Holyhead to Great Orme's Head

Over the weekend I went paddling with Barry and Justine. There was a south-westerly storm all over, so on Saturday we decided to paddle along Penmon and around Puffin Island. We had expected encounters with inquisitive seals off Puffin Island and an unexpected encounter with a group of swimmers 100 meters off-shore from Penmon. They were training for open water swimming races. We are now on 'British Winter Time' and when we arrived back at Penmon at 17:30 it was pitch dark.

Sunday's forecast was still for gale force winds. I asked about how it is to paddle at Great Orme's Head. This name I remember because of the Admiralty Chart of Anglesey: "Holyhead to Great Orme's Head". Off Little Orme ran a little tidal race. Lots of rocks, channels and caves to play with on this coast. Justine supplied us with a massive delicious sandwich, way too much energy for the paddling we are doing, I said. On the way back from Great Orme's Head the wind picked up and we had a bumpy ride back. Against a stiff headwind, and from the cold, we burned off lots of the energy that our lunch had given us. Barry had our attention (and cheers) when he paddled under an overhang and a sudden wave had his stern almost hit the overhang. Winter has arrived, chilly, snow on the Snowdonia mountains.

I did some experiments with filming. Seeing the results, I have to remember for a next time to film longer shots. I do count while filming, but apparently when it gets rougher I count more quickly. Probably the same issue as with people you tell they should count to ten before wet exiting and that come out of their kayak within two seconds...

Click on the above picture to start the movie.

P.S. Justine wrote in her blog entry of the weekend about me checking-out Penrhyn Mawr. This is what I saw from the cliffs above and that I based my judgement upon...