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Second day was a very interesting day. Unfortunately, it was the last of the days during which I could paddle without injuries (I developed Inguinal hernia). Still, the day contained a lot of things. It alone was almost worth the trip, and taught us a lot. It taught us about the huge difference between paddling our normal waters (sometimes high waves, but short and choppy) and the Anglesey waters. In Anglesey, it was different. There are swells, which can be huge. Huge swells can be quite easy. And they may combine with a lot of things (wind, tiderace, reflections) and become much more difficult.

We started the day at the path on the darker blue path on the map. We started out eastwards (following the dark blue track on the map, going right). We were impressed by the waves. It looked uncalm. I was wearing my GPS. At the pink arrow we turned back into more shielded waters. At that time the waves driven by the still shielded 14 m/s wind, started to look a little too high. My GPS constantly recorded differences in height of 2 meters, now and then of 3 meters. There are no photos from any of the participants from the paddling of that first leg. I was trying to judge the height myself, and we do have a story I and one of the fellow paddlers are telling in unison from that day:

• I hear her yell to me "move or I will run through you".
• I look up and she is sitting on the top of a huge wave. I refer the height difference to my house. With me sitting on the floor and the floor of her kayak sitting on the top of my inner roof it is about right. That would mean about 2.4 meter high wave.
• I see she is right, if she comes down that wave, she will run my kayak through. So I back it out of line.
• After me backing, again she shouts "I will run through you".
• I realise she is not going to do any manouvering at that point of time. I have to do it myself. I turn the back of my kayak into her wave, and then turn the front of my kayak away from her, and leave.

The really interesting thing for the story: Afterwards, we both told the same story. Both agreeing that the words were exchanged, as described, and the manouvering done as described. Meaning that we must have been in both a big and stable wave, giving us time for all of that.

From the map above, still following the dark blue path, can be seen that the path goes back onto shore far to the left. This is where we have our first theory discussion from the guide. Until then we had learned a new set of (never ending) slips from the guide:

• We started out as a hole group into quite a wavy condition. The guide did not have any pumps or floating devices or similar. Neither did we (due to the guides advice). All the boats together carried only one tow line. The coast is rocky, and there is no way the guide could have handled two persons falling in at the point where he decided to turn back
• We did not get any starting theory on differences in paddling or doing rescue in more wavy waters. We learned from doing, not from theory.
• We had been adviced by the guide not to bring any wetsuits or dry suits. He was paddling in a dry jacket. And the other groups with guide were frequently using dry suits.

There is a yellow arrow on the map, and it points out where we now had an unintended rescue excercise. As often happens when things have been a bit rough, and it now is much easier, people relax. And at it happened, a small swell came from the side at the same time as a paddler was passing towards the rocks, and he got pushed in to some rocks. Not hard, not high, but enough to lose the balance. And then the paddle. I performed a normal t-rescue on him. But it was a lot harder to do in these waters than in our normal waters.