Friday 17 May 2019

Day 6 - part 1 - Abersoch to ? - Bardsey Swing Shift

A dawning realisation late last night that I would need to dodge the weather to get around the end, and tick off Bardsey Sound.

There was also an unwelcome realisation that this would involve moving from late shift to earlies. Whichever way I tried to fiddle the maths, there was no avoiding it. At 23:30 it dawned that the alarm would be set for 05:00 - in turn for an 06:30 otw time. Bugger.

Beep, pigging, beep. All too soon - up and at 'em fatboy!  The Boss was surprisingly chipper for such a start, and even I felt a little excited. We had a mission, and a challenge ahead. Rather than just slogging the crossings, we had to paddle the sound, dodge the weather and scratch against the tide to make Porth Oer. The timings would be tight. Plenty to keep you occupied.

As soon as I paddled out I had flow with me, thank f for that. About time. Looked good for the plan.

Beyond Porth Ceiriad the wind made itself useful with a nice following sea, big enough to catch but no leaning back necessary - spot on.

The Taran came alive. For the last few days she had sulkily, even resentfully, tolerated the sun-baked crossings. A bit like me. But now this is what she was made for, we flew along. Ride after ride, ticking off the miles. Yeehaa!

Crossing the wind-funnel of Hell's Mouth was a little lively but manageable. And as we entered Bardsey Sound true the water speed took the fun out of the waves, but as we were making over 10 kts who gave a folk?!  13nm in 2 hours - that'll do nicely.

Of course there's a sting. Tide timings were tight, the main flow didn't go around the corner (nobbing off towards Scotland or somewhere) and all I had left was the early feathers of the ebb.

In or out? Well no choice really - back to what I know best. I'm a good scratcher. In close, using the eddies along the base of the cliffs to make some headway NE. I wanted to gain what I could. The wind was due to go northerly and strengthen at 11:00. No scratching allowed then.

After brief foray into Porth Oer and a bit of blue-sky-thinking under the grey skies, I scratched a little more to Porth Colmon.

Some may have said they were so 'stoked' at this point, but though I may be a bit of a twat at times, I'm not a pretentious one. I was rather chuffed. The plan had worked.

 Here we await at PC for whatever is next.

1 comment:

  1. Nice one John....through Bardsey Sound...another mile-stone ! I wonder if you saw me flying my paraglider from Hells Mouth to Pen Y Cil and Aberdaron yesterday about 11.30 !?

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