2019-05-18 Harry’s and Middle Mouse

So is it Harry Furlough's or Harry Furlongs? Ordnance Survey reckon it is "Harry Furlough's" as does Welsh Sea Kayaking, and yet the chart definitely says Harry Furlong's! Searching the internet I found: "Harry Furlough's Rocks, sometimes said to be a misspelling of furlong from the length of the rocks". I'll use both terms as I cannot be bothered correcting all my other entries on my site.

As Andy was the last to arrive and the others were keen to get going I decided to wait for Andy and paddle out with him. We were soon on our way and dropped in on the others playing at Harry's. It wasn't the greatest for waves with a swell coming in from the North making the waves very messy. After a while I noticed Andy making for land, so I decided to join him. He told me he'd been sick a couple of times and wasn't feeling great. After a while he decide to have another go on the waves, but it wasn't too long before we were back on shore. This time the others joined us for a rest, and also as the waves were dying off as the tide dropped. The other decided they fancied a trip out to the Skerries, but seeing as it wasn't going to flood for a few hours both Andy and I didn't fancy the trip. Instead we decided to go against the tide towards Middle Mouse. That way if Andy didn't feel any better we could always have it easy and drop back to our starting point at Cemlyn Bay. Andy reckoned it was a dodgy breakfast burger from the Golden Arches place in Holyhead!

Now I found this trip quite an eye opener, as this is not something you would normally plan, going against the tide on springs on this part of the coast. And yet keeping inshore away from the flow and hiding behind the headlands, saw us making great progress in the back eddies. By now Andy was beginning to feel a little better too!

Ferrying out to Middle Mouse was really cool, with some sections being very fast current and other sections being almost back eddies, despite being in the flow. By now the early morning cloud had burnt off and the sun was out. Glorious. We stopped for me to have some lunch on Middle Mouse. Blimey the rocks on the Mouse are slippy. Andy ate an Oreo. Getting back in Andy said my days of being a graceful ballerina were definitely over. Yeah right, but hey at least I got back into my boat, and didn't faff about falling in etc...

We had a good play in the tidal race and both remarked how much better it was than Harry's. It was also good for me to get out there where I had been a few weeks earlier when I had my little scare.  After a while we decided to set back off to Cemlyn Bay. Now with the tidal flow being from east to west you would expect the water to flow simply in that general direction. It doesn't! It goes every way! We were even surfing some little waves with the water at that point going from West to East! Basically the flow is completely chaotic from all the boils and turbulence generated from the sea bed and from around Middle Mouse. Even when we were a couple of miles from the Mouse the water was still chaotic.

It was a super day and the icing on the cake  was spotting a porpoise on the way back.

Soon we were back at Cemlyn Bay. Happy paddlers.