Nofio Môn

Swim 28: Still no jellyfish… 🪼🫣
Route: Stanley Embankment at Y Fali to Porth Penrhyn-mawr
Conditions: Wind 7.6mph N. Glorious sunshine 🤯
Water: temperature 12.1 degrees, murky, slight swell and more seaweed jungles
Distance: approximately 5km
Swimmers: Chris Clark Debbie Jones Carole Richardson

We were all up at the crack of dawn to do this swim and all of us somewhat tired after going out the evening before (party animals that we are 😂). We decided we would not need a kayak support crew for this leg, because it was largely along a beach and easy to exit almost over the entire length. It is rare for us to decide not to have a crew, but also interesting that we have more bizarre conversations without an audience!
We set off just before 07:00hrs from the Stanley Embankment, trying our best to avoid the seaweed jungle. The rising sun was beautiful and warming and we could see for miles.
We swam past the estuary of Afon Alaw where Chris and Carole made an attempt at recreating their favourite selfie from many years ago. One where Carole is smiling nicely at the camera and Chris doing an impression of what a basking shark might look like on a pogo stick 🤪
We had a hard slog crossing the small bay just before the southern headland of Porth Penrhyn-mawr. There is a house on the shore, Bodardraeth, which Carole renamed the House of Horrors, because it was seemingly impossible to put behind us: it constantly reminded us just how little forward progress we were making. We’ve had several of these situations on the swim and Carole has become very aware now if we are somewhat stuck. She alerted Chris and Debs, who were ploughing on without realising. We all tried different lines towards the headland and eventually got to a point where the eddy current slackened and swimming became easier once more.
The headland was surrounded by another seaweed jungle. The seaweed type is bladder wrack and grows so densely you don’t really feel like you are swimming through it. It’s more like ploughing and the three of us invented a sort of hybrid stroke of frontcrawl and breaststroke to get through it. We can’t say it’s pleasant. Maybe better than the swarms of Lion’s Mane jellyfish we have previously encountered (and on that note, we haven’t come across any yet, though we know other swimmers are saying they have arrived early this year).
We got out in the bay of Porth Penrhyn-mawr. There was not a soul in sight, the residents of Penrhyn Farm Cottages clearly quite sane, enjoying a Sunday morning lie in! Unlike the three dishevelled, neoprene clad women who tramped up to the van they’d left at the entrance to the farm. We were rather surprised to find we’d swum 5km. Chris plans the swims and tries to estimate how long they are before we set off. She generally says it’s shorter than it is going to be, but this time she’d underestimated it by 1km. It was good to know we continue to be really quite good at distance swimming from a fitness perspective.
All that swimming made us ravenous. Hot chocolate, egg sandwiches, crisps and Fflapjacs Nofio Môn (recipe available on request!) were demolished in minutes. The farmer came out and asked us about what we were doing and said we could park the van on the farm site when we return, so we didn’t park in front of the entrance sign. He was also completely unfazed by our explanation of what we were doing, as if it were quite normal for three women to pop up every now and then, saying they were swimming all the way around Anglesey. He warned us about the currents we will encounter at Trwyn y Gader. That’s a little way ahead of us though.
We have agreed our next swim will be shorter. Debs’ old arm injury played up and Chris and Carole were rather tired for a few days after 💤🥱😴

Next swim: Porth Penrhyn-mawr to Porth Tywyn-mawr

Nofio Môn 28 Morglawdd Stanley - Porth Penrhyn-mawr

We did Swim 28 today. More seaweed. Bladder wrack is certainly not endangered! Photos and video to follow soon.

Swim 27: Seaweed soup!
Route: Traeth Penrhos to the Stanley Embankment at Y Fali
Conditions: Wind 11.6mph W. Occasional sunshine but mostly cloudy.
Water: temperature 11.9 degrees, fairly clear, slight swell with frequent seaweed jungles
Distance: approximately 3.8km
Swimmers: Chris Clark Debbie Jones Carole Louise Richardson

