There's Snow Place Like Holm

           Yes Flat Holm again but a chilly day and the promise of a warm in the farm house was too tempting.  Heavy snow fell on Friday and has remained frozen in a white state since.  The wind forecast looked great for the coming week, so the plan was to paddle out to the two Holms and get a few shots of them in the snow.                          

I was to meet Gareth, Andrew and Taran, not to early for a change, at Sully.  This was our first meeting with Gareth and Andrew and their first trip out to the islands.

A few layers and two pairs of socks and we're setting off.

I didn't get this snow out there, this was from the weekend after I dug my boat out this morning.

Just past Sully Island well on our way and Andrew didn't feel comfortable in his boat.  The conditions were a little choppy out past Sully Island as they can be sometimes.  Andrew was paddling a lovely old style Nordkapp, a beautiful boat but known to be a bit twitchy.

We saw Andrew back to Sully Island and we were on our way again.  Felt a bit bad leaving him behind but sometimes it's best if your not comfortable on the water, especially in these temperatures.  

Time was pressing on so we opted for a lazy trip to Flat Holm rather than rush around both islands.  We did a lap of the island before landing on Coal Beach.  I assume the name of the beach derives from the tons of coal that were landed on the island to fuel the coal-fired braziers of the original light.  

I had informed the islanders we may be coming over today, so we headed on up to the farm house to warm our fingers and toes.

This was Gareth's first visit so we did a quick tour of the islands sights.  It was bitterly cold and my hands were excruciatingly painful.

Walking past the wind turbine it looked as if has come crashing down since we were last here, unless it has been purposely lowered for maintenance???

Oh yes the reason we came...snow...there wasn't any.  They hadn't had much snow fall out here and what had fallen hadn't lasted long.  It had been snowing lightly though on our trip out here.

That didn't stop Taran sledging off the beach...

I was desperate to get moving again and warm up.

Passing the Wolves buoy, it was a smoother return journey.

Taran checking out Gareth's rash...or cutching up to keep warm???  It looks a little whiter on Steep Holm in the distance.

We land back at Sully after another successful day on the water.

Gareth clearly hasn't got enough useless equipment in his boat.  Another great paddle with good company.  I promise the next trip won't be Flat Holm or Steep Holm.