Having enjoyed a peaceful night I awoke in the morning to find not a breath of wind. Such are the vagaries and vicissitudes of sailing …
So after a leisurely breakfast I walked over to explore the church, and it was well worth while. It is a delightful old church, I suspect medieval, and at High Water springs it is entirely surrounded by water. It stands on an artificial mound on what would probably be an island anyway, which keeps it well above wave height, and the vast quantity of very sizeable boulders piled up against the seaward wall as a sea defence bear eloquent testimony to what this coast can be like in a westerly storm. The church is kept in very good condition, and during the summer it is still used for a few services per year.
I then returned for coffee and to connect up the laptop and the mobile phone to obtain some weather forecasts. The latter proved to be of only limited success because of very marginal signal there for the phone, but I did manage to establish that the BBC Coastal Waters forecast indicated winds easterly becoming southerly, force 0-3 becoming 0-2. Where we were it remained very firmly the force 0 option.
With the possibility in mind that I might wish to revert to Traeth Bychan if the absence of wind continued much longer, on the basis that if we are having very light easterlies then at least one would not there be in the lee of the land, I put the boat onto her launching trolley before the tide dropped any further. Then went for a longer walk, largely in order to assuage my curiosity as to what the establishment on the far headland might be. That is when I discovered that it is The Anglesey Circuit, for motor racing (and also used for the Kick-Start motorcycle training scheme, according to the noticeboard at the entrance gate).
This was also an opportunity to observe the lower portion of the beach, from the point of view of launching at that state of the tide, and to photograph it for the record. Below the strip of firm smooth sand there is another strip of increasingly lumpy sand well dotted with sizeable rocks, and then below that the remainder of the beach is largely rock but with just two apparent channels out through the rocks. In fact the right-hand (more northerly) channel – which is also the broader of the two – is misleading, since it is encumbered by rocks part way along, but the other one is clear, although hauling the boat down to it over the lumpy part of the beach was clearly going to be hard work.
When I returned, at a sensible time for lunch, it proved impossible to obtain an updated forecast, because there was no signal, so I then had lunch, with the intention of trying again for a forecast and then taking a decision (with or without a forecast) straight after lunch. But lo and behold, just as decision time arrived so did the beginnings of the afternoon wind - so I decided to remain based where I was, and went for a sail.
As anticipated, it was a bit of a tussle hauling the boat down the lumpy part of the beach, but for the last part I was assisted by a couple of holidaymakers who had taken a cottage above Porth China. They are not sailing people, but offered their help very willingly, and drew my attention to the fact that the beach at Porth China is smooth sand all the way down to Low Water.
Once again, and particularly with due deference to the very light winds, I chose to head uptide (again southward) so that I could be sure of a favourable tide for getting home again even if the wind should drop. In the event the wind increased progressively, so I had a good run and some broad reaches almost to Llanddwyn Island, with its lighthouse, about 5 miles, and then being very conscious of the time I turned back. If I had not had perforce to spend the morning ashore because of the absence of wind I could have been there for lunchtime, and could then have landed on Llanddwyn for a picnic lunch and/or taken the afternoon tide up to Malltraeth village, but there was not time for either on this occasion.
Despite the forecast of the wind becoming southerly, when it did arrive and settle in it was in fact from the northerly quadrant, roughly 340o M. Given this I decided that the slightly greater shelter from the north which was offered by Porth China, nestling under a substantial headland, was a good reason for spending the night there rather than in Porth Cwyfan. This also had the merit of being a different anchorage, which was an attraction for its own sake, and of allowing me the opportunity to check out the bottom at Low Water. And once again I was struck by the remarkable clarity of the water.
Porth China does indeed have a long flat sandy bottom extending to (about) Low Water - I have not checked on the absolute extremity - and at the seaward end of the bay it is protected by a drying rock spur which almost closes off the bay, there being just a narrow channel between this spur and the reef on which St Cwyfan’s Church stands.
Although the wind had been slightly west of north when off the coast, within the bay and close to the beach it was still offshore, i.e. easterly. So I was able to come in on a beat, furl the genoa and then drop the main a few yards from the beach, and then coast to a stop in just a few inches of water and just step over the side. Judged to perfection. Then I was able to simply embed the anchor at the water’s edge and let her drop back to full scope of the warp.
