Home again and having caught up on sleep I have been reflecting on our race. We had such a lot of fun and enjoyed ourselves so much the result seems almost immaterial. The weather was so fickle it was a battle to find enough wind to progress against the tide. Some of the night sailing off Bardsey Head was the most difficult I have ever done. While Pete was steering Mike was rock spotting in the dark and I was using the plotter both to estimate our distance off the rocks and calculate our progress against the tide towards the next waypoint. If we strayed too close to the cliffs we were in trouble, but if we went to far out we got caught in the tide and whirled backwards on a mad tidal merry go round. We past one rock three times! The other boats were doing the same and it was common to have a boat coming towards you backwards and out of control in the dark. Eventually we grasped the exact nature of the problem and steered our way out of the tide and escaped towards Caernarvon.
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