September 2, Day 81. A magical misty morning around the Giants Causeway. Woke up at 5 to be on the water at 6:30 because of the weather window. I was against the last bit of the tide but sometimes you have to sacrifice one element of conditions in your favor to have the other two with you, this morning being wind and swell. It was flat calm and not a ripple in the water as I set off paddling towards the cliffs I couldn’t see yet, into the fog. As I approached the foggy cliffs, they started to rise out of the sea just in front of me, these massive walls of sheer rock. The seals hauled up on rocks made their cooing sounds but I couldn’t see them, their voices just echoed through the rock islands. It was such an interesting feeling to feel so anonymous, not being able to see more than 200 feet sometimes ahead of me, and couldn’t even see the next tiny bay across.
I felt so tiny and vulnerable in this place that usually you can’t get close to because of the crashing waves threatening the bottom of your boat with nearby rocks. So I weaved through all the rock islands and sea stacks, following along the cliff faces in such a silent eerie sea. When I got to the causeway itself, the sea was still so calm that I could sit right next to it on both sides in my boat and just linger around the columns.
The mythical story goes that this is the remnants of the bridge that Finn McCool built across to Scotland to fight his rival Brenadonner. After they set off to fight, Finn realized Brenadonner was bigger than him, so they played a trick and disguised himself as him and his wife’s baby. When Brenadonner saw the size of the baby, he realized then Finn would be much bigger than the baby and defeat him easily so as he ran back to Scotland, he destroyed the bridge. The other part of the bridge ends at Fingal’s cave in Scotland.
I landed at the beach right around the corner and funny enough David was there going for a walk, I met him when we went to the Anglesey symposium last year. I paddled along to Port Ballintrae before the weather picked up and it certainly did, and David was there to help me stash the boat which was nice. We went for a tea and pastry before I went back to Jane’s. So nice to have an early day and shorter day today, my body is hurting. I’m feeling the long haul of paddling for months.
