Once round Bardsey we had SW 4/5 a fair wind and going well. Goose winged with several boats up ahead taking the inshore route, a couple behind that we could see, with no moon it was soon getting dark, we wanted to arrive at the Bar by about 0200 hrs to have a fair tide and enough water to get in over the bar and up to Caernarfon to drop off our runners to their job on the mountain, Snowdon.

We made it in good time and were able to sail straight in over the bar, again local knowledge was a great help, in the darkness we did see one boat aground, well out of the marked channel, we later heard that it was Nunnatack who had to go into Bangor marina for repairs so they retired. We dropped off the boys and anchored to await their return. This can be an anxious time with strong tides running the holding is not good and there are too many boats anchored in a small area, inevitably some boats drag and go drifting up the straits missing other boats by inches with their fast asleep, I stay on anchor watch during this time to avoid any damage. At 0830 hrs Patrick and Des arrive back suitably exhausted so they turn in and we are now off on the next leg, to Whitehaven and its numerous tidal gates.

Our first tidal gate is the Swellies, never easy but made more difficult by the lack of wind and a foul tide, here we had a great race with Kinthros 2 who picked up their runners just before we did, so we sailed towards the Swellies in company with them. Bill their skipper has done this race more times than I and while I took a short cut over the shallows at Plas Manai Bill took the long route around the buoyed channel, again we had wind behind us so were goose winged, when we came to Porth Denorwick, they were well ahead of us so Bill knew that there was less tide well over to the port west side of the channel, spinnakers had to come out as the wind was failing fast as we approached the Swellies the tide was running off now so it looked doubtful if we would make it through, (Swellies is a short section of the Menai straits very narrow and rocky where the tide can run in excess of 6 kts at springs, ) Bill made it ahead of us with spinnaker up and pulling well, the route through has to be very precise and there are transits to follow making navigation easy, but to sail with the wind coming from all directions is extremely difficult to say the least the wind comes and goes in gusts from all points of the compass. We decided that the spinnaker was too out of control, so we snuffed it and unfurled the genoa and goose winged the rest of the way through, now it started to rain not hard but wet, We followed Bill up through the moored boats toward Bangor Pier.

Next tidal gate is getting out of the Menai past Puffin Island and out to sea, we made it just as the tide turned against us in the narrow channel between Anglesea and Puffin Island, still light wind but at least we kept moving, the oars remained unused, we had a great sail across the bay towards St Bees head where once more we came across Kinthros 2 who had taken a more Easterly route using their spinnaker, when we first saw a boat up ahead coming in from the SE toward St Bees we didn't,t recognize the boat as it had a dark red spinnaker, where as Kinthros 2 had a pink one, any way the other boat made it into Whitehaven lock ahead of us, then we heard them calling up, it was Kinthros 2 we made it into the lock just minutes after them dropped of our runners and their bikes, found our allocated berth and tidied up. Passage time 14hrs 46min arriving at 23.17hrs we just made it past St Bees head with a slight foul tide.