On the 12th of April 2007, we took a trip to Caldey Island. Needless to say I took lots of photographs. If you're ever in Tenby for a few days, then I'd heartily recommend a visit. This was my third time going out there - and the first time with my son. He loved going across in the boat, it was his first trip on the sea. He'd been around Cardiff Bay before, but as that's fresh water behind the barrage, so it don't count.
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After a break, we headed up the main drag of the Island - it's about a mile from where the boat lands to the lighthouse at the opposite end. On the way is one of the old churches on the island, St Illtuds. When we went as a child, you could wander around a lot of the out buildings, but now they are all in such poor repair that they're all blocked up.
The first couple of shots are outside the old buildings - there's a millpond and a fudge factory around the old church. The rest are inside St Illtuds where the Caldey Island Stone stands by a fairly modern but in very poor condition stained glass window. There's some nice details around the place and a lovely pebbled floor.
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After buying some fudge from the Abbot's Kitchen, we headed up to the Lighthouse for lunch. The last time I was there I took a load of photos, some of which were used as the basis for paintings during my college years. Today was no different, I repeated some of the shots I'd taken a while back, and now I had the freedom of lots of digital shots over a few film frames, I took a lot more.
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Around the lighthouse were some nice little plastic figures stuck into the walls. They were nicely weathered and a bit kitsch, but that's fine by me. There's a shed on the way down that was also worthy of the photographic treatment for a nice simple composition.
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After we'd had a nice packed lunch up at the Lighthouse, we walked back down to the beach before we got back on the boat, enjoying the surrounding views all the way down. There's a tiny village green on Caldey, below the monastery (built in 1910) and some nice houses built back in the 1950s. They looked lovely in the bright sun, so I took a few details, failing to notice the lens had picked up a smudge. It doesn't show so bad in the small size, but it's there in the big photos unfortunately.
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And there we have it - back on the boat and home in time for tea.