Friday 10 February 2012

Surfing the Sound

27th Jan – Benllech to Porth Penmon

A short blast on the cards, due to both me and Rog having a time limit on a trip. We decided given the westerlies to head over to the east coast of Anglesey and paddle south from Benllech to Penmon. We dropped a car off in the layby at SH 6274 7955, which has great access to the water with plenty of space. There’s also a larger layby a few hundred metres further down the road for more cars too, but without access to the water.



The car park on the beach in Benllech was quite sheltered from the wind, and once loaded up we got on the water. We made good early progress, and once we were far enough off-shore, the wind really started to come into play. It was creating clean, quite sizeable swell that meant we practically surfed across the whole width of Red Wharf Bay. It was great fun too, and meant we sped across the bay not dropping below 9km/h covering 7km in 45minutes.




Red Wharf Bay is a huge bay, measuring nearly 6km in width and 5km in depth at high water so you quickly feel that you’re a long way offshore even after only a few hundred metres of paddling. Once the bay had been crossed, we stayed fairly close to the shore. This part of the Anglesey coast is littered with disused quarries with rocky beaches for the first kilometre or two.



Landing on them wasn’t really an option today given the size of the swell dumping on them, but they’d make a good spot for a picnic if the conditions were a bit calmer.



We maintained a fairly good pace along here as we approached and could now see the Penmon lighthouse. Once round Trwyn Dinmor we could see that the waves were still running through. I don’t think I’ve ever surfed past a lighthouse at such close quarters before.




Turning the corner round Trwyn Penmon into the strait we could see a large ship moored at the opening of the eastern end of the strait. It was a UK Border Agency 42m Customs Cutter with their RIB being lifted onto the back. Me and Rog weren’t carrying any contraband or classified substances so nothing to worry about for us!



The tide was running fairly quickly in the strait and we were quickly gaining on our trip end, crossing the bay of Porth Penmon reaching speeds of over 20km/h. We could see some more signs of Anglesey’s past here, passing some more limestone quarries and workings as well as the 10th Century Priory and 17th-Century dovecote.



A few more hundred metres of paddling before back to the car; 15km in just under 2 hours.

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