Eventful Sailing trip to Bala
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Posted on 01 October 2008 18:41
We're back from our second sailing trip of the year to Bala in Wales, and it was no less eventful than the first one...
Last weekend we had our second trip of the year up to Bala. Leaving on the Thursday afternoon to get an extra day to make a long weekend, that was the plan anyway...
We left our sailing club, all loaded up with a Laser on the roof, a Laser 2 on the trailer and a kayak on top of the Laser 2 at 3.45pm, only 15 minutes later than planned. We started out, aiming to get to Bala by about half 6, to have time to put the tent up before it got dark.
All was going well until we'd just got past Telford on the M54... cars zooming past us, flashing and pointing, then a loud hammering... a trailer tyre had blown. Cue a call to the AA, a 1hr 45 minute wait, and a boat being towed back home on an AA truck. Unfortunately we don't have "modern" wheels on our trailer, easy to remove. Our local tyre place sent out a mobile unit that managed to change the tyre on the trailer at 9am, and we were in Bala by half 2.
So after losing the best part of a day, we made up for lost time. After getting the tent up without arguing for the first time, we rigged up and took out the Laser 1 and the kayak, which turned out to be damn good fun! First time we've ever took anything we can use without wind, and it was worth it.
We had two more couples turn up on the Friday night, and another family the Saturday morning. After spending much of Saturday morning rigging up (damn spinnaker chute), we went out for a late morning sail up the lake almost to Bala and back, which took about an hour and a half, then a quick lunch, then a sail down to the other campsite (we were camped up by the Catamaran club), at which point the wind totally died, and we spent half an hour drifting back. After that we resorted to the kayak again.
That evening we had a lovely little cosy camp fire on the beach (tip: collect your firewood before it goes dark... our fire didn't last as long as we wanted it to, you wouldnt believe how difficult it is to collect twigs by torch light!). It wasn't as cold Saturday night (Friday was really cold).
Sunday morning dawned with a thick fog and not a hint of wind. Unfortunately it stayed that way until about 3pm, at which point we'd just finished tying down the boats to the trailer and roof, so instead we took the kayak out for a last hour before we headed home.
We had a lot of people drop out of our trip, and couldnt get permission to take some of the boats up we wanted, but we still had a good trip nonetheless. Hopefully next year some readers may come up with us!