A First Boat, Ten Days and a Proper Adventure

It’s nearly eleven at night. We’re outside Conwy Marina, the spring tide is running hard, and the boats on their river moorings are swinging violently in the stream.

We turn into the current, just missing a yacht and an empty mooring, steady the boat and start edging sideways towards the entrance.

Then the flow changes.

An eddy catches us. Another turn, another adjustment, and we work our way across.

A few moments later, we’re through the gate. The water settles. We can get ourselves organised, find the berth and tie up.

Jonathan’s first boat is home.

And after ten days of learning, decisions and broken sleep, there’s a lovely sense of relief in finally having her tied up.

Ten days earlier, we’d left Hythe in September sunshine, starting with the basics of getting the sails up.

Quite a journey between the two.

Starting at the beginning

Jonathan had recently bought his first boat and wanted to bring her round to Conwy in North Wales. He was relatively new to sailing, so we had two things to work on: getting her there and helping him become comfortable using her.

That meant learning as we went. Handling the sails. Manoeuvring under engine. Planning passages. Understanding the tide. Working out how this particular boat behaved.

And, somewhere along the way, having a proper adventure.

Buying your first boat is exciting. Casting off and taking her somewhere unfamiliar is a much bigger step. I was glad to be there to help Jonathan take it.

Our first day gave us exactly the start we needed. Sunshine, around 10–15 knots of wind, and a sail down the Solent from Hythe to Yarmouth.

There was time to explain things, try them and try them again. Jonathan could start getting a feel for the boat without everything happening at once.

By evening we were tied up in Yarmouth, making dinner aboard and looking at the next day’s passage.

Out through the Needles. Along the Dorset coast. Towards Weymouth and Portland.

The first step beyond the familiar shelter of the Solent.

Out through the Needles

We planned our departure around slack water in the Needles Channel, ready to make use of the west-going stream beyond.

It was an early lesson in how much of a passage happens before you leave. The Needles make a wonderful backdrop, but the tide, the banks and the conditions outside deserve your attention.

On our day, the wind was light. We motored and motorsailed west, making steady progress along the coast.

Lulworth Ranges added another consideration. Live firing was taking place, so our route had to keep clear of the active sea danger area.

We considered carrying on further, but by mid-afternoon the tide was turning against us. Trying to add Portland Bill to the end of the day made no sense.

We went into Portland Marina instead.

It proved an excellent stop. Plenty of room for berthing practice, time to repeat manoeuvres, and very welcome showers afterwards.

That evening, we sat down with the next challenge.

Portland Bill.

Close to the rocks

After looking at the options, we chose the inshore passage.

In suitable conditions, a narrow route close to the headland allows you to pass inside the main race. But the timing matters, and so do visibility and sea state. Being close to the land is only useful if the conditions make that the right place to be.

It meant an early start.

There was some fog at first, which gave us something else to watch carefully. Fortunately, it lifted enough for us to make the passage with the visibility we needed.

We rounded close in, roughly a couple of hundred metres off the rocks, with another yacht following behind.

The water was calm. Portland Bill stood above us. After all the planning, the actual rounding felt wonderfully straightforward.

Then we were clear and heading across Lyme Bay.

Our destination was still open. We wanted to see how far we could comfortably get, and Jonathan wanted to experience a night at anchor.

We had some lovely sailing and made good progress while the tide helped us. Later, as it turned against us, the miles became slower.

By the afternoon, we decided to continue along the South Devon coast rather than turn into Dartmouth.

The trade-off was daylight.

As sunset approached, we increased the engine revs to make better progress. We reached Starehole Bay, just outside Salcombe, at sunset, with enough twilight left to assess the anchorage and get settled.

High ground on either side. Shelter. Nobody else there.

A lovely place to finish the day.

We worked through choosing our spot, allowing for the changing depth, deciding how much chain to lay and checking that the anchor was holding.

There was a little swell, but it was a peaceful night.

After marinas and pontoons, being alone in a quiet bay gave Jonathan another way to enjoy his boat.

For me, those quiet moments are as much a part of the adventure as rounding the big headlands. A long day behind you, the boat settled, and time to appreciate where you’ve arrived.

Time for a night watch

By now, Jonathan had made real progress.

We had covered a good stretch of the south coast, but Conwy was still a long way away. With a favourable weather window ahead, we decided to extend the passages and introduce sailing through the night.

That was a significant step.

Along the Cornish coast, we sailed when we could and motorsailed when it helped keep us moving. Much of the time there was around 10–15 knots of wind.

The sun went down as we rounded the Lizard. Later came Land’s End and the turn north towards Wales.

We gave the headlands room, with the tidal races and the shipping routes firmly in our planning. This was another change in scale: longer legs, fewer convenient stopping places, and decisions that reached well beyond the next harbour.

Once we were clear of Land’s End and heading north, Jonathan took his first solo night watch while I went below for some sleep.

He did really well.

Only a few days earlier, we’d been working through the basics in the Solent. Now he was taking a watch at night, helping bring his own boat towards Wales. It was lovely to see that progress.

We settled into watches of around two to two and a half hours, adjusting according to how tired or cold we felt. The night was relatively quiet, with light winds and plenty of motoring.

Sometimes the tide helped. Sometimes our progress felt painfully slow.

But we were making our way across the western approaches to the Bristol Channel.

A change of plan off Wales

Our initial plan was to head into Milford Haven.

A rest and a refuel made sense. We were still learning the boat’s actual fuel consumption, so we were keeping a close eye on what we had aboard and what lay ahead.

Then the updated forecasts changed the picture.

I’d brought Starlink, which allowed us to check the weather while offshore. The outlook suggested that continuing north the following morning could be less favourable than passing the exposed Pembrokeshire coast that night.

