20 June 2012

The Celtic Wildcat

With the luxury of the Poppit Sands caravan I was looking forward to a good night of sleep, unfortunately the teenage tipplers next door kept me awake until after midnight. To be fair they didn't have a riotous party or anything but it was enough, I was probably a little nervous too.
So when the day started at 05:00 I was feeling rough and in no position to make any big decisions, so I didn't.
A few parties had suggested a straight line from Cardigan to the Lleyn might be a ballsy move to beat the weather gods. But as I ran and re-ran the plan through my head, the only result I could find was to end up 2hrs short of the Lleyn - in the middle of too much open water, going nowhere and with nowhere to go.
With no options, no good ones anyway, it was not for me, not today. To be frank, I didn't think I had enough left in me anyway.
So it was a case of heading as far up the coast as possible, to try and shorten the crossing to the Lleyn. Ironically it wouldn't be much shorter than a direct run, but with better prospects.
So out of Poppit with a boat full of food courtesy of Joy, and in a perfect oily calm. The sun was trying to burn off the high level cloud while an indistinct horizon made holding a heading a little trickier than usual.
The jellyfish were coming to the surface and my friends the Shearwater were soon on scene, whirling around once again.
Life plodded on, but I was really struggling, the body protesting at the cumulative lack of sleep with every stroke. I felt crap from start to finish, apologies but that's the only way to describe it.
I knew beforehand that I couldn't claim this distance on one tide, so it was going to be an unpleasant one. You go anyway, trying not to think too much about the end of the day; but it hurts when you have to pay later.
Though the calm gave way to a strengthening NE breeze I was lucky, anything worse and I wouldn't have finished where I did.
It would have been funny to finish Friday and go for an entry in the Conwy Ascent, but the weather gods still haven't finished with me it seems. But as my last two finger salute to them I'm going to try to sneak around the Lleyn tomorrow anyway.
Brought my canoe lock just in case I end up in Trevor.

Sent from my phone

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