Around Anglesey

North Stack.

Anglesey has one of the biggest tidal ranges in the world, it was, therefore, a sad coincidence that my only three days off this October fell on the smallest tides of the quarter. Not very helpful when Dan & I set off from Caernarfon at 4pm aiming to paddle around the whole of Anglesey. Just like my last expedition, nearly ago year to the day, it wasn’t completely successful!

By the time I finished work, decided on a location, brought some supplies (including the mandatory gin in a tin) we had a late start. We were aiming for the popular beach at Rhoscolyn. We arrived long after dark and had just the beacon to use for navigation. The White Eagle just 5 mins walk from the beach were good enough to make me a bowl of ice cream in a brandy snap basket well outside of kitchen hours. They also serve some fine ales. This sea kayaking is very civilised!

We awoke early the next morning to the sound of the fisherman removing all of our gear we’d left hanging off the side of their dinghy, they were surprisingly friendly! After a strong coffee we made our way to North Stack, passed the ferry terminal and onto the Skerries for some lunch. Stronger tides would have made light work of this but alas this was not the case, the seals at the lighthouse were happy to see us though. The afternoon brought a stronger wind than tide and the good chop to the sea made for an entertaining paddle, but ultimately hard work.
Giving up on the idea of making it all the way around, we opted to camp at Porth Wen in the old Brick Works, which was a fantastic campsite and I enjoyed, the challenge of drying my thermals over the fire, drinking a glass of wine with my dinner and having cheese and biscuits.

We had a bit of a fresh water shortage first thing the next day and only slowed our pace after we’d collected some drinking water from a public toilet. We then continued at a leisure pace heading around to Moelfre where we had arrange for our shuttle driver (cheers Rich!) to collect us. We even stopped half way through the morning to make a brew with a dying gas canister and the last of our biscuits!

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