That coastline needs careful thought. Around Skokholm, the Wild Goose Race, Grassholm and the islands further north, strong streams and underwater banks can produce difficult water. Our route needed to account for those hazards as well as the changing wind.

We reviewed the weather, fuel and how we were both feeling, and decided to continue past Milford Haven towards Pwllheli.

A second night at sea.

We both took opportunities to sleep during the afternoon, and I covered the more involved navigation around the Pembrokeshire hazards.

For much of the evening we had been enjoying a lovely broad reach.

As darkness arrived, we were sailing further downwind. With a front forecast to pass through, we put the mainsail away and continued under genoa alone.

A simpler sail plan for the night ahead.

When the wind changed

We knew a wind shift was coming. We didn’t know exactly when.

It arrived during Jonathan’s watch.

The wind veered sharply, the genoa backed and became caught up, and suddenly we had quite a bit to sort out.

We worked through it together: get the sail across, reduce it and settle the boat onto the new course.

The gusts were now reaching around 30 knots. With the genoa well reefed, we were moving quickly, even against the tide. Fortunately, the sea state was relatively manageable.

But the old sail had suffered.

A tear had opened along the leech.

We managed to keep it working for a few more hours until daylight, avoiding a more involved sail change on the foredeck in the dark. By dawn, the wind had eased and the damage was clearer: roughly 30 centimetres along the edge of a sail already nearing the end of its life.

We furled it away.

Pwllheli was now our destination for repairs, fuel and a proper rest. We added our reserve diesel from the jerry cans and continued under mainsail, using the engine as needed as the wind faded.

By the time we arrived, we had been underway for around 48 hours.

For someone relatively new to sailing, that was a huge amount of experience to take in.

And Jonathan had kept learning through all of it.

A couple of days in Pwllheli

Pwllheli gave us a very welcome pause.

A lovely town, friendly people, meals ashore and time to explore. After two nights of broken sleep, simply staying still felt rather good.

The genoa wasn’t worth repairing. It had been close to replacement anyway, and a new one was ordered.

Meanwhile, stronger winds were coming through. We stayed put, worked through jobs aboard and used some of the time for teaching ashore.

There is plenty to learn when the boat isn’t moving.

We could revisit things that had happened at sea, look at the next passage and work through questions without trying to hold a course at the same time.

On Sunday, the wind was gusting above 30 knots even in the marina.

Then, from mid-afternoon, it began to ease. The sun returned.

There was a short calmer window ahead, followed by another spell of strong winds. Once the tide gave us enough water to leave, we set off for the final leg.

Around the Llŷn Peninsula. Outside Anglesey. Into Conwy.

The sea takes longer to settle

The first few hours were encouraging.

Then we reached the exposed western end of the Llŷn Peninsula, beyond Aberdaron and around Bardsey Island, and found the leftover sea.

The wind had eased. The water certainly hadn’t.

Even with our offshore route, the boat was being thrown around in the confused conditions. We carried a reefed mainsail, which helped steady her, and motored on.

It was a very practical lesson in the difference between a calmer forecast and a calm sea.

Eventually, as we worked north, the motion eased. We returned to our watch routine.

By morning, Holyhead was in sight.

The spring tides were running strongly, but the sea was much more settled as we continued around Anglesey.

We couldn’t quite make the daytime entry window at Conwy. So we found an anchorage and waited for the evening tide.

More anchoring practice. Knots. Time to work through the final approach.

One last substantial piece of learning before home.

Finding our way in

I hadn’t entered Conwy at night before, so we prepared carefully.

We went through the channel, the buoy lights and their flashing sequences, the depths and the marina access. We talked about what we expected to see and how to check it against the chartplotter.

Then, once the tide had risen sufficiently, we made our way in.

It was a brilliant exercise in night pilotage: finding a light, identifying it, checking our position and looking ahead for the next one.

The spring flood was running hard.

By the time we reached the marina approach, it was around half past ten or eleven. Boats on river moorings were swinging in the current, and the darkness made judging everything more demanding.

We turned into the stream to regain control, then used it to help us move sideways towards the entrance.

Partway across, an eddy changed the direction of the flow. We had to turn and adjust the manoeuvre again.

It took concentration.

Then we crossed into the marina, and everything became much calmer.

We could set up properly, find the berth and tie up.

Home.

What Jonathan took home

Over those ten days, Jonathan had raised sails in the Solent, practised berthing, rounded major headlands, anchored for the night and stood watches out of sight of the familiar.

He had dealt with a sudden wind shift, a damaged sail, changing plans and a demanding arrival in the dark.

He had also enjoyed September sunshine, beautiful sailing, quiet anchorages and some lovely places ashore.

That combination is what made the trip so valuable.

There was time to learn the basics, then see how they fitted into a much bigger journey. Time to ask questions, make decisions together and discover what owning this boat could make possible.

I had a huge amount of fun too.

Looking back, it’s the mix that stays with me. The quiet bay. The sunsets. Working through a difficult moment together, then carrying on. And watching someone begin to feel more at home aboard a boat that was so new to them.

This is a big part of why I started Navaia. Helping someone get to know their own boat, build confidence and enjoy an adventure they might not yet feel ready to take on alone.

Being trusted to share that first journey means a lot.

I teach in sailing schools as well, and there is a great deal to gain from a structured course. An extended trip aboard your own boat offers something different: days of practice with your equipment, your questions and the sort of sailing you want to do next.

Jonathan now has his boat in Conwy, along with ten days of experience to build on.

I’m looking forward to hearing where he takes her next.

Navaia — Transformation through Adventure

If you’ve recently bought a boat, need help bringing her home, or want to build confidence aboard your own yacht, get in touch with Navaia. We can plan a passage that combines practical tuition, support and a proper adventure.