Freesteel Blog » Never get your MoT done on a Friday afternoon

Never get your MoT done on a Friday afternoon

Monday, May 20th, 2019 at 11:57 am Written by:

I’m carving out some valuable time from the other stuff to blog some notes and records.

The car failed its MoT inspection with 3 condemned tyres. (Some kind of bump in them that I couldn’t see.) I had an unhappy evening because I thought this had trashed our kayak diving weekend in Anglesey.

Apparently the dangerous bulge is in this picture here at bottom inside:

Yes, normally back in the 1990s I’d have driven the car anyway, because who’s going to know? But now with all the MoT records being computerized so you can’t shop around for a garage who might overlook the flaws, and all these automatic number plate recognition cameras on the motorways, I was for sure I was going to be busted by the police on our way out.

Fortunately Becka phoned up a kwikfit garage and I took it round in the morning for some new tyres at a high price, but it was worth it. We kept the fresh receipt on the dashboard as evidence that the issue had been addressed and didn’t encounter a problem. Even though we didn’t need it, it’s good price to pay for not to have this eating your mind during the whole drive.

After a stop off at Vivian Quarry for some air-fills (£4.50 for only 200bar and a long time to fill), we dropped in on the Astral Ship for an inspection.

We concluded that it wasn’t a robot friendly place, so I took it away and we were lucky to get my robot into someone else’s car for the ride back to Liverpool. More on this story some other time.

It was now 4 o’clock, and we got a kayak dive out from Cable Bay to the Euphraties, which was swarming with large spider crabs and had mounds of chain and other wreckage that blended in with the rocks so well you couldn’t tell, except by their form, what was natural or man-made.

Then we headed off late to the Tyn Rhos Camping Site Ravenspoint Road and ended up on the wrong side of a locked gate because we hadn’t approached it from Ravenspoint Road (idiot). The Liverpool Canoe Club were spending the weekend there and some of them had paddled to the Skerries durinig the day (one of the things on our bucket list). One of the other parties had passed us coming in while we were going out for our dive. They didn’t stop off to watch, as no one is particularly interested in kayak diving. In the morning we tried to see if there were any trips being planned that we could dive in the direction of, as it gives peace of mind to have a bit of company on the surface when you are underwater, but nothing presented itself. So we were back to our original plan of diving the Kimya, which I have been trying to get a decent dive on since 2004!

The wind had picked up from the northwest (it was supposed to be northeast on the forecast) and there was a bit of chop. The May bloom was overdue. It all looked like it would be another failure.

But we got there. After much anchor dragging of anchors, shouting and checking the GPS on my expensive phone in a pelicase (all my waterproof GPS’s are bust), Becka seemed to hook something at last. (After the dive she understood my outrage that it had been so difficult to hook — the wreck is massive and full of holes.)

Just as we were going down the line, a dive boat showed up. That made me feel more comfortable.

If everything went tits up, they’d probably pick up the pieces. It’s a 3km paddle from the nearest landing and there are no fishermen on the headlands, so it’s a pretty lonely spot round about here. No one is ever going to see you.


Becka collected the anchor from the bottom and carried it as we circled the wreck twice. I thought the lifeline to our kayaks was going to get tangled continually, but she skillfully kept it running free. I had thought at the start about tying the anchor to a good spot on the wreck, but it was so big you wouldn’t be sure of getting back to it again.


There were a couple of swimthroughs, and a huge hold that we sank down into towards the end of the dive. Luckily the divers from the boat hadn’t been in there to stir up the silt by then. Little splashes of bright colour from nudibranchs on any surface you cared to focus on.


And so we surfaced, climbed back on our boats, chatted with the other divers (who were from St Helens) and arm-power hauled our way back to Porth Cwyfan (the cove with the white church), and then hoofed the kit across acres of sharp low-tide rocks to the shore.

Now we would have had our tea at that spot, except that the place is very much in earshot of the Anglesey racing circuit, whose noise diary for 19 May 2019 gave their No Limits Motorcycle Track Day a noise category 2. It was pretty bad.

We drove to Newborough Warren where the guy collecting the £5 entrance fee had already gone home, and brewed up some tea just over a sand dune from the carpark (unfortunately melting the handle on the trangia tea-pot in the process).

Then, of course, we had to walk out to and along the whole length of Ynys Llanddwyn, scrambling up and down the rocks at the far end.

I was knackered.

Becka accused me of getting soft and complained that we had done nothing all day.

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