Menai Straits to Liverpool

We thought for a while that we would have to miss Liverpool off our itinerary but a suitable weather window appeared on Saturday. As planned, we left Port Dinorwic Marina on Friday afternoon and part motored, part sailed up the Straits and through the Swellies to Menai Bridge. The Dockmaster at PD recommended Menai Bridge as a quieter overnight stop than Beaumaris.

Nelson, looking over us on the way to the Swellies

Menai Suspension Bridge

The Swellies are a notorious area of rocks and varying water depths under the two bridges to Angelsey where the tide runs very strongly apart from at high water slack so that dictated our timing and gave us an uneventful passage through. At Menai Bridge there are a group of 4 huge yellow visitors moorings. We moored to one of these, not easy with a strong wind against a strong tide. We settled down but then realized that the hard plastic mooring buoy had sharp chunks sticking out of it which were scraping along Lacerta's top sides so we moved to a private mooring with a smaller, round buoy just inshore of the yellow ones and finally settled down for the night.

We needed a 07.20 start the next morning for the 50 mile sail to Liverpool to be sure of getting there in time for the lock into Liverpol Marina. We left with a strong SW breeze, cloud and rain with just the mainsail up with 1 reef in and were making a good 6 - 7 knots over the ground out of the Straits and across to Great Orme's Head and then across to Liverpool bay.

Through Puffin Sound, leaving the Straits

Grey skies and rain with Great Orme behind us.

Although wind farms and oil and gas platforms were marked on the chart we were unprepared for the number of wind turbines and platforms in the sea. We had to plot a course between the banks of wind turbines, which fortunately did not take us too far out of our way. The weather had been raining on and off all morning but, as we were approaching the Hoyle wind farm off the Dee estuary we could see dark clouds building up on our left, from the North West. We gybed the mainsail and quickly put in 2 reefs and unrolled a small amount of foresail in readiness for the forecast veer and increase in wind strength. Within 10 minutes the wind had veered to the NW and increased to 22 to 26 knots, force 5 to 6 with heavy rain. This was a classic example of a cold front moving in. We were still able lay our course to the Queens Channel into Liverpool. We had left the spray hood up for this trip due to the rain and were now grateful for the shelter it gave us from the spray as Lacerta was roaring along at 7 to 8 knots.

Wind turbines and a gas platform with the sky promising the onset of the cold front and the change in wind direction and strength.

Entering the Queens Channel we still had 15 miles to sail to get to the marina but were well in time for the lock. As we sailed down the channel the seas eased off as we were sheltered by the shallows of the Burbo Bank to the West of us. There were only a few commercial ships under way so the passage into the Mersey was uneventful. Sailing past some of the famous Liverpool landmarks like the Liver Building and the newer galleries gave us a different perspective of the city.

City landscape.

The Liver Building.

Entering the lock to the marina proved to be a challenge as the lock master was operating on VHF channel 37, which we do not have! Eventually, relayed mobile phone messages established when we could go in and we berthed in the marina in Coburg dock by 16.15.

Our friends, Gail and Bryan Marshall drove down from Southport and took us back to their house for a meal and our first night off the boat for 3 weeks. We had not seen Gail and Bryan since our children were sailing together about 12 years ago so we had a very convivial evening reminiscing, assisted by gin and tonics, expertly mixed by son, Greg, and a few glasses of wine.

Back on the boat this afternoon we had other visitors, Janet and Bruce Mager, who had driven over from Littleborough to see us. We had another round of catching up with family goings on.

We intend to spend a couple of days doing the tourist bit in Liverpool, waiting for a weather window for a passage to the Isle of Man, which looks like being on Wednesday at the moment.

 

Posted with Blogsy