ron-t kayaking blog
25 May 2017 .............. Porth Dafarch to South Stack
What a difference a day makes - Anglesey delivered the most fantastic idyllic day for being out on the sea - blue sky, sun, little wind, a bit of swell to make the rock hopping interesting.
Heading out from Porth Dafarch, and Dinas Stack looking good.
Just enough water to get through the arch - though I didn`t make a good job of it.
Sometimes there would be a big swell wave come through and explode over the centre rock.
Sometimes it was much quieter - and let me tell you - hesitation is the worst thing if you are rock hopping with a swell.
I hesitated, and got caught by the next wave - fortunately it wasn`t a major one, but it did throw me around a bit and up on the rock.
Past Dinas Stack, and looking across to Penrhyn Mawr - the tide is still quite high at this point, so Penrhyn Mawr doesn`t really look at all interesting.
There wasn`t anything of note at Penrhyn Mawr, so I just caried on straight through, and into the bay between the next two headlands.
The hidden passage was well filled with water, but I still couldn`t get through either end.
Something I haven`t ever noticed before - up on the cliffs, these rocks have a series of waves.
Geologically speaking, I wonder what would cause this, as in the great upheaval of rocks that happened away back in time I don`t see what would cause this.
Out past the second headland, and into Abraham`s Bosom - and that view -
I paddled across to South Stack - well, not quite to South Stack - all the birdies that are breeding around South Stack don`t like us humans and our boats, so I stayed well away.
It was by now too late in the afternoon, and too late in the ebb tide cycle to be thinking about going on to North Stack, so I didn`t need to go right over to South Stack, so when I was a couple of hundred metres or so away I turned and headed back, keeping quite far out to see if I could avoid the big eddy that forms in Abraham`s Bosom.
I must have just about succeeded, as it wasn`t too bad a journey back to the two headlands.
A bit more coastal exploring - quite a big cave -
A bit further in, and you begin to see how deep it is -
I couldn`t go too far in because the swell was doing unpleasant things away inside, however I did get in a bit, so this is looking out.
This cave actually gave me quite a bit of grief, because the right in the middle there was a big flattish sort of rock just below the surface, and the swell would come in and rise up over this rock, and push me all over the place - I took something like 10 photos because each time I got my camera out and the shot set up another wave would come in and push me off again.
Here is one of the pictures that I ended up with - the swell had pushed me up onto the side of the cave, and you can see all the turbulence in the water. It isn`t a clever bit of photography, it was me trying to get a photo looking out the of the cave, and the swell messed me up again, so this was the result.
Back out in the sunshine again, and here is the same channel as yesterday - a bit more benign today.
Penrhyn Mawr was quite featureless, even the outer race had nothing to write home about, so I continued on back across to Dinas Stack.
Round the back of Dinas Stack there is a big cave - high and dry by now -
The gap between Dinas Stack and the mainland - amazing to think that there is actually a sort of path down through those crags to the coll, but it is not for the faint hearted.
This must be one of the most amazing examples of folded rocks, it never ceases to amaze me everytime I pass it.
Last and by no means least, the arch which I made a mess of a few hours before - now high and dry.
It is quite surprising just how much the tide level had dropped since I paddled through it on the way out.
And so back to Porth Dafarch, and after I was all packed up I went for a swim - my first swim of the year.
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