By now the routine was well established; next job is to rig the sleeping arrangements, then the tent, and then retire to the car to cook dinner.
However as she dried out during the course of Thursday night I was just a little concerned that she seemed to take a slight buffeting from swell, which indicated to me that either we had a change in wind direction or there was an increase in swell out at sea and some of it was getting into the bay. I became a little concerned for the situation when the following tide started to lift her; if by then we had surf, and she was stern onto it, this could be nasty. So I got up again, and put out a second anchor to seaward, hove this taut, uncleated the original (shoreward) anchor line from the boat, and tied the ends of the two anchor lines together.
Thus although the boat was still lying head to shore, she was moored by the seaward anchor, and if we were to get any swell or surf in the morning she could quickly be brought round to face it by hauling in on the seaward anchor warp. However she was also still attached to the shoreward anchor, although the latter’s warp was slack. Thus, once fully afloat I would be able to haul her ashore if the weather were fit, or haul her to either anchor and recover it and then haul her to the other one.
Come the morning there was in fact no pounding as she lifted; the swell and/or surf had not arrived, and we still had an offshore wind - but in the latter case, not for long. I recovered the seaward anchor and then went ashore, and ferried the sleeping bag and airbed back to the car, leaving the boat again lying back from the beach and in deep water. Then I returned to photograph her in her overnight anchorage before striking the tent, only to find that in that short space of time we had experienced a 120o wind shift, plus a significant increase in wind strength, and she was now at the water’s edge and in danger of drying out there.
So it was now time to get her well away from the beach, and with some urgency. An entirely separate dimension to the situation was that for other reasons I was unexpectedly having to return home that day rather than the following day, the latter having been the original plan. So the appropriate action in all the circumstances was a hurried departure back to Porth Cwyfan, there to haul her out on her launching trolley.
The main anchor was recovered, and I then waded to maximum wading depth on the windward side of the bay and threw the anchor as far as I could in the direction of deeper water. That enabled me to haul in some warp and so keep her off the beach while I very hurriedly struck the tent, stowed the tent roughly in the fore part of the boat, stowed the sleeping platform properly, and got sail on her. Then I could haul in the anchor and sail her out of the bay.
As soon as I was clear of the immediate bay I had the benefit of the full force of the wind, and it was immediately clear that it had risen a little since the previous evening. In the open water it was also now in the south, as per the earlier forecast, and there were moderate swells, I would guess around 2 ft in height. It was the sort of conditions where the boat was just a little over canvassed for singlehanding, although not seriously so; on such a short sail I was able to enjoy the conditions, but on a longer passage I would have been thinking about reefing. I had a good beat out past the church island and into deeper water, and then across the end of the promontory, not reefed but spilling quite a lot out of the main, before bearing away and planing into Porth Cwyfan.
Once ashore there I recovered the boat onto her launching trolley, and then set about a belated breakfast before starting to derig.
Prior to the previous evening I had intended to sail in the opposite direction on the Friday, towards Rhosneigr, returning home on the Saturday. However I discovered on the Thursday evening that the car battery was flat; the cause is an intermittent fault - I suspect with the ECU - in the air suspension, which very occasionally allows the offside rear spring to deflate whilst parked, and then proceeds to alternately run the compressor and then deflate the spring again for some considerable time, thus draining the battery. So I unexpectedly found myself in the position of needing outside help to start the car.
This also coincided with my needing to replenish water and provisions if I were to stay a further day. So in all the circumstances I decided that the primary need for that day was to get help to start the car, and that once it was running I should then return home immediately rather than risk a repetition of the same problem the following day.
However there was no desperate rush, and I decided to delay seeking help until I was absolutely ready to move; this was so that I would not have to stop the engine again until I had driven a sufficient distance to feel confident that I had adequately replenished the charge in the battery. So I derigged at leisure during the morning, and also explored further ashore, before having lunch and then going in search of help.
Finally I was ready to go, managed to source the necessary help - albeit with a 4-hour wait (two hours was promised, but in the event it took longer) - had another walk, and then once help arrived I was able to start off home. Stopped for a good dinner at the Tyn-y-Coed in Capel Curig, thus ending an excellent short break.
