Sunday 8 August 2010

Flat Holm in a Wedding Dress

Alarm goes off, 4am, what am I thinking! I head on down to Sully to meet up with Taran and Richie for a paddle out to Flat Holm. Taran was wearing a lovely wedding dress, for charity apparently but I think that was just an excuse to wear a dress and a pair of stockings! He was doing it for a good cause for Ty Hafan Children's Hospice.
I arrive in darkness while Taran is putting on his skirt over his...well.. skirt!

Launching at 5am the lights from the Wolves buoy and light house flash in the distance.

We reach Wolves buoy in no time as the sun starts to come up.

Finally the sun peaks just above the horizon. By this point my camera was buggered again and all I could see was a white screen so apologies for the poor photos.

Never before approached Flat Holm at high tide, it looked very different from being here previously.

Lining up out matching coloured boats on Flat Holm. Taran was in a Pyranha Orca and Richie was in a P&H Capella.

Scary!

I climbed into my boat on the pebble beach and with my weight the kayak started sliding into the water. I managed to keep myself from going completely arse over tit as I scramble with my hand on the sea bed. My Venture Pump broke AGAIN!! (I'm on my third one now) as the washer inside snapped. Not recommend, although Up & Under kindly replaced it each time.

Exploring one of the caves, normally this cave is halfway up a cliff when I've come here at low tide.

Passing the light house. Heading back we notice the flow of the ebbing tide taking control as we pass the Wolves buoy a little further south than on our initial journey.

We make it back though on the right side of Sully Island.


Taran then decided to go for a swim.

Good day in perfect conditions and back before I would normally wake up! We spent the next four hours up on the wall by the Captains Wife already planing our next voyages including Steep Holm, Ireland and France! Someday maybe.
Check out this video and also the BBC web site.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great site...keep the updates coming!

Stuart sea kayk said...

Thanks for reading much appreciated...keep the comments coming :)