It has been a dull and wet January so far, not providing much incentive to get out with the camera. But Monday had a decent forecast, with sunny intervals and showers, so decided to have a day out to Llanddwyn Island on Anglesey. Maybe I am slipping; but I really must pay attention to the forecasted winds!
It was a lovely day for photography, except for the 25 – 30 mph winds gusting to over 50 mph. At times I could hardly stand on the island and the sea spray was everywhere. Basically it made it very hard to do any sort of photography and to cap it all, the “we are going to have a great sunset” quickly faded into “bugger all”.
Llanddwyn Island (Ynys Llanddwyn) is a magical place, best seen on a stormy day with the waves raging against wet rocks resplendent in a range of hues. On a hot sunny day, it feels like an island in the Aegean! This area records an entire plate tectonic story, from the creation of the ocean floor as a mid-ocean ridge, seen here as pillow lavas, through its journey across the ocean basin where it picked up sediments, to its burial and metamorphism as plates collided and the rocks sank down into a deep ocean trench.
The jewel of the island is the small beach Porth Twr Bach (see Gull Tower below). It is a simply amazing mixture of colours and textures, the melange of Edward Greenly, the geologist who first described them. Deformation, chemical alteration and metamorphism show that these ocean floor rocks were dragged into a deep ocean trench as one plate collided with, and dived beneath, another plate. More recent Earth movements split the mélange and filled the cracks with lava (dolerite dykes).
I should add that walking back along the beach to the car park, the Noise Warning on my Apple Watch went off due to the noise of the wind. That means the wind noise must have exceeded 90 decibels 😱
Anyway, below are a selection of what I did manage to get; nothing special but it was good to be out….
