Piel Island

We dropped off the mooring after breakfast with a trip of about 60NM ahead. This part of the Irish sea seems to be covered in wind farms, and we had to thread our way between three farms on this passage. We carried fair tide for what seemed like most of the day, but as we approached Morcambe bay, it turned foul, and had to push into 2-3kts of tide as we entered the channel to Barrow docks.

We had spotted a small creek on the chart, just before Piel Island, which was ideally suited to a Southerly. Having nosed our way in, we dropped the anchor in about 1.5 - 2.0m at LW but there was a lot of very shallow water all around us. About 50m down the beach about 20 seals had hauled out, and didn't seem in the slightest bit bothered at our arrival.

Piel Island is a small rocky outcrop joined to the mainland at low water, and surmounted by the castle, and a pub. Historically, a new landlord at the pub is invested as 'The King of Piel' - I don't know about the legality of this, but he has quite an impressive castle, even if it is a ruin.

This is the view back out to Morcambe bay. The raised structure is one of the leading marks used by large ships making for Barrow docks - the channel is very narrow, with large expanses of sand and shallow water all around.

After a very pleasant night at anchor, and another location ticked off our 'must do' anchorages list, we had lunch, then set off across the bay towards Fleetwood, which was to be NJ's home for the next month, and eventually over winter.