Hi all,
Off we went into the night gradually getting ourselves sorted. We put the main up with a reef in just in case and a partially furled genoa as we wouldn't see any squalls coming, though the sky was clear as we beam reached out across Cardigan bay past the Bardsey Shoal, leaving it well to starboard before getting on course about an hour later direct for a waypoint off Bishop Rock lighthouse. I took the first watch of about 3 hours from 9pm to 12am as Emerald cruised comfortably south about 6 knots with the wind on the beam and clear skys showing Mercury and the milky way glimering above. Not bad I thought, not bad at all.
Listened to the shipping forecast at 11pm from the coastguard, Wind F3~4 sea state moderate, becoming slight. Perfect for a fast passage to Milford.
At about 11.30pm the wind started getting rather gusty..F5, then F6 gusting to 7 from the west. This meant we were on a lee shore with the waves building up all the way from Ireland into Cardigan bay oh poop. We had no alternative shelter to run for, however I wasn't overly concerned at this point as the forecast was for everything to decrease in the next few hours.
I wound in some more genoa and slowed Emerald down to make the motion more comfortable and got Nichola up to take her spell on watch but as the seas built with a wind over tide swell, I thought it better to stay up in the cockpit. The weather worsened (of course!) and the seas continued to build so we put the genny away as it was filling at the top of the beam seas and collapsing in the troughs, only to fill again with a rifle craaaack as the next big one rolled under us. Double oh poop I thought.
We then said sod the diesel, and put 3 reefs in the main and no headsails and rolled and corkscrewed our way southwards in the dark. By this point we'd both been awake for about 20 hours and were pretty tired.
We were able to keep Emerald pretty sorted by slowing down or speeding up depending on the wave pattern for the next 4 hours when at last the tide turned in our favour again and the seas went down, however we decided just to motor on to get to Milford as quicky as possible as safely as possible.
Nichola took over the watch at about 4 am and I got about an hour or so of sleep in the cockpit, just before the sun came up. As daylight broke around us we looked at the sea properly for the first time and I said, I think I preferred it in the dark!
Especially as the occassional breaking pyramid wave slapped the side of the boat! At one point I thought of heading further out to sea to take the waves closer on the nose to remove any risk of getting knocked flat, but Emerald seemed to be coping well, so we continued making a beeline for Bishops Rock off St Davids head. The wind was still a solid F6 gusting F7 and the renewedforecast still said F3~4 from the Northwest...... I felt like calling the coastguard to get them to issue a small craft warning to make sure no one else ended up out here.
At about 8am we were off Bishops Rock, however this is a bad stretch of water, with overfalls and breaking seas in wind over tide conditions, which we had, still with a F6 from the west. At this point things got a little too exciting for us as the autopilot couldn't cope with the waves and I then had to hand steer judging the moment to turn into the waves, pop over a breaking crest then corkscrew down the next two before repeating... for the next 3 hours.

So we are both now awake, despite little sleep over the last 30 hours, thanks to adrenalin and an iron resolve to make Milford Haven in one piece.
Around the Bishop then off towards Skomer Island we went with the tide again with us we were able to make about 4 to 5 knots n the conditions. We had a final choice to make. Which side of the island to pass. We went for the shorter route, oops.
We had a huge following sea, which we went hairing down the face of the waves and corkscrewed at the bottom of the trough, before picking ourselves up again and down the next one. On a day sail this would have been exhilarating, but after 36 hours it was just plain tiring, however at last we turning into Milford sound, dropped the main and headed up river.
Our initial plan had been to anchor at Dale Bay in the sound but we were too far gone to think that, so we decide to head further up river into more shelter and try and get alongside one of the Haven's free pontoon berths for a couple of days.

However they were all full as there was bad weather forecast over the next 4 days. Ok we thought lets try the little marina, only to call them
up and find out they were full as well, the final straw for me, after 40 hours straight. They did say we could tie up alongside another boat overnight, but that they weren't sure there was much water there.

Another quick call to Milford Haven Marina back down the river found us a berth (expensive) but we jumped at it as I was wilting under the strain. Nichola took over and guided us back down river for 4 miles, then we got tided up in the huge lock basin to wait for two hours to lock through, but we were safe.
The wonderful Nichola went below, put the kettle on and we had a hot drink and then got the boat packed away and dinner prepared whilst we waited to get to our berth, then tied up once through the lock, canopy on and dinner on, then both hugged and sat down wearily. We'd done it!

Emerald was brilliant, the weather was awful, the seas worse, but we'd taken all the correct decisions at the critical times.
Had we stayed in Aberdaron, we'd have been in serious trouble as the wind picked up in that bay, there would probably have been breaking
seas right across the entrance. Had we not decided to motor we'd have probably broken some gear on the boat, and definitely been in serious trouble off Bishops Rock. So all in all, we did most things correct, although it was uncomfortable, tiring and at times a bit humbling.

So what next?!!!

We had planned to go to Padstow from here at the next weather window, but the aptly named 'Doom bar' at the entrance to the River Camel is treacherous in North to north west winds, so as these are forecast for the next week we've decide instead to go for a longer hop of 120Nm from Milford Haven around Lands End to Newlyn. This passage should take around 24 hrs...and the weather is forecast to be northerly (perfect) F3~4 on Thursday and Friday of this week(oh god does that sound familiar ;-/ ) once this big low pressure system moves north to Scotland. From Newlyn it is a reasonable 40 mile hop into the river Fal, which we would do on Saturday, as the tides and forecast look ok for this also, arriving at around 5pm or 6pm on Saturday evening. That would mean we could be in our winter berthing area this weekend, only ten days before we planned to be there way back in February.
We don't mind that, as there are local authority pontoons high up in the river that are safe, beautiful and reasonably priced, so we can chill out, catch up with friends and then get stuck into winter work list once into Falmouth marina on 1st Oct. It will be good to complete our Circumnavigation of Britain in the Fal as it is a place we loved dearly last year, and was our furthest West in 2009, so we will complete the circle there, I may even have a small G&T to celebrate. However we still have 160Nm to go in some notorious waters, so caution will of course rule the day as always.

Fair winds to all
Slainte skip