Brian wanted big and bouncy and having arrived at Porth Dafarch for 9:00am, it is what we got. You could easily see the white horses of the breaking waves out at sea. We paddled around the coast towards Penrhyn Mawr, giving Mini Mawr a wide birth. It was fairly hard going with a big swell, choppy sea and the wind blowing F5-F6. Penhryn Mawr looked massive, so we headed for the Old Lifeboat Station instead. In the shelter of the Old Lifeboat Station bay Brian practiced his roll intentionally and we set back off to Porth Dafarch. Back at Dafarch, there was a little surf coming into the bay, but it wasn't brilliant and to be honest I wasn't feeling it. Brian suggested we head downwind to Trearddur Bay and off we set. With the wind and swell behind us now it was much easier going and quite exciting as we were bounced up and down through the swell. I even managed a few little surfs along the way.
At Trearddur Bay, the Greenes (Greene Adventures) had arranged for an incident to occur in conjunction with the Trearddur Bay lifeboat and their group. They we busy sorting their casualty, but Lisa still managed a quick hello. It was about this time I noticed a large set of waves coming into the bay that were eminently surf'able, across the far side of the bay. The first wave I caught was a good one and I shot off at a good rate of knots (11Kts according to my GPS) getting a great ride just about all the way into the beach. We played in the waves for a bit, with me trying to catch them and Brian trying to avoid them, before setting back off to Porth Dafarch, rock hoping and staying close to the shore to avoid as much as possible the strong wind. The only problem with this tactic is that at some point we had to break out from the shore through the breakers to the open sea, as the sheltering rocks don't go all the way to Porth Dafarch. The wind by now had picked up a bit and was more like F6. It was very hard going.
Needless to say in these condition I didn't get to take many pictures. The ones I did are below. Click on the images to see in lightbox.
Another great paddle. Thanks Brian.
