Rhoscolyn Bay.

This is one of my favourite bays on Anglesey. Once you’ve negotiated the long and winding road that leads to the small car park, you follow the wooden footpath over the dunes that takes you onto the sandy beach known as Borthwen. The previous day I had posted a message on the forum inviting anyone from the club for a morning paddle, so I was a little surprised when about twenty-five kayakers turned up at the car park all at once. However, it wasn’t because of my forum invite but was a completely separate group of paddlers undertaking a one-way trip to Porth Dafarch, a journey of about 5 to 6 hours. I politely declined the offer to join them.
But what a beautiful day it turned out to be. Myself and Philip spent a while in the Bay working on our forward paddle stroke and then ventured out through some choppy waters at the entrance to the Bay and onto the open sea. We popped into the little cove next door and both decided it would be nice to own one of the houses that overlooked this tiny cove, and then headed off in the direction of Silver Bay. Sea conditions were quite bumpy with plenty of confused water bouncing us around, especially at the entrance to Rhoscolyn Bay. Once we got alongside the main coastline it eased up a little and we could relax and enjoy the paddle doing some rock hopping along the way. Because we only had a few hours to spare that day we pulled into a lovely little cove just short of Silver Bay and I showed off my very clever Kelly kettle which, with nothing more then a few twigs gathered from the beach, can boil a couple of litres of water within minutes. (If you what to know how it works you’ll have to join me on one of my paddles…)
We were joined by a flock of sheep who wandered onto the beach and started to graze on seaweed. now that's a first for me, and they were quite oblivious to anything going on around them. Very strange.
A nicely brewed cup of tea and April sunshine made it a perfect stopover before packing up and heading back to Borthwen beach, rock hopping and exploring along the way.
You know when you’ve had a great paddle because you just don’t want to get off the water. And that’s exactly how we both felt. Still, there’s always the next time.
Paul Mattock