12th August Arrived in Holyhead

Last night we had the last night of the  supermoon. It was pretty spectacular especially as there was no land obscuring it.

          Supermoon at about 10.30pm

Our day then started off from Port St Mary at just after 6am and we were enjoying a mug of tea in Holyhead harbour by 3.30pm.

The forecast was north easterly 2-4 and we started off with south easterly 1-2. Sometimes we think we're a meterelogical phenomenon on Anya as we always have the wind in the opposite direction to what we want, too little of it or too much!

Anyway we made the best of it and had a combination of motoring and sailing when we could. No basking sharks seen on our journey but we saw some leaping Risso dolphins and a basking seal (I initially thought it was a dead dolphin as it was prostrated on the surface!). We also spotted a yacht behind us about an hour after we left which followed us all the way. Later we ended up chatting to the couple on board it in the sailing club over dinner. They were also in Port St Mary last night but had stayed in the harbour, whereas we anchored in the bay.

Holyhead (on Holy Island so why to we pronounce it as Holly head?), is their home port so they were able to give us some useful information on where we're planning to go tomorrow.

The sail into Holyhead involves avoiding The Skerries (an island with a lighthouse on it) and tackling the tidal currents. So you think you're heading somewhere but you're actually going forwards but sideways at the same time. GPS is brilliant as it enables you to see where you are and your heading in addition to Ian plotting our position regularly on the charts.

As Holyhead is a ferry port we had to get permission to enter the harbour and find out if ferries were due in or out. We were lucky so could head straight in where we were met by the sailing club launch to show us to our mooring.

                       View from Anya

This evening we had a lift ashore and back on the launch, going to the sailing club for dinner. Then a walk around the harbour to stretch our legs after not being off the boat since yesterday morning. 

Royalist tall ship on left, Anya furthest right

Tomorrow will be a later start at about 11am. This is so we can go with the current on our sail south to Porthdinllean as there probably won't be much wind.