Round Anglesey Cruise
The club’s round Anglesey cruise took place over the May bank holiday weekend this year, and thirteen club boats joined in. About half the fleet headed off to Menai Bridge on Friday and spent the night there, while the other half left Conwy on Saturday morning, navigated the Swatch and went straight through the Swellies on the flood tide.
On the way across, boats on both days were accompanied by a large pod of dolphins which have taken up residence in the bay – take a look at the videos below, taken from Free Will and Pisces, to see a spectacular show, including fully airborne dolphins!
The fleet gathered in Caernarfon on Saturday afternoon, with Victoria Dock quite full and boats rafted out three deep in several places. It was great to see a lot of new members joining us for the cruise.
The weekend coincided with some very interesting weather patterns, which meant the weather forecasts were still changing 24 hours ahead and it made it difficult to predict what would happen on Monday. Some skippers made the decision to return to Conwy via the Strait, while others completed the full circumnavigation. As it turned out, the weather on the final day was excellent, with the NW f3-4 making the North coast just sailable with only one tack required. The final leg back to Conwy from Point Lynas was a cracking sail.
Thank you to everyone who took part, making it such a great event and impressive turnout.
The next event is the Spring Pursuit Race (Bill Knight Trophy) on the 13th May – we hope to see you all out again!
And finally, a couple of time-lapse videos taken from Mahalo on the second day from Caernarfon to Holyhead. The first was leaving Caernarfon and the second rounding South Stack and entering Holyhead:
Great article Austin and I love the picture of Free Will that Geoff took. It is so clear for such a distance I’m glad we had tidied up. The picture of the Tern is amazing, to have all the water drops in focus it must have been a fairly fast shutter speed and the focus is really tight. A great weekend socially and I’m looking forward to the next event this weekend, so far the weather is looking very suitable for a good sail. I hope Geoff can join us again with his big lens.
Yes Geoff’s pictures are very impressive, I think he definitely deserves the position of official club photographer, even if he doesn’t know it yet! Many thanks for organising an excellent weekend, looking forward to more trips this year.