Flat Holm, Steep Holm and the Wolves

With continuing high pressure and fantastic weather, today had the feeling of being a scorcher. First paddle this year in a short top me thinks!

With a fairly big spring tide and mirror like conditions Hywel and I decided we'd head out to Steepholm in the middle of the Bristol Channel.

 

Leaving Penarth we could just about see Flatholm through the fog. I had some unreasoned desire to go around the north of the island . . .

After a fairly steep ferry glide out towards the landing jetty on Flatholm, I finally gave in within yards. The flailing blurred paddling in almost tropic conditions was just a little bit too much like hard work. We decided to go down around the south of the island and immediately accelerated to some 5 knots without lifting a blade.

Scooting around to the lighthouse we start our second glide across to Steepholm. It doesn't take us long.

Within a short time, Flatholm seems miles away, and the mainland has totally disapeared

Arrival at Steepholm

The spit on Steepholm with Brean Down off in the fog

A very low tide

An alternative landing spot with convenient steps

High tide mark?

As we paddle around the island and hit slack low tide, Hywel mentions that his GPS is indicating an altitude of minus 8m.

Rudder Rock at low water

Steepholm

Hywel on Steepholm having lunch with Flatholm in the distance and nothing else

No horizon

Leaving Steepholm just as the tide begins to flood, it is noticeably eerie out here. No sound, no movement. Passing Flatholm I notice some disturbed water and something sticking out of the water. So with some more frantic paddling I try to gain ground and get closer to investigate before it is lost to the flood.

Approaching the Wolves

Wolf Rock as the flood starts increase

It is the Wolves, exposed, just. These rocks have claimed a few lives in their time.

Hywel sitting on some turbulent water before the rocks, above where we thing the masts of the wreck might appear on an even lower tide.

Hywel at the Wolves with Steepholm in the distance

The chart indicates that there are exposed masts at the chart datum.
With the high pressure and millpond conditions, we might have seen them had we arrived a little earlier. It could be the masts of the sloop William and Mary which struck the Wolves on 28th October 1817

 Her topmast remained some feet above the water, to which the crew adhered until the boat returned. Our informant saved himself by swimming, and was two hours and a half in the water, when he was taken into the boat. He witnessed the heartrending scene which took place on the sinking of the vessel. A Mr Barron, his mother, and four sisters (who had their man-servant and carriage on board) were among the passengers; the cries of the young ladies were most distressing. They all perished! They went down in each other's arms.

 54 passengers were lost, including 22 women and children. Only one person survived.
50 bodies were recovered and buried on Flat Holm.

14.7 Nm

Strange Goings On

It's been one of those glorious mornings. Hywel had suggested one of his regular trips. So after a very lazy start to the day, Adrian and I met him at Swanbridge and left the enticemennt of the Captains Wife for a jaunt over to Flatholm.

Low neap tide and a high pressure together with little wind provided us with a fairly calm playground.

Flatholm, with strangeness occurring at the waters edge

What I hadn't expected, or had I seen before, was the way the opposite side of the Bristol Channel looked. Some strange atmospheric conditions were causing mirages to occur and the opposite side of the channel was broken up in to what looked like lots of islands.

Steepholm to the right with a new island to the left (Brean Down)

Brean Down 'Island' with other 'Islets'
(click on the pic to see a slightly bigger version)

Hywel approaching Flatholm

Giving way!

We do an anticlockwise circumnavigation of and head on back to the Captains Wife to sink a well earned pint of "Tribute" and contemplate projects.

A short trip, but what a glorious day and a fantastic pint.

7Nm around the island

Holm on the (firing) Range

Disappointed that a bit of an epic trip planned from South Wales to Lundy Island had been called off due to unstable weather, a trip with a bit of a challenge was needed to use the better weather promised for Sunday. We were not let down.

Famous Five, The Secret Seven, there is a touch of Enid Blyton about both the Holms stuck out in the Bristol Channel. Interesting, intriguing, certainly worth discovering, Flat Holm (the most southerly part of Wales) and Steep Holm. Even if that does involve a visit to England!

There and Back Again

It is a challenging trip, requiring a long fast ferry glide between the islands. Just after the peak spring tide, we expected quite a full on experience, with a North, North East wind F3-4 occasionally 5 there was going to be a little wind against tide on the ebb on our outward passage. Tidal stream of up to 3.8 knots was going to be expected in the shipping lane as we crossed between the two islands. Hold on to your hats, have faith in your angle, and don't stop paddling!

Penarth Pier

Bearing out to Flat Holm (left), Steep Holm (right)

Leaving Penarth on the last hour of the flood, we made an ark out into the channel ready to drop down onto Flat Holm with the ebb. That strategy worked very well.

Dropping down onto Flat Holm

Arriving at the jetty, we made our way to pay our landing fee and begin being at the receiving end of gull guano dive bombing, a repeating theme on both islands.

The island had taken a few prisoners that morning. The ferry had been unable to pick up the previous days visitors (due to absent crew members) and so they were captured 'till the evening ferry could safely land at the jetty to extract them.

Rush of water between the two islands

The Flag and Foghorn (cool name for a pub)

A very interesting island. Attractions include a lighthhouse, foghorn, a cholera sanatorium, numerous gun emplacements built to protect the channel from invasion during the late 1800s and during WWII. The Victorian canons seem to have been literally tossed to one side to be replace by the modern weapons. And of course thousands of gulls. Marconi transmitted the first wireless signal over the sea from Flat Holm to Lavernock on 13 May 1897. Just as well he used morse code, as no one would have heard him over the screaming noise of the birds.

Canon and Lighthouse - Flat Holm

Ruins of Cholera Sanatorium

Gull Galore

The Famous Five

Sharing the water with other users

Welcome to Steep Holm

Imagine how we felt when the bared gate read "by appointment" (so inhospitable these English types), we tried to phone, no answer, must be in the garden (they couldn't be down the shops or far away now could they). Not ones to be put off, we scaled the gate (the Enid Blyton excitement got the better of us), to find Mr Maslen to arrange an appointment. It transpired that no one was on the island, so we left, by walking around the perimeter to return to the gate.

Looking back down to Flat Holm from the top of Steep Holm,
with Cardiff in the distance

Holy Buried Canon Batman!

Sunny Side Up or Over Easy?

Bofors 40mm canon with shells of a different kind

Stairway to . . . a search light

"Fish for tea love or do you fancy a Shag?"

Now bugger off or I'll Shit on you

See - I warned you

Jim enjoying a Swell Time mid channel on our return

Chris also having a Swell Time on our return towards Flat Holm

We enjoyed a few civilised pints at the invitation of the yacht club, on the balcony over looking the pier in time to watch the stranded Flat Holm visitors arriving on the evening ferry.

And as if by magic it all went calm and it's not as if Lundy Island won't be there for another day.

Monkstone Rock & Flatholm

This is Monkstone Rock lighthouse. It is a few miles off Penarth and I never knew it was there.
After a look see we dropped down towards Flatholm for a spot of lunch on the beach. Landing fee here is £3.50 if you want to land and have a good look around, which I intend doing on another occasion.

Rounding the island past it's own lighthouse and various gun emplacements, we ferry glide back towards Lavernock Point which brings us back Penarth.


Trip length: 10.1Nm