Barnstaple; Saturday, 27 June, 2009

A very early start to the day to get the bus into Biddeford. I was going to Lundy for the day (an island about 13 miles off the coast of Devon), and the boat left at 9am, but they board everyone at 8:15 so I had to get a bus a little after 7:15 from Barnstaple to be there in time.

I had read a bit about the journey to Lundy before I set off, and most of the descriptions were horrific, of horrendous journeys across with everyone lurching around the ship and throwing up off the side, of day trips having to be cancelled because the sea was going to be too rough to take people back, so it was with some trepidation that we set off.

Millpond, Ironing Board, Pancake, there aren’t enough descriptive flat words to explain quite how calm the journey out was. A crystal clear blue sky, the boat cutting through the water, barely making any movement, and as we approached Lundy a family of Dolphins joined us and leapt along side.

I had seven hours in Lundy, and I thought that this would probably be quite long. If the weather had been bad (as had been forecast all week) it was going to be many hours sitting in the tavern reading the book I had brought with me.

In the end, with the weather remaining the excellent side of Glorious, I was able to wander over the whole of the island, taking in its stunning scenery, ruined buildings and, at the end, the Tavern for a swift bottle of beer (alcohol free, as they had run out of all the other stuff), then it was time to take the ferry back.

As I was making my way back down to the harbour you could see the quite menacing black clouds hovering over the Devon coast, which made it look as though some people were getting a soaking (as I found out later it was most of the North coast of Devon, and Biddeford in particular getting quite a downpour). On Lundy itself it was starting to get a little hazy, and I feared that the journey back to the mainland was likely to be more “lively” than the journey out.

I was wrong, if anything it was even stiller (no Dolphins rocking the boat!), so still in fact that we made excellent time and had to spend 10 minutes sitting off the coast waiting for the tide to rise high enough on the estuary to allow the boat to cross the sand banks safely and access the river down to Biddeford.

After landing I grabbed a bite to eat in Biddeford, before hopping back on the bus to Barnstaple to tend to the sun burn I had managed to get (despite constantly applying suntan cream throughout the day!)