The trip was great fun, even though we didn't manage the full loop. We started from Beaumaris to get the tide through the Menai Straits - nice and calm to start with..
Obligatory 'before' shot..
Quick stop for a snack at the other end of the Straits..
Then I had to put the camera away because we had some serious distance to cover. 10 hours of paddling later, we got to our bivvy stop, on some cliffs just over halfway round - 38 nautical miles from the start (just over 40 miles)..
Zee boats..
Lots of rugged coastline, including some mad tidal races. At one point we hit a patch of huge standing waves, just breaking on themselves in the middle of the ocean... Scary Mary! One of the other lads had a waterproof camera, so hopefully he'll have some decent 'action' shots - my camera unfortunately spent most of it's time in a dry bag..
Waking on the second day, we realised the weather had turned against us a bit, and due to a slight error in our tidal calculations, we would be fighting the flow for the first few hours.. (nothing to do with staying up too late drinking whisky on top of a cliff and missing our planned early start...oh no). The other lads (joined by a mate from Anglesey for the day) decided to have a crack anyway, but I decided discretion was the better part of valour (I was feeling rather beat up from the first day's exertions, but these guys have paddled across to France for the weekend before, so they're made of sterner stuff).
I shuttled the van to the other side of the island and went out along the coast to do some kayak fishing, but the waves had picked up too much to get the kit out without losing everything (and probably going for a swim) so I called it a day - just in time to meet the rest of the group who had also decided to pull out after battling the flow for 15 miles or so.. So the circumnavigation is not yet done, but we managed about 3/4s of the island in total. We'll just have to go back for another bash..
All images hosted by Flickr.com
