As we are still in Pwllheli, this must be Plan C! The wind is still all over the place and periodically reaching force 6 and force 7 in places. To make it worst the tides are now such that a night passage is the only sensible option. The tidal gate at Bardsey Island requires me to pass through are either 6-7am or 6-7pm to catch the north going tides on the north side, with 20 miles either side with no / little shelter!

My plan is to make an earlier morning start and a long but quick passage to Holyhead (as the tide is likely to be wrong for Caernarfon), the problem is finding a morning to do it! The forecasts have been re-written every 6 hours for the last week with each one a completely different story to the previous!

For example, Sunday’s plan was to rest up for an early start on Monday morning (3am) to take advantage of a 36-hour period of relatively light winds. Silverwind was set to go shortly after teatime ready to listen to the evening forecast. The force 3-5 had been replaced with force 6 – 7 all night! The force 6 continued well into Monday morning!

The story was much the same on Friday night / Saturday morning. However with the weather looking OK on Saturday afternoon (it was due to blow up again in the evening) I headed off into Snowdonia for a second go at Snowdon. This time I had my eye on “Crib Goch” the ridge to the east of the Summit. It is the hardest of the main route up Snowdon (the hardest that does not involve climbing anyway!).

My plan was to catch the train to Porthmadog and then the bus to Pen-y-pass. The “Sherpa Bus” service is designed to encourage people to leave their cars outside the national park and use the bus. With three buses running all day on a Saturday from Porthmadog, it was hard to see what sort of impact it could have! Maybe I am just cynical because I missed the 09:10 bus with the next bus at 13:10.

After this little set back I set off to get to Snowdon by other means. After two bus trips, which took me all the way around Snowdonia, I finally arrived at Llanberis. With no buses to Pen-y-pass for a couple of hours I set off up the Llanberis Path.

The Llanberis path is the longest but easiest of the path up Snowdon and it showed. It was a hot sunny afternoon and a lot of people had obviously decided to catch the train up and walk down. This must be to only mountain I have ever walked up where every third person had not a rucksack but a souvenir carrier bag from the Café/Shop on the summit!

The most worrying thing was that I did not look at all out of place wearing my flip-flops. In fact when I finally put my hiking boots on (they were in my bag) a man walking down laughed at my 4-season boots – it was even funnier when he slipped on a rock a few steps later! Once near the top of the mountain I saw that the summit was a little crowded and decided to give it a miss. Taking a left turn just before the top of the Pyg Track I made my way onto Crib Goch. It was the perfect afternoon, with views all over the National Park and a light wind nicely killing the heat. Crib Goch is a ridge of about a mile long for which there is no path for much of the way.

On route I met up with Ester a girl from Slovenia currently working in the UK for a family. Luckily the family had choosing to go on holiday to Snowdonia for two weeks and she was having a good look around. The next two hours were quite interesting as neither of us had been on this route before and it was often a matter on finding the best route (and sometimes not!) I think we both agreed that we enjoyed making our way along the ridge, although Ester did suggest half way along that she only had one life! It was the descending on mainly loose ground at the far end of the ridge that was the nasty part of the day. We were soon down and please to be in one piece in Pen-y-pass car park.

Not wishing to risk another bus ride I was offered a lift in my direction by Ester. This offer did however hinged on finding her car – parked somewhere in the Llanberis Pass. After 45 minutes of walking we finally made it and I was soon back in the marina. A very nice day out but next time I think I will get up earlier and do the ridge the other way around. Sunday was also a wash out so having got into the tourist mood I caught the bus to Abersoch a few miles down the coast from Pwllheli. I spent the afternoon wondering through the shops and sitting on the beach. After buying food for tea I caught the bus back and got ready for an early start on Monday morning – or so I thought!