Yee-haa! Riding the Rhoscolyn rodeo
- Distance: 12.2 km
F5 SW wind today, so we headed for the shelter of Rhoscolyn Bay and were lucky enough to find the tide race running too.
We started the morning practising paddling on one side, useful for manoeuvring close to a cliff or rock. The exercise involved linking a C-stroke, J-stroke and hanging draw into one big semi-circle. That’s when I realised quite how bad I am at hanging draws! The trick was to keep your speed up. Get it right and you can really lean on the blade and it feels great. Get it wrong and you’re getting wet 😂
I did a rescue in a little tide race. While I was emptying Mark’s boat, with him swimming alongside with his legs down, the tide pulled us away from the rocks. Once he was back in his boat and we rafted up to help him get his deck on, the wind had more influence than the tide and pushed us back towards the rocks. Same place, completely different forces depending on what we were doing.
After lunch Craig took us out to the Rhoscolyn tide race. It looked big. Scary big. I couldn’t quite believe we were going in. Craig checked in on our comfort levels, then, with a “yee ha!” and plenty of whooping, we broke into the middle of the race and paddled down through it, bouncing over the waves.
At one point I was almost fully vertical. Craig said he could see my skeg box through the wave! Then I got a full “sailors wash”, the impact of paddling straight through a giant wave, feeling the pressure hit me like a smack in the face. Those waves were powerful.
We did the loop three times because we were having so much fun.
Wide-eyed and mentally tired after the exhilarating ride, we paddled into the cliffs to practise defensive swimming. I ended up against the cliffs, being lifted and dropped about 2m by the swell, with my feet ready to kick off the wall.
Finally, we found a breaking wave over a reef to play on. Sarah, Mark and Craig put on a fantastic display of surfs, bongo slides paddle spins and rolls in the breaking waves. I was perfectly happy sitting in the swell alongside them, taking photos and watching them dance.
With Sarah, Mark & Paul. Led by Craig Leslie (SKUK).
