On saturday I launched from Porth Daniel on Anglesey , what a nice spot to launch from too , no obstructions and a good car park belonging to the boatyard opposite . £13 launch fee and £6 parking . Once on the water we set off up to puffin Island and all seemed well until I stopped and put it into neutral to get something out of my dry bag that's when the engine cut out after numerous attempts to restart the engine it wouldn't start we were about 1/2 a mile past bangor pier , I swapped over on to my 2nd fuel tank and still no joy so it was paddles out and to try and find somewhere to get safely to shore , by this time the wind had picked up which made paddling difficult for my mate and myself and the 2 kids and our wives looked a bit worried and so was I but tried not show it. After about 30 mins of paddling against the wind I saw a welcoming site a slipway with a pub sat right above it , which gave us the incentive to paddle harder so after about another 30 mins of paddle power we finally got to it The Gazelle .At the top of the slipway was an elderly chap retrieving his SIB who had been watching us and when I told him about my engine problem he kindly offered in a very posh accent to drive me to Porth Daniel to get my car and trailer this was of course after buying Charlie the good samaritan a 1/2 pint of bitter and a pint for ourselves which went straight down after all that paddling cheers and thanks Charlie. Back at the boat compound at our caravan sight I lifted the hood off the engine and checked the plug caps everything seemed okay so I put the muffs on and tried to start it several times when it coughed and spluttered then started and then cut out again I tried again and to my amazement it started and ticked over great so I left it running for 15 mins then turned it off then restarted it again and it seemed fine , so we decided that on sunday we will give it another try .
Sunday morning I fired her up in the boat compound with the muffs on and she sounded great so we set off to launch from Porth Daniel again unsure of what the outcome might be . The same attendant was there and I told him about the events from saturday and he very kindly let us launch for free which I thought was very very nice of him , and to make things even better the people from the boatyard who own the car park gave us some discount , so I would definitely launch from there again.
Thanks to HUMBER P4VWL for recommending Porth Daniel.
Here are some videos of the day they are not very good quality as I recorded from my digital camera.
Imogen
