Tag: rough water

Anglesey Stacks trip with P&H dealer Manu Redureau

On August 30, 2017

On Sunday 27 August P&H dealer Manu Redureau, of Bekayak, Brest, France, joined me for a blast around the Stacks. This trip also gave Manu the opportunity to try out the Delphin MKII Corelite X in rough water conditions.

Our journey took us from Porth Dafarch to North Stack and back – similar to the route shown below from the ‘Welsh Sea Kayaking: Fifty Great Sea Kayak Voyages’ book. We enjoyed surf and rough water at Penrhyn Mawr, followed by some small surf at South Stack before lunch on the rocks in Gogarth Bay – the seal pupping season from August to November precluded us from using the beaches. After lunch we returned to Porth Dafarch by closely following the coastline and exploring lots of channels, arches, caves and rock gardens. The journey was both fun and a great work out. Thanks for a great day out Manu!

Geth Roberts, www.seakayakingwales.com

Penrhyn Mawr

South Stack

Wen Zawn and Cathedral Arch

A smaller Gogarth Bay arch

Below Elen’s Castle

Abraham’s Bosom

Sunshine & Surfing the Aries …

By Roger Chandler

On March 25, 2013

In Trip Reports

The surf rolled in, with a 10 second interval, gentle offshore breeze and all under a beautiful sunny day. Perfect. What further made this a perfect day was that it was the middle of February at Rhosneigr, Anglesey, North Wales. That day seems something of the distant past now, of another coast and land, as snow and Baltic type temperatures grip our coast. So lets return there just for a moment!

I’d briefly paddled the Aries before and was keen to spend longer paddling one and seeing what I could do in it. But I needed to get my hand’s on one. Olly Saunder’s was away and he had an Aries, um maybe….? With a quick text and a detour I had the loan of one, fantastic!

After 5 hours of surfing what clearly stands out for me with the Aries is that it is very forgiving. This then has a knock on effect of building confidence. Not once did I feel thrown by the kayak. Yes, I rolled a couple of times but this was more down to me, rather than the kayak, putting me in. I felt I could trust the Aries and this allowed me to take bigger waves or more committing moves. Being able to trust the Aires allowed me to experiment with moves. I could hold an edge and turn with very little effort. As I started to experiment more with body trim, pressure, dropping a shoulder and weight transfer to turn the Aries, the kayak responded dynamically. It was solid, yet responsive and was also a lot of fun.

The only problem I had, was at the end of the day I had to give it back!

Roger

roger chandler

www.coastalspirit.com

Photos taken by Barry Shaw and thanks to Olly for the loan of the Aries!