Yesterday's post:
Tuesday 26 July 2016
Blue Star departed Conwy at 0530 to catch the high water that enabled
passage over the sand bar at the entrance to the river. An easy passage took
the crew to Beaumaris where they picked up a mooring buoy to await slack water
at the Swellies, the stretch of water between Anglesey
and the Welsh mainland, notorious for its strong currents and rocky hazards.
Taken at the right time passage presents no difficulties, but history has many
accounts of boats that came to grief. Fortunately the Blue Star crew got it
right! The original destination was planned as Caernarfon but it proved
impossible to communicate with the marina there and so the crew put in to Port
Dinorwic instead, where I joined them later in the afternoon. (I have temporarily
joined the ‘sailing team’ for the rest of the week, and been substituted in the
‘hospital visiting team’ by Cliff, Diane, Jess and anyone else that can make
it! I am hopeful that Dan’s health is about to improve). Port Dinorwic is a
narrow inlet which was once the main port for exporting slate from nearby the
welsh slate mines. After the demise of the slate mines it was turned into a
marina. It has to be accessed via a lock which maintains the depth needed for
the yachts berthed there.
Joke:
A boat carrying red paint crashed into a boat carrying blue
paint and the crew were marooned....
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| Blue Star after passage through the Swellies, the bridge over the Menai starits in the background. |
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