Welcome to my Sea Kayaking (b)log
Anglesey or Ynys Môn is an island off the north west coast of Wales. Two bridges span the Menai Strait, connecting it to the mainland: the Menai Suspension Bridge designed by Thomas Telford in 1826 and the Britannia Bridge. Formerly part of Gwynedd, Anglesey, Holy Island and other smaller islands now make up the Isle of Anglesey County.
Almost three quarters of the inhabitants are Welsh speakers and Ynys Môn, the Welsh name for the island, is used for the UK Parliament and National Assembly constituencies. With an area of 714 square kilometers (276 sq mi), Anglesey is the largest Welsh island, the fifth largest surrounding Great Britain and the largest in the Irish Sea.
Penrhyn Mawr again with Brian, Andy Sloan and Dave Blake's group. We all got there far too early. We (Brian and moi) told them it was far too early after the night before, but they insisted on a 9:30 on the water. Hey ho. Another hour in bed would have been nice. When we...
Although it was neaps, Penrhyn Mawr outer race was rather pleasant with some good surfs to be had. Middle wasn’t that good for surfing, but good for skills etc. Managed a Reentry roll in the outer flow along with some rolls. My first roll was incredibly slow and I had to pull the boat around...
After a wet night (internally) in the Paddler's Return bar at Anglesey Outdoors, with Dave Blake and few others, we decided a surfing session at Rhosneigr was in order for Sunday. Just ten minutes into the session, Mike was hit by another Sea kayaker, resulting in a very nasty cut from his neck out...
The weather forecast for North Wales was very poor, with high winds and rain for much of the day. So Michael Hargreaves in his new boat and I decided to meet up on the Menai Straits at Moel-y-Don. This allowed us to paddle up with the tide towards Menai Bridge, have lunch and come...
After a quick flurry of messages on Facebook late on Friday afternoon , I arranged to meet Gareth and Sarah the next morning. Gareth also brought along Dave who I sort of knew a little of from the Paddlers Bar at Anglesey Outdoors. The more the merrier! After a quick conflab at <ahem> Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch...
Sunday saw HW Liverpool being at 12:59, so we decided to paddle out to Puffin Island. This paddle works well for getting home at a reasonable time, as it is err... "sort of" on the way home! From studying the guide books, Cruising Anglesey and Welsh Sea kayaking we could see that leaving from...
It was a big spring tide weekend, but with HW around midday it was not the best time-wise for getting on the water at 10:30am. I paddled with PL and Abo. Due to the prevailing weather conditions, everyone with a sea kayak on Anglesey seemed to have the same idea. The car park at...
Sunday 20th March. My last day of paddling on my long weekend before heading back to the daily grind. I paddled this time with PL and Brian. Brian had a brand new boat to christen. We decided to paddle from Porth Eilean to play in tidal race as the tide would be ebbing. We...
The day after the four star training with Roger Chandler, I met up with Plum Loaf for a paddle. We decided on paddling to North Stack as the tides worked well for this trip. The tides were Mean Neap tides. Before setting off, I did some more fiddling with my boats outfitting. Penrhyn Mawr when...
Day 1 As pre course homework Roger asked us to plan a suitable journey as a four star leader - I used Phil Clegg's Journey planner (see downloads) and planned from Porth Darfarch to Trearddur Bay and back, which was well within remit. In the end we paddled from Rhoscolyn out to the tidal...
Paddled with Plum Loaf and three ex-marines, so plenty of banter!! We ran a car shuttle, leaving one car at the start and two cars at Bull Bay. One of the marines was fairly new to sea kayaking, so we needed to ensure he was ok with the trip. Setting off from Cemlyn Bay...
For a first sea paddle of the year what better place for it to be than Rhoscolyn. And for once I didn't do the driving over to Anglesey, thanks to Dusty and his monster truck. So having met the gang, had the usual faff, we set off. Despite it being a cold, it was...
This video says it all really. Fun times... https://youtu.be/iBLo4rrDI4k...
When you've made plans for a weekends paddling in Anglesey and the weather turns really bad, what do you do? Well, there is always some messing about in tidal currents at Four Mile Bridge. This was about the only place on the island we could have found to paddle in the 50mph plus winds....
Sunday 24th May This recent bank holiday weekend saw me driving over to Anglesey (again) on Sunday to meet up with my paddle buddy. The original plan was to go out to the Skerries, but the wind from the NW had other ideas. So we settled on meeting at Borth Wen, Rhoscolyn at the...
The 2015 Anglesey Sea kayak Symposium has been running for around 30 years, hosted at the Anglesey Outdoors Centre, just outside Holyhead. I had heard about this event many times over the years and thought it sounded like a good idea to get my self along to it. So on the first May bank...
Saturday 18th April Once again after a very early start I arrived at Anglesey Outdoors for 9:00am on a Saturday morning. This weekend, organised by Sabina Neall, saw twelve "East Coast Sea kayakers" meeting together at Anglesey Outdoors for a coaching weekend with Olly Sanders. It was a big tide weekend and we were...
An early start for me saw me driving to meet my paddle buddy at Borthwen, Rhoscolyn for 9:00am. The roads were fairly quiet and despite passing through various fog patches on the way, I made it with five minutes to spare. At Borthwen, the coastal fog was so bad it was a job to...
I did my 3 star Sea Kayak Assessment on Friday 20th February 2015 and I passed! The track above is from my GPS. As you may be able to see we had a really good surfing session just off Valley Airfield (all that scribble on the right of the picture). According to my GPS,...
After a very early start (I left home at 05:40) I arrived at Anglesey, just in time to see Rob emerging from his car at 08:30, parked at Porth Dafarch. Rob had traveled over the night/morning before, from Lincoln and spent what was left of the night sleeping in his car under two duvets....
