That's the end of that then.... 26/10/2008

Last night the clocks went back to GMT and British Summer Time officially ended, some might say it never really started! With the onset of Winter nothing much had changed, even though the weather was sunny there was a cold strong NW wind forecast to possibly reach force 8 later.

I decided to paddle out from Porthsele and round to St Justinian, home of the St David's lifeboat, and see how it goes.

The stretch of water between Carreg Gafeilliog and the mainland can become quite interesting, especially with conditions like today when the wind is against the tide and creating quite rough water.

On reaching St John's Point and the adjacent headland of Penrhyn Dalar. I now hit the main tide flow of Ramsey Sound which runs right close to Penrhyn Dalar and with the tide against me it was a bit of a struggle to get around, but once I did the water became a little more sheltered and on reaching the small headland of Porthyn Hyfryd there is a counter eddy flowing the other way which aids my progress into St Justinian.

Here it is sheltered from the wind and I have a rest and a chat with Tim from Venture Jet who has just returned from a trip around Ramsey Island. You can definately tell winter is on the way as there are very few boats moored here compared to a few weeks ago.

There is a seal pup on the beach which is apparently having a bit of a struggle but I kept my distance after a slightly heated discussion with 2 photographers about the pros and cons of taking photos from a sea kayak.

The paddle back should have been relatively easy with the tide but the increasing wind was against me and made things quite interesting in places. At one time it looked like there might be a sunset but as has happened quite a few times this year the sun disappeared into a bank of cloud.

Only a short paddle but with the prospect of a Force 8 approaching, all I hope is that conditions improve for the rest of half term week!