St Brides tricky scrape

So style storm that we hid from in Indian harbour has passed trough and we make an attempt to get out of Pancenti bay. After a bit of study of the chart we decide to squeeze between Merasheen Island and red island on the wind angle we have. Lucky we did as the whales were feeding in the big swell to the south of red Island. Top whale spotting. And also some some white sided Atlantic dolphins feeding on a shoal nearby. Lucky for us the wind filled in tour o a solid 25kt and we covered the 42 NM to st. Brides in short order. I was all planned and pilotage done for entry into this very tight and not often visited fishing harbour. There was a significant left over swell running in behind us and the entry is pretty shallow. It would be pretty tricky to turn round once committed to this strange entrance. A couple of big swells rolled us forward and the depth was looking super shallow. It all felt very wrong after a minor panick I adjusted coarse and decide to go the wrong side of the buoys and got squirted forward to wards the harbour entrance turn. After a few more squirts forward we are in. very stressful. We get tied up on the fisherman’s wharf. The sun is out and the stress is gone. Cars keep driving to the wharf to see the idiots who have come in on a yacht. One eventually talks with us a tells me that all the navigation buoys had been thrown about in a storm last winter and we very lucky we had gone the wrong side it them as there are “suckers below that area, sinkers are shallow large rocks. Lucky escape i recon. We get a tip for a good place to get food, he said get the cod and chips I sold them the cod. He was right it was good and all the locals were there and a few wanted to hear our story. They were all fisherman and told us the best and safest route out of the harbour .
St Brides has an enormous Gannet colony and we took a visit as we left spectacularRead more