The PSK Hub – Performance Sea Paddling Stuff
Day 6 – Porth Dinllaen – Morfa Dinlle – 28 km Back to early starts, 08:00 OTW, with slightly slow arms after the Llyn Padarn TT yesterday. The wind has dropped off, but it has taken the blue skies too. We start from Porth Dinllaen in a dead calm, with a 12-14 mph breeze forecast …
Continue reading “The Coastal Counties Challenge – Gwynedd – Day 6”
Day 5 – Porth Colman – Porth Dinllaen – 14 km We travelled through Bardsey Sound and rounded the end of the Llyn yesterday, the difficult bit was done now. Of course, it doesn’t work out like that; it’s the simple bits that cause you hassles. The high pressure system that sat overhead, brought blue …
Continue reading “The Coastal Counties Challenge – Gwynedd – Day 5”
Day 4 – Abersoch – Porth Colman – 37 km We finished at Abersoch and had to head home for a few days, or so we thought. But, we had Bardsey Sound to paddle through and February just did not bring any weather that made that a good idea. It was late March before we …
Continue reading “The Coastal Counties Challenge – Gwynedd – Day 4”
Day 3 – Criccieth – Abersoch – 25 km We stayed not too far away in Porthmadog last night. Even with the necessary car shuttle, the relaxed tide timings meant we had an easier start today – OTW after noon! By contrast Criccieth was flat calm today and we headed out for a steady paddle …
Continue reading “The Coastal Counties Challenge – Gwynedd – Day 3”
Day 2 Barmouth – Criccieth – 25 km The forecast was for a stiff breeze from the S, increasing as we headed N, and with only a little swell. The plan was to follow the coastline to Mochras/Shell Island, staying far enough out to avoid any surf, and then straightlining it to Criccieth – with …
Continue reading “The Coastal Counties Challenge – Gwynedd – Day 2”
The idea for the CC Challenge drifted into my peanut brain whilst paddling the GB Circumnavs. It felt like a challenge that might appeal to the more adventurous PSK paddlers, but somehow it also felt a little bit ‘full-on’, the time never really seemed right. So the idea lived on the back burner. Then Ian …
Continue reading “The Coastal Counties Challenge – Gwynedd – Day 1”
The Holy Island Lap The circumnav of Holy Island (Anglesey, UK) demands the usual tidal planning required of a short circ, but here the 32 km lap also brings a few added challenges: Accurate timing is needed to enter and leave the Inland Sea, the tidal window is only a few minutes wide. Get it …
As I mentioned on the lap of Holy Island last week, there is a trick to getting round the island efficiently. The crux-point is the tidal window at Stanley Embankment. This in turn dictates the (usual) counter-clockwise (CCW) direction of the trip, as the embankment-timings match you with the CCW ebb tide. So this means …
Continue reading “Holy Island Circumnav 2021 – The Wrong Way Around”
Holy Island lies to the immediate west of the Isle of Anglesey, North Wales, UK. It is separated from Anglesey by a shallow ‘Inland Sea’ , created by a couple of short(ish) embankments that in turn link Holy Island to the Isle of Anglesey. I like paddling the lap of Holy Island; it’s short enough …
Continue reading “Holy Island Circumnav 2021 – Record Attempt”
Recently I posted a photo on the Strictly Sea Kayaking facebook page and this prompted a question from Steve Macfarlane on the subject of the rudder. I thought the reply may interest those rudder-equipped paddlers out there. Rudder Release. If you compare the photos we can see that the paddler has moved the boat rearward, …