Thursday, March 10, 2011

The Devil's bridge of Burrow Head.

Due to lost time on the shuttle, we had started a little later than planned. We still needed to meet the tidal window at Burrow Head and so we skipped first luncheon,  carrying on towards the Head.

Close to the head, a strong counter eddy forms in the last 2 hours of both the flood and the ebb, particularly so at springs. This means that "slack water" close under the rocks occurs when the main race is still stonking off shore. If there is any wind against tide the main race will look quite scary and the eddy line will create very confused water. As you are approaching the head to take advantage of the inshore slack, you will see great lumps of water from the main race heaving on the horizon and you can have a bit of a dry mouth before you round the corner and actually see what it is like.

Our missed luncheon allowed a calm passage at just about slack water. The tide was only moving at 1 knot.

The rock architecture at Burrow Head really is quite superb.

After our non stop dash to the Head, it was a great joy to drift in the tide...

...beneath upended layers of Silurian Greywacke.

All too soon we had rounded the Head and slipped under...