Holyhead to Cymyran Bay and back

Mark Rosenthal

I arrived at 09:00, as Matt drove into the car park, to get the first launch out to Flair but a small holdup as the launch driver could not get the launch to start. Not a long delay before we were taken out to Flair and started to work on the new backstay rope installation. As the rest of the crew, Tess, Richie and Harry arrived we moved onto general preparation for sailing and Matt got into his climbing harness for the mast climb to install the windex and to reattach the steaming/deck light. We were a little behind our nd intended departure but with the increasing wind we were expecting the thick mist to disperse; however it didn’t clear and navigating to the lighthouse at the end of the breakwater was done using GPS! With Fog Horns blaring from various sources we called Holyhead Port Control for permission to leave the new Harbour Area, the return message warned us of one of the Ferries about to arrive at North Stack so we planned to stay close to the breakwater as we headed out Westward. Winds were northerly F3, we were unable to verify the speed as there was no data being received by the wireless wind display; yet another job to get to grips with… Sea state round the Stacks was good as we had wind wind with tide. Knowing that the winds were from the north and our passage once round North and South Stack would be Southerly and then Southeasterly we had prepared the spinnaker ready to deploy. Since the mist was still dense we had very little sight onto the shore even though our course was close but we saw plenty of trains of guillemots flying around us. We also caught sight of a dolphin once past Abraham’s Bosom. A couple of large ribs were running along the shoreline as we stayed out across Trearddur Bay for a direct line to avoid Maen Piscar and to safely round the Beacon Rocks, or Ynysoedd Gwylanod (Islands of the Seagulls), We had been hoping to meet up with some other boats from Holyhead but only one, Live Wire had set off this morning and they had stopped, we later found out, in Trearddur Bay. so there were no boats in Rhoscolyn bay. We attempted to anchor but the kelp was so thick that we could not get a good bite with the anchor; after several attempts we decided to go further round into the next bay, Cymyran Bay (Bae Cymyran) where we could see another small yacht anchored up. As the tide was at low water at this point I was happy to go into quite shallow water to get protection from the Northerly wind. We anchored up for Lunch enjoying breaks in the mist allowing some pleasant sunshine and warmth. We could see down to Rhosneigr from here and it had been sunny all day there! Once the tide had turned and we had enjoyed a relaxing lunch we left the bay and sailed back with wind over tide and increasing mist, by now not just mist but fog! Our return trip was quick with the wind increasing to F4, white caps appearing, and our VMG to the waypoint at South Stack around 8kt. With the tide pushing us north we tacked a couple of times to avoid being carried too far north of North Stack and one of our tacks took us very close the South Stack even though we could not see it but the Fog Horn was very loud! The winds were fickle as we stayed close to North Stack once we had turned east so our progress was mostly just in line with the tide for a short distance. Fairly soon we were sufficiently far from Holyhead Mountain to get better wind at sea level and although we could not see the breakwater we pressed on towards the lighthouse and once cleared with Port Control we rounded the end of the breakwater and sailed up to the mooring. A very interesting day but not much in the way of photographic opportunities!