After another wet and windy night, I woke to the sound of the rain pitter-pattering on the roof of my van. Eating breakfast and drinking coffee in the warmth of my centrally heated van, I looked out of the windows at people scurrying about in the rain. Hellen Willetts was on the telly giving the forecast, so I smugly took a selfie with Helen.
Gareth came over and standing inside my van, dripping nicely on the carpet, we discussed the plan for the day. Rhoscolyn - Borthwen seemed favourite as some wanted to set off early for home.
At Rhoscolyn there was a little surf coming in, but looking out across the bay you could see conditions deteriorated very quickly.
Slowly making our way out ever further and further, we gauged the conditions along with how the group were coping.
With the wind blowing strongly on shore, we eventually decided to make a trip around the island, going out passed the Old lifeboat station. The biggest danger of doing this would be performing a rescue quickly before being blown onto the island's rocks. Obviously a towline would need to be deployed as an anchor, to prevent this from happening. Fortunately we all managed it around safely with no swim and no rescue "practice" required. This was great fun as the sea was very big (hence no photos) and had smiles on all of our faces on reentering the bay.
So having done it one way, we decided to do it the other way around.
Setting off, the group were cutting the corner, just a little too tight for my liking, so I positioned my self to the right of the group to push them out away from the island. Unfortunately, as the waves were breaking rather largely on this side, I took the worst of what was coming. Suddenly I was faced with a huge vertical wall of water which looked like it was about to break on my head! Accelerating as hard as i could, I shot up the wave, becoming airborne, before landing on the other side of the wave with a great splosh and a whoop! I think the others to my left had also had fun with that wave, as we were all grinning (or grimacing).
Various paddlers had good surfs coming back in by the Old Lifeboat station and a quick head count soon determined we had not lost anyone. 😉
Moving in towards the beach we started practicing rolls and rescues. I did a nice reentry roll after sitting on my back deck and paddling around for a bit. I have nailed this again having had a momentary lapse of rolling ability earlier in the year. It's funny how one bad roll can mess with your head.
Track of the Day
I have to say what was potentially a boring paddle it was quite the opposite!
It wasn't very far, but it was very good fun!
