This was day 3 for Anita, who's from Switzerland and the first day for Nick from Belgium, on our Xplore sea kayaking course, which is at Intermediate level. It was was also great to meet Nick again, after 4 years!
The Stacks is always a super trip, that demands respect and with more super light winds the plan was to do an a-a trip, from Poryh Dafarch to Parliament House cave and back, so after some planning over a coffee we were off ...
The silky calm start just had a small swell running, but 0.7 that was forecast??
That is until our angle changed and the swells ... this was the action before the race, on the small rock/island headland ... never know what this ones called ... and Nick throwing down good timing and speed ...
and catching some air in the mean time ... mmmm Penrhyn Mawr was likely to be big, despite a neap tide and now the 0.7 metre swell forecast was looking
We worked wide and close eddy turns and coming into the same eddy and then crossing in an S to the other side ... It was good to see Nick looking comfortable and really getting into it ....Olly Sanders joined us with two of his clients and they were on the main race ...
Anita, working well in new conditions for here and to be honest the top end of Xplore ... with surging eddies and pulsing swell ...
I set Nick off on the main race to catch a few waves, closer to the top .... notice I say close the top, as the top 6-8 mt was really curling, very steep and unpredictable ...
It was super to be out in short sleeves and we stayed with the race for about 1 hour before moving out from the shore to get on the flood to round South Stack ...
Once round we continued out from the shore, to avoid the eddy stream and headed towards parliament house cave ... the bay was a little confused, with eddy streams, flow, swell and reflective waves, as we got closer in. It soon became clear that landing was going to be very difficult ... and not for today ...
We headed back towards South Stack but this time much closer in, really feeling the ground swell and pulled into a small sunny cove and joined Olly and his team for lunch. He was heading on to Soldiers Point, having drop off his bike earlier to then cycle back to collect his vehicle ... while we were going to rest up for an hour and allow the flood to settle and then sneak back via Annie s Arch (the gap/bridge crossing to South Stack island) and use the eddy stream to push us across the bay ...
It was a great quick return journey, the arch was very gentle, the raft of sea birds were quite stunning and we soon back at Penryhn Mawr (headland in the distance) ... in fact earlier than expected and the flow was still VERY evident. In parked the group and went for a look, all of the inner channels now had a good ground swell thumping through, so were out of the question ... so we sat for 30/40 minutes and chatted about the day.
Aiming for Rhoscolyn Beacon we took a wide angle out into the bay and soon were out of the last of the flood and paddling back into the bay and closing on our start. What a top day!
roger chandler
www.coastalspirit.com
north wales sea kayak
&
anglesey sea kayaking
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