into a pool which was fed from a small stream running down the valley, so it didn't dry out.

I put the tent up and prepared to spend the night there. About 18.30 when most of the holiday makers had gone, I was making the evening meal, looking over the stern through the open tent, when I saw the local bobby coming down the shingle. No hat, hands in pockets, so I knew it couldn't be serious. As we were floating in the pool he couldn't come right up to the boat, but called across asking in Welsh if I spoke Welsh. I don't, but after 30 years in Wales I'd heard the question enough times to know what he was saying.

“No", I replied, "I'm Scottish". I always find it best to let them know I might be a foreigner, but at least a fellow Celt and not English. "Scottish", he said, rolling the word around his mouth as though testing it. After a few questions on what I was doing and proposed to do, he then explained in a rather embarrassed way that they'd had a phone call from someone who'd heard the recent reports of some arrests about 30 miles to the south, a few days before, for drug smuggling from boats. Their informant had felt I looked suspicious by appearing in that cove in a small boat! After putting down my name and address in his little book, he wished me a friendly good night and wandered back up the shingle.

The weather became dull and overcast, with some rain, and while the wind didn't seem to have changed, the breakers on the shingle were much larger. Also the 17.50 forecast referred to wind veering to W, which would be almost directly into the cove. So after phoning home, I packed up and prepared to sail. While I waited impatiently for the rising tide I noticed less breaking waves at the mouth of the little stream, though it was rather close to the rocks, so when the water level allowed I towed Little Mischief from the pool into the stream mouth and pushed off from there, making a clean launch at 21.45.

It was a wild ride the few miles back to New Quay with the flood stream, and SW 3-4 gusting higher. A few times when I leaned back over the stern quarter in a gust I wondered what was going to go first - mast, shrouds, rudder or tiller? I was glad my mainsail was reefed. It's a simple single slab reef with two cords to pull down the tack and clew cringles, and four reef points to tie. These are on a line from just under the bottom batten, slightly downwards to the tack. So I end up with a flat sail about 2/3 full size, and the boom less likely to hit me in a gybe. The halliard attachment to the gunter rig gaff is a problem solved by different people in different ways. My method was to remove the single sheave set in the mast head, cut it in two and mount the two halves one above the other in the original slot, as two dumb sheaves. The top one was mounted on a strip of stainless steel slotted in. Then an additional halliard run through and attached with shackle to a gaff band at the reefing point. Probably one of the simplest, but most effective, modifications from a safety point of view I've made.

The bare rocky cliffs sped by and soon it was quite dark. Round into the lee of New Quay Head and then it started raining as I was tacking past the breakwater light into the moorings. As we got closer in under the cliffs the wind got fluky. How I finally got Little Mischief to a mooring was another example of my lousy boatmanship, for I tried to get hold of three different vacant mooring buoys, and bumped into the mooring chains of two yachts, before I finally succeeded at 22.30, close inshore. I was glad of the dark and the rain; it kept spectators away. An hour later I was thankfully in bed.

Saturday, 2nd July I was up promptly, deciding as I had only 10p in my pocket, tobacco finished and little food left, it was time to go home, sample my wife's cooking, mow the lawn and sign on. So after breakfast I waded ashore and found the Harbour Master, who told me to leave Little Mischief where she was. Made sure she was securely moored fore and aft with drying out blocks and tent rigged; I was on the road hitch-hiking soon after 10.00, and arrived home at 17.00.

Four days later I hitch-hiked back again from Holywell to New Quay in SW Wales in 52 hours, arriving at 14.30 in time to wade out to Little Mischief on her mooring before H.W. at 17.00. She was just as I'd left her, and we were glad to see each other. I'd been undecided whether to go further south, but the forecast at 17.50 for S 3-4 made up my mind. We'd return north tomorrow.

Thursday, 7th July the morning forecast was 2-3 variable, but I said goodbye and thanks to the helpful Harbour Master - no charge for the mooring was mentioned - and cleared the harbour at 10.30 heading north.

The flood stream would start at 12.30 to assist us, the sky was blue, hot sun, wind very variable but mainly N, and never more than F1. Frequently calm so I frequently rowed. Got so hot I stripped off, except for floppy hat, for a couple of hours, then put shorts on again as I didn't want sunburn on sensitive areas. Saw what in total in Cardigan Bay must have been a million small jellyfish, from 1" to 6" in diameter. Frequently listened and enjoyed the reports and singing from the International Eisteddfod at Llangollen on Radio Wales. I didn't know it at the time, but much of the above pattern was to be repeated over the following days.

By 18.00 we'd only achieved 9 miles in 7½ hours and. Aberystwyth was still some 7 miles away. I'd have carried on a little longer, but at this point the shore changes character. From New Quay there had been some cliffs, but also shingle beaches. From here north to Aberystwyth was an unbroken line of high rocky cliffs with no suitable anchorage, so I put in towards the last shingle beach before the cliffs and dropped both main anchors over sand and rock. For years I'd carried two anchors (and a grapnel), but found myself unwilling to use both because of the tangles that any rope I use seems to get into. However, this year I'd made a drum for each 30 metre warp. Normally stowed in the open compartments under the mast, but when in use they fit one each side of the forward end of the centreboard case onto a removable stainless steel rod, which fits into a small bracket mounted on top of the centreboard case. That cured all warp tangles and is a pleasure to use.

There was a lovely sunset. After the washing-up I sat in the stern, back against the boom crutch, smoking a last cigarette and watching, minute by minute, the dull red orb slowly disappearing into the Irish Sea. At times like these one can well understand ancient man worrying about where it went, and wondering how it appeared again from the opposite direction.

Next day we set off at 10.15, but due to light northerly winds and an ebb tide against us until 13.30, progress was again slow. While rowing about 50 yds. off the cliffs I heard deep moaning sounds. Looked around and saw about six grey seals basking on a large rock, with some more careful types watching me from the water. I rowed slowly and quietly in towards them to see how close I could get before they moved. It was about 20-30 yards before the last one slid into the water. Shortly after a light breeze came up from the north and I tacked offshore. Had gone about 4 miles when I noticed we were being followed. A seal was swimming in my wake about 30 yards away, popping up his head about every 20 yards to check where I was. After about ¼ mile more I turned Little Mischief into the wind just after he had dived and sat there waiting to see what would happen. His head came up about 10 yards from the stern. He looked at me, and then turned his head away as though he really had no interest in me. So we sailed on and he swam on behind us. We turned inshore; he turned with us. But then inshore he lost interest and disappeared. Perhaps he was like so many landlubber friends who cannot understand my sailing for the joy of sailing, and assume I must go fishing.

Finally rowed into Aberystwyth Harbour at 18.00. When on our way south we'd sailed from here to New Quay in 3½ hours. Now it had taken two days to return.

(to be concluded - 103/18)