This weekend saw Douglas, Pat, Neil & Sue on the water and bringing with them blue skies and warm weather .. it was hard to believe it was November!
After coffee and discussions and day around incident management, towing and rescues was what people wanted so Bull Bay on the North coast of Anglesey was the venue with some current and many channels and rocky inlets and channels, to work with.
Day 1
Neil above, enjoying paddling the new North Shore Atlantic, in the small race that flows out of Bull Bay the first couple of hours on a spring tide.
Sue following on, to return and work with contact tows, and considering up current or down, with placement of casualty or on the bow or stern.
After some lunch at the classic brick works we paddled on towards Hells Mouth, with the bigger cliffs and more opportunity to move in and out around the rocks.
We worked mainly on horizontal turns and introduced vertical turns for tighter gaps ..
Sue and Neil had an incident here to resolve with Neil, capsizing (on purpose) and Sue then towing him out and then a deep water rescue, to put him back in. While this was going on Douglas and Pat were up to a similar scenario!
We then headed back to our start point and said good bye to Sue and Neil, who were just out for the day.
Day 2
Pat was keen to work on 3 star skills, so we headed off to Rhoscolyn, to work some bigger flow and swell ... what another super day it was, making up for the poor summer we had!!
We did allot of rock hoping, looking at positioning, using gears to accelerate through gaps and to get out of rougher areas and soaked up the winter sunshine!
We headed down to Silver bay to get some surf ...hopefully, although on arrival it was fairly dumpy and mainly small with an occasional larger wave. We had some lunch and took in the view ...
looking across to the Llyn ..
Pat working through some rougher water, looking for any further waves ... and a few rescues more, with me jumping in and Pat towing out and putting me back in. 
Douglas balancing well in the rougher water .. and upping his game over the day ..
Rocky landing on Rhoscolyn beacon, for a short break. Back in the bay and a more complicated scenario for Pat to manage, a roll and a successful outcome.
I love my job!!
www.coastalspirit.com
roger chandler
winter sea kayaking courses, north wales
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