out and about - 2018
10 August 2018 .............. A good evening around Aberffraw
After a bit of a thunderstorm in the morning, while most of the country was getting wet the afternoon in Anglesey was really nice, and by the time evening came I reckoned I should jump down to Aberffraw beach for a swim - the weather forecast for the weekend was not good, so it seemed a shame not to take advantage of the good evening weather whilst we had it.
It turned out to be a good evening in lots of ways - there was quite a wind coming off the sea, it was pretty cold, but the sea had lots of waves coming in - quite variable in size - lots of them around the 500 - 600mm mark, but a few well up to a metre. So it was good fun, I wish I could have stayed in longer, but without a wetsuit or something, I was getting pretty cold, so eventually had to give up.
I was along at the end of the beach, and at that end the rocks gradually project further and further out as you head along the beach, so the beach is sort of tapered, and doesn`t really lend itself to the formation of a rip current - but I could feel quite distinctly that the waves were pushing me inwards towards the beach, but lower down there was a distinct outward flow.
I got caught once in a rip current off a small beach beside Stonehaven harbour - the line of rocks and the harbour wall create a sudden end to the beach and a perfect place for a deep and fast rip current to form.
It was quite scary, when you realise you are being swept outwards faster than you can swim, and it takes quite a bit of self control to stop trying, and swim sideways away from the rip current.
Starting to head away now, and nice lighting from the sun across the beach -
Just because of where I had parked, I took a different route through the dunes from the one I usually take, and it was quite different from my usual route.
There were loads of an unusual kind of blackberry bushes, they didn`t have the high arching stems that most bramble bushes have, they were basically ground creeping, rarely more than 300mm high, and they had a slightly different kind of fruit from normal blackberries - instead of being jet black and very shiny, they were more of a dark grey colour, and very matt, not shiny at all.
They were good to eat, I had loads of them, quite sweet, and they tasted a bit like blueberries.
You can see some of them in this picture, but I actually took the picture because of the very fine example of thistledown in its prime -
By the time I was back across the dunes to where I had parked, it was too nice to just go home, so I went up to the observation point above Aberffraw - it was worthwhile, lots of good sights to be seen.
Still a wee while until sunset, but some nice lighting in the clouds -
Yr Eifl was just catching the last of the sun -
Snowdon had its sunhat on, which was also catching the sun -
It was the only patch anywhere, but there was a big patch of Cumulus Cloud behind the Nantlle Ridge, which was also still catching the sun -
St Cwyfan`s Church was well cut off by the high tide level, and it wasn`t anywhere near high tide time - a big Springs tide and a deep low pressure were fairly pushing up the sea level -
One of the high spots of the evening - for the first time ever from this viewpoint - I could just make out the Wicklow mountains - the highest peak will be Lugnaquilla, the thirteenth highest Munro in Ireland, and the only one on the east side of Ireland.
It isn`t the clearest view of the Wicklow mountains I have had from Wales, but the first time from this viewpoint -
Just about the end of a good evening out as the sun starts to drop down below the horizon -
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