We were on a tight schedule for this swim so we wouldn’t miss the tide and to enable Debs to get back on time to take her fabulous granddaughter, Ruby (ace netballer), to Treborth Track for her sprint races. So in true Nofio Môn style, everything went somewhat awry 🙄😬 Our newly ‘conscripted’ kayak team, Phil and Tony, went to the wrong beach for the start and Debs managed to go to Treaddur Bay by missing a left turn! 🤷🏻‍♀️ 😂
No matter, we were only 10 minutes late getting in the water and off we went, swimming out of the bay at Penrhos Beach and along the coast, past Cerrig yr Adar, Cerrig Hanner-trai and the beautiful Penrhos Coastal Park. The seaweed jungle started at Cerrig yr Adar and it was a relentless slog getting through it to Traeth y Gribin, where the water was shallow enough for us to stand and finally free of seaweed. At least for a short while.
Phil gave us his observations of our swimming technique (I’m not sure he was overly impressed!) and, as we later discovered, a wonderful commentary of our progress 🥰 He pointed out the fact that the Penrhos Coastal Park will soon be a Centre Parcs. Certainly there are plans afoot to destroy this beautiful reserve that teams with wildlife and is much loved by locals, by turning it into a holiday park. A judicial review is about to start to decide its fate. And for the record, Team Nofio Môn are vehemently against the destruction of such a gem of place. We are not against tourism or furthering the local economy. There are just places that a park could be put that won’t destroy ancient woodland and an area of such important biodiversity. This author is prepared to lie in front of a bulldozer, if it comes to it!
It was tough swimming towards Y Fali, and we were greeted by more seaweed jungles before we got out. Debs rushed off to take her granddaughter to race and Carole and Chris enjoyed a Nofio Môn picnic with Phil and Tony in the Coastal Park car park. It was an interesting walk across the Stanley Embankment and seeing the water being sucked rapidly through the opening into the Inland Sea. The very reason why we crossed to the mainland of Anglesey at some distance.
Ynys Cybi, you were amazing! Some of the most challenging swims have been done there. The next swim should be a lot easier to do… 🤞🏼

Next swim: Stanley Embankment at Y Fali to Porth Penrhyn-mawr.

Nofio Môn 27

Well, second time lucky! We did Swim 27 today, with new kayak team. Thanks to Phil and Tony for their most excellent support today. It was an interesting swim and we are finally back on mainland Ynys Môn, having swum the whole way round Ynys Cybi. Photos and videos coming soon…

We got to the beach to do Swim 27 today and Chris made the decision to pull it, which was agreed and accepted by the whole team. The best visibility we got was that which you can see in the photo. It was largely a lot worse and often not possible to see the beach from 10m away. We knew it would eventually clear, but we had lost the tidal window for our swim. It’s a shame these things happen, but our quest is risky and there is no sense in adding to that risk. So we went all Hobbit and had our Nofio Môn sandwiches for second breakfast in the van. Fingers crossed we have another opportunity soon 🤞🏼

Swim 26: Yma o hyd! (Still here!)
Route: Old Harbour Holyhead to Traeth Penrhos
Conditions: Wind 9mph E. Overcast
Water temperature: 9.1 degrees, somewhat murky and rather choppy
Distance: approximately 2.5km
Swimmers: Chris Clark Debbie Jones Carole Louise Richardson

A few weeks ago Chris contacted the Port Authority at Holyhead to request permission for the team to cross the Old Harbour. A somewhat bemused John Goddard responded with “It’s not something we’d normally encourage but…”
So, after complying with a few safety requirements, we waited for a time that we were all free and for a weather window. It became apparent that would be yesterday, except we only had one kayaker. Fortunately the fabulous Bill Maisey responded to our call out and agreed to support three ‘crazy’ women on their quest to swim round Anglesey. Only no one is calling us crazy anymore. Now we are over half way round, people are beginning to realise we might actually achieve this! 🤯😂
We met at the start and Bill arrived, a knight in shining white kayak, having set off from the finish. He informed us the water was choppy. He wasn’t wrong! 🌊
We set off swimming through the harbour, waving at John in his warm office and swam out and followed the coast round to Traeth Penrhos. It was tough going in the choppy water and there wasn’t a great deal to see after we left the harbour, except for Ysbyty Penrhos Stanley and Ynys Peibiol.
Debs had put on at least 45 layers under her wetsuit. Probably more. We lost count! Carole and Chris did no such thing and Chris became quite cold at the end, struggling with the after-drop and had to sit in the van with heater on, missing out on the picnic chatter.
The graffiti on a wall by the beach at the finish, is so cool and we thought “Yma o hyd” summed us up perfectly.
We will be saying goodbye to Ynys Cybi on our next swim. It has been the most challenging section so far.
We are really excited to have Bill as part of the team. Unbelievably, we haven’t put him off!! 😂

Next swim: Traeth Penrhos to somewhere near the Stanley Embankment.

