Club Scene

Manchester Canoe Club is the nearest canoe club to where I live. It is primarily a river based club with great premises set beside the river Goyt near Marple.

More recently, interest in sea kayaking in has been building up nicely over the last couple of years. We have had a few meets on Anglesey with white water paddlers renting kayaks from Summit to Sea. A handful of members now have their own sea kayaks and are rapidly gaining experience.

A couple of weeks ago we met at the Anglesey Outdoors Centre for a packed weekend of activity. We met at the Paddlers Return Bar on the Friday evening and made plans for the next day. The weather forecast was very light winds and almost no swell.

Photo: Andy Sloan

On Saturday morning those of us who needed to collect kayaks from Summit to Sea did so. We then headed to Porth Dafarch to embark upon a trip around South Stack and into Gogarth Bay. We reached Parliament House Cave in time for lunch. Unfortunately, there was a dead seal stinking the place out so appetites were not great. We soon got back onto the water and followed the early ebb stream back to Penrhyn Mawr and Porth Dafarch.

Photo: Andy Hamilton

To keep things busy and informative we booked a visit to Holyhead Coastguard. We were shown around the operations room and their latest equipment and software for coordinating search and rescue operations.

Photo: Ann Crook

Within an hour of saying 'thanks and goodbye' to the Coastguards, we we preparing for a short night paddle. We split into two separate groups and paddled about a couple of kilometres but it was enough to see the bioluminescence sparkling in the pitch black waters.

After such a busy Saturday, we spent Sunday rockhopping along the mild west coast of Anglesey between Sandy Beach and Church Bay.