Bumpy Bardsey, rainy snowdon

This is not Bardsey. It is a lovely sunny early morning in the Menai Straits. What a view!

It was really outrageously windy coming out of Barmouth. The boats were crashing up and down through the breaking waves as we came out in a big procession out of the harbour. It was nice to see people supporting from the pier, but there were not as many people there as in previous years: they were probably put off by the cold, wet and rain.

I have never been totally convinced that a racing start is really necessary in a race as long as this, but the sailors seem to take pride in their starts. Whatever happened, we were not exactly snappy off the start. To be honest, I was just happy that we had got some sails up and were heading off to Caernarfon. The sea to start with was really pretty wild with some big waves. The seas felt all the bigger in a small boat like Tactix. Both Iain and I got down below and tried to get some sleep, or at least get some rest. I had a really restricted berth at the back of the boat. It was really snug in there, but the only way in was a head first dive. When the boat lurched off a wave it was quite worrying as if we did have a big problem, it would have been really difficult to get out.

Unfortunately I woke up to the sound of wrenching over the side. It is not nice to wish this on anyone, but I was really hoping that it wasn't Iain. Unfortunately it was. It cannot be nice to have to run like that.
We arrived at Caernarfon at 1320. It was nice to be back on land, but the thought of running to snowdon for 8 miles and then running up was not alluring. It must have been less so for Iain. The run actually went quite reasonably. It took us just over an hour to get to snowdon ranger. It was dark and drizzling incessantly.

As soon as we started up snowdon, we were in a pea soup fog. It was pretty difficult actually seeing the path, let alone running on it. The altimeter showed that we were making progress, but that was our only real point of reference. We overtook a few teams on the way up and saw quite a lot of lights on top. It took us a little longer to get up than we had hoped. I think I slowed us down a bit on the way downhill. I wasn't going very well on the big rocks sticking out of the path.

We were both really tired at the main road in Llanberis. We had thought it was shorter on the way back, but it wasn't. It was 8 miles back again. It seemed to go alright, despite feeling like a long way. We caught a couple more teams just coming into Caernarfon and we checked in aft a run of something like 3h50m. This wasn't too bad a time given the bad conditions on top and how beaten up we had felt after the sail. I don't know how Iain managed it after his traumatic sail over.

We had a good wind through most of the Menai straits. This was a good thing as the tide had just turned against us. When we were near puffin island, the wind died and we had to row a bit. We are now sailing again. It is pretty slow, but at least we are not rowing. There are a few of boats ahead of us. It might be a long sail round to Whitehaven. At least we are in e sunshine and the sea is calm.

Sailing up the Menai Straits. That's a spinnaker wrap behind Tactix!