Lady Stardust (Baba 30' Sailing Cutter)

This was a great trip, Kathy and I sailed from Liverpool on Saturday 27th Aug heading for Dublin (24hours) however roughly half way after making great progress we heard a F8 forecast from Met Éireann, a few minutes later bad weather reports were flying in on VHF and the Navtex. I decided to turn and head for Holyhead harbour, only 2 hours away. In retrospect this was a good move as the weather got nasty and stayed that way for 48 Hours. Holyhead is lots of fun to enter on a new moon in the pitch blackness. Kathy was on the bow with the searchlight torch trying to spot the marina. We eventually got in and spent two lovely days there.

Leaving on Tuesday morning at 7am we made it into Dublin about 6pm surviving dense fog at Holyhead and Dublin.

Wednesday was spent enjoying the great city of Dublin. We had moored at the City Quay which is very central, 10 minutes walk from O'Connell and Grafton  St. Thursday was the same and we departed Friday morning with a bridge lift scheduled for 11AM to make the 24 hour passage home.

It was great reaching for 12 hours from Ireland to North of Holyhead averaging 6 knots thru the water and between 4 and 8 SOG. by the time we reached the Douglas oil platform, half way to Liverpool from Holyhead, the wind had turned to the SE and entering the Mersey channel was hard. Sometimes we only made 1.5 knots over water, but the current carried us into the river at between 2 and 3 knots. once we made it around Q5 things improved, but it was still very rough all the way up the Mersey, Big tide (3-4 Knots) against wind(30 Knots).

We arrived at Liverpool Marina at 11:00 exactly 24 hours after we departed and were able to enter without delay. We were both rather giddy after that trip.