Tuesday 16th June: Barmouth - Abersoch (18 n.mi.)

Well, the lightning never materialised, so yesterday was really a wasted day. Most of today's trip was an open crossing of Tremadog Bay in sunshine and light airs. The peaks of Snowdonia towered to starboard and astern, but what is appealing to the eye turns out to be diminutive and misty to the camera lens, so you'll just have to take my word for it.
My drysuit has given up the ghost (torn neck seal, holes in the fabric from salt abrasion, perished feet) so the warm weather is an excuse to change into Chillcheater kit.
A couple of miles off Abersoch, a fresh breeze blew up right on the nose, so I got my quota of physical exercise for the day. Landed at the slipway in the harbour to find a friendly group of bird-watchers gathered there with their high-powered telescopes. As I stumbled for the correct collective noun for such an assembly, one of them volunteered "a sadness of twitchers." They had, after all, travelled goodness-knows-how-far to see a rare tern that had arrived the previous day and was now, well, elsewhere... Apparently they had amused themselves by watching the idiot in the kayak out in the bay. How disturbing.
Trolleying the loaded boat 1 km inland to the campsites marked on the OS map, I found that the first did not welcome tents, and the second was demanding £18/night for a minimum of two nights. Suspecting that this might be a special rate for lone blokes wearing Chillcheater, I turned my back on the site and resolved to seek B&B in town. Having had difficulties on a previous occasion when I tried to hitch-hike in this garb, I should not have been surprised when the first B&B proprietress turned the "no vacancies" sign round in my face. Better luck ensued at John and Jane Gosling's establishment, where John was quite unperturbed by my appearance, greeting me with a cheerful, "it's OK; I've done a bit of paddling myself."