Nofio Môn 26 Hen Harbwr - Traeth Penrhos

Swim 26 is in the bag! We cannot thank the Port Authority (John Goddard, you are a star ⭐️) enough for supporting us with this. Also a huge welcome to Bill Maisey to the team, who stepped in to provide kayak support (and doughnuts 🍩- friend for life!!) Video and photos coming your way very soon!
Nofio Môn! 🏊🏻‍♀️🏊🏻‍♀️🏊🏻‍♀️

Carole Louise Richardson Chris Clark Debbie Jones 🥰

Hello lovely followers!
Could anyone provide kayak support on Tuesday at 10am for us to cross the Port of Holyhead and onwards to Penrhos Beach? (The yellow route on the map - approximately 2km). We have permission to cross the port and will be escorted, but we are a kayaker short. A full risk assessment has been undertaken and submitted to the Port Authority. We are optimistic there will be a weather window. Please DM us if you can help.

Swim 25: Expletives and the things you find in Brian’s underpants!
Route: Holyhead Breakwater to Holyhead Old Harbour
Conditions: Wind 8mph SE. Overcast
Water temperature: 10.5 degrees and somewhat murky.
Distance: approximately 1800m
Swimmers: Chris Clark Debbie Jones Carole Louise Richardson

The water temperature hasn’t dropped as much as it usually does at this time of year and the three of us have been swimming in the sea quite regularly. Various things have got in the way of us continuing on our adventure, but we worked out that we had some time to swim on New Year’s Day.
We entered the water from Holyhead Breakwater down some slippery steps. Debs had a strong opinion on the water temperature, as she submerged and felt compelled to inform us with a quite liberal use of ‘Anglo-Saxon’! 💩
Once we were in, we found the temperature rather acceptable and set off having agreed upon the landmarks we were to sight on. At one point, when we stopped to take some photos etc, we had a conversation about the swimming event patches we all have sewn on the back of our DryRobes. Well, Carole and Chris have sewn theirs on. Debs has a severe ‘allergy’ to sewing and used fabric glue. Which btw, doesn’t work and recently Debs discovered one had come off in the wash and had to be retrieved from her husband’s underpants 😂
There wasn’t much in the way of nature to see on today’s swim. A single cormorant eyed us with deep suspicion as we swam by. The harbour was largely devoid of boats and certainly there wasn’t anything moving that needed to be avoided.
We were pretty cold at the end of the swim 🥶 Because we stop to video and take photos, the swims take a lot longer than if we just swam. We were in for almost an hour. It was a real struggle to remove any wet clothing when we exited, because our hands and feet were numb. Chris couldn’t get her gloves off at all and Debs had to assist her in a sort of neoprene tug of war, which led to some fairly incredulous looks from a couple of bystanders 🙄 The ineptitude we all displayed removing our wet kit led to us howling with laughter and Debs declaring, “The things we do to ourselves, girls!!”
Eventually, we were in the van in dry kit. Debs had at least three hot water bottles strapped to her making her look like she was with child; perhaps several🤰🏼😂 We exchanged Christmas gifts and drank hot chocolate. The swim was declared a success and we are hoping for the opportunity to swim again this week.

Next swim: Old Harbour Holyhead to somewhere 2km away

Nofio Môn 25 Morglawdd Caergybi - Hen Harbwr

Swim 25: Happy New Year!
Well, the water just hasn’t cooled as much as it usually does at this time of year, so we thought we’d do a swim. It’s a bit shorter than most of our others, but we’ll keep going as long as we can. More photos and videos at some point soon. Blwyddyn Newydd Dda! 🏊🏻‍♀️🏊🏻‍♀️🏊🏻‍♀️🌊🎉🥳🎊

Swim 24 Plan A! More swooshing, unceremonious retrievals x 2 and utter bliss 🥰🥰🥰
Route: Porth Ruffydd to Chris’ Crack then Soldier’s Point to Chris’ Crack
Conditions: Wind 3-5mph SE. Glorious sunshine and smooth water (mostly and as smooth as it gets round here)
Water temperature: 16.5 degrees and fairly clear.
Distance: 10.6km of actual swimming
Swimmers: Chris Clark Debbie Jones Carole Louise Richardson

Long post ahead!! 😆

This swim was the hardest to organise by far. The ‘it can’t be done’ naysayers in abundance. We know it is probably the most dangerous part of Anglesey to swim and it needed planning properly: an expert guide and a more extensive safety crew were essential.
After some utterly shameless begging in all directions, the wonderful Richard Hughes agreed to be our guide. What he doesn’t know about Anglesey waters, isn’t worth knowing and his calm approach to three determined (and perhaps a little bonkers) women on a mission, was perfect. Rich, along with our usual kayakers, Chris and Leon, and with