Round Anglesey – Take 2: Tavi Murray with Damian Pryor
It was our second attempt to paddle round Anglesey: on the
first, the forecast definitely hadn’t played ball, shifting a forecast F7 from
day to day and all we’d managed were day paddles hiding from the conditions.
This time it was spring tides, which meant an anticlockwise circumnavigation
with faster flows to help us round, but potentially bigger tideraces depending
on when we hit them. The tidal crux points were engraved in my mind: the
Stacks, the Menai Straits, Point Lynas, and Carmel Head. Our team was now down
to just two– and the summer had already shown me the limits of that if one of
you is in the water. Nonetheless the weather looked feasible with winds starting
4-5 then dropping through the weekend – a window of three paddleable days
before it was forecast to be unpaddleable again on bank holiday Monday. Roger
had kindly offered to be a backstop if we found ourselves stuck away from our
car. It was game on!
Friday 22 August: Day
1, Soldiers Point to Beaumaris, 61km
The wind had been NW for days and was forecast as a good F4
from the NW, the swell was also from the NW and pretty chunky. We stayed
overnight in Valley, ready for an early start from Soldiers Point with my plan
being to sneak past North Stack at slack tide. This plan was thwarted as my attempt
to find the car parking spot at Soldiers Point met with a line of boulders
across the road and then an increasingly frustrated search down small roads. In
the end we left an hour late into steep waves around 1.5 metres high (Damian
says 2m). I knew North Stack would be the meaty tide race with flow that would now
be against both wind and swell. An hour late – that means 50% full flow. It
definitely was punchy! The biggest wave met me in the chest and knocked me
backwards like an aggressive river stopper despite my determinedly planted
paddle blade. However, once through North Stack conditions eased and both South
Stack and Penrhyn Mawr were sleeping. We paddled on down the west coast of
Anglesey surfing waves more-or-less continuously. My plan for the day was to
reach Beaumaris, which would put us in position to finish the Straits early on
day 2, but that was over 60 km and neither of us had paddled that far before.
We’d agreed that if either of us said stop – that’d be it – we’d just stop
without question. But remarkably quickly we were seeing Llanddwyn Island, taken
south by the tide, wind and waves. After that we were in an adverse tidal eddy
and crept along Abermenai Point, but conditions further out where the Menai
Straits tidal flow was meeting the main stream and swell, waves were exploding
vertically in walls of white water! We eventually landed for the first time for
lunch around 3pm: 40 km of the circumnavigation ticked off. Hungry but otherwise
very definitely ok and smiling. Brew and sandwich time while we sat on the
beach and waited for the tide to turn and build. Once in the Menai Straits we
were on familiar territory ticking of the features I knew so well from many
windy paddles. We finally arrived in Beaumaris … pretty tired if I’m honest … We
reckoned camping wouldn’t be possible and I went on a hunt for somewhere to
stay. 61km of the 120km or so circumnavigation ticked off. Suddenly it felt
like this could be a successful attempt.
Saturday 23 August: Day
2, Beaumaris to Traeth Bychan (Moelfre), 20km
It was a sunny start to the day and we paddled north from
Beaumaris completely sheltered from the wind. Spotting Roger putting on at a beach
near the mouth of the Straits we stopped to say hello and for Damian to
rearrange stuff in his boat. Roger gave us some cautionary words about the
possibility of looking at Puffin Sound before committing to it and some hints
that the wind would drop later on. Conditions seemed benign though and to be
honest I rather ignored his hints. Puffin Sound was indeed a bit more meaty,
but perfectly manageable. However we then settled down to a fight into the
force 5 headwind blowing across Red Wharf Bay and the 1.5m swell. Progress was
slow, almost painfully slow, but I was conscious of the crashing surf on the
cliff and then the beach to the south which was decidedly unappealing as a
landing / re-launch possibility. I was even more determined that we wouldn’t
turn around and run for the shelter we’d left behind. Traeth Bychan was a
target I knew would be sheltered, and some 4-5 hours later, around 3pm, we
crept into the bay fighting into the wind all the way. The bay was filled with
sailing boats and other pleasure craft and really seemed a different world from
the feisty paddle we’d just finished. Agonisingly the wind dropped an hour or
so after we arrived on the beach, but we were pretty done in and very hungry!
We’d crept on a tiny 20km and missed the tide gate at Point Lynas by hours. And
the day had been considerably harder than the day before. Hmm, would we manage
to finish now? We had around 45-50km still to go and the forecast for Monday was
horrible and meant that there was definitely only one day left. A text from
Roger reinforced my own thoughts for the next day – “keep off shore”– a tactic
that helped a lot!
Sunday 24 August: Day
3 – Moelfre – Soldiers Point, 48km
Keep off shore – so we did! And once around Point Lynas we
just flew along the north coast in the big spring tide, and for the first time,
light winds, accompanied along the way by a friendly porpoise. Far enough
offshore that we somehow missed seeing East Mouse completely, passed well
outside Middle Mouse and began making our way inshore towards the two white
ladies and the “snowman” on West Mouse. Carmel Head was messy but we were soon
past the tide races (or so we thought). We opened the day hatches – nothing
beats lunch on the water in the sun! We rapidly found ourselves being taken
into another tiderace – providing one of two morals for the trip: “Never eat
lunch in a tiderace”! Sandwiches eaten (or thrown overboard so paddles could be
held) we moved on towards Holyhead, calling port control before crossing the
harbour entrance. A slightly closer encounter with a ferry than I’d have liked
(although we knew they’d seen us from VHF traffic), followed by a long paddle
along the harbour wall, brought us into Soldiers Point and finished the
circumnavigation at 2pm.
What a great paddle! So what did we do to celebrate?
Pizza and hot chocolates at Dylans in Menai Bridge (big smiles!) and then we
headed off to the Tryweryn for a day of white water magic on the windy bank
holiday Monday.
Learning for the
trip:
-
Always call in to the coastguard, even if
conditions seem benign (we didn’t on the 2nd day, but I regretted it
during our long and actually quite challenging paddle)
-
Never eat lunch in a tiderace!
by Tavi Murray
anglesey sea kayaking
+
north wales sea kayaking
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