Overnight the wind had got up, but the grey skies had also cleared and we awoke to a lovely sunny day. Before breakfast we walked up the island's hill - Mynydd Enlli - to survey the island and inspect our route home.
We packed up and said our goodbyes to Stephen, his family, and his sheepdogs. Richard again taking our bags down to the slipway for us.
We set off in slightly lumpy conditions, with confused waves going up the E side of the island. We then headed across the sound on a slight ferry glide as the ebb was starting to flow.
We reached the mainland just N of Carreg Ddu, and passed through the channel between it and the mainland. We were swept through, bouncing over some reasonable sized waves and headed out past Pen Y Cil on a wide sweep of Aberdaron bay. The bay contains a large eddy on the ebb, so we continued around to pass between Ynys Gwylan Fawr and Ynys Gwylan Fach and to a lunch stop at Porth Ysgo. After a brief stop we then returned to Aberdaron to finish.
The day's paddle proved to be fairly difficult for me because my boat was taking on a lot of water. By time we had crossed from Bardsey back to the mainland the cockpit had about 2 inches of water in it and this was making the boat difficult to handle. I didn't diagnose the problem on the day, but when sorting my gear out on monday, I found my spraydeck had 3 significant holes in. They seem to have been created by rubbing from my waist tow belt (that I wear with the buckle at the back, and the rope at the front). Combining this with the fact that my bouyancy aid is fairly long, it pushes the tow belt down and it may also have been pushing the spray deck against the fairly stiff back rest pad of the boat.
16.7km paddled. We left Bardsey around 11am, arriving back at Aberdaron about 3pm.
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