Like Sam, Andy and I have been to Wales. Shockingly (and in part
inspired by Sam's report), we didn't visit Bangor, opting to remain on
Anglesey for the entire week, which was probably a good idea thinking
back on the bittersweet feelings I had after driving through at
Christmas.
We had an active week where we did just about every watersport we
could think of. We spent a sunny day being towed behind the speedboat
on various devices, which left me with very sore arms and shoulders.
Then we had 3 very windy days with no watersports (although some hardy
folk windsurfed), so we cycled two days in a row (the Nico cycle route
first, then a trip to Church Bay) then went for a walk from Cemaes
Bay. The walk would have been beautiful but it was extremely windy
with driving rain so we were mostly concentrating on not falling off
the cliffs. On Wednesday it was calm again so I tried wakeboarding.
It's not as easy as waterskiing: I did get to an upright position but
fell over almost straight away each time. Then Thursday was a
beautiful and windy day so we started with windsurfing; I was very
pleased as I made lots of progress so need to find another opportunity
to practise.
Then on Thursday afternoon I thought I'd finally get to sail my
Europe, so spent about 90mins scrubbing and rigging it, then attached
it to the back of the tractor and headed to the beach. But a bad thing
happened. Although we safely negotiated the wires by Andy's house, we
both forgot and didn't notice the (lower) wires right down at the
beach. And we rammed them with the mast. And snapped the mast.
I was mostly upset about the danger of electric shock initially,
especially as the wire snagged a cleat at the top of the mast so the
mast, precariously attached to the boat, stayed attached to the wire.
After some careful thought about the conductive properties of various
materials, we decided that fibreglass did not conduct electricity, so
we lifted the boat, the wire was freed and the mast slowly toppled
into the hedge. So we didn't sail, but Andy did let me zoom the
tractor up and down the beach to cheer me up.
On Friday it rained and rained, so we spent most of the day cleaning
the house & moving everything to the campsite. Then on Saturday we
went sea kayaking from Cemlyn Bay to Cemaes (past Wylfa, where the
water was warm and probably radioactive) but when we tried to get back
again the wind rose and I wasn't strong enough to paddle against it,
so Andy, Ben and I were shipwrecked (well, voluntarily) on a beach
while Chris and Matt paddled back and brought the car round to where
we were.
So there. I'm bored of typing on my little phone now but will put up
some photos soon.
Sunday, August 02, 2009 | | 18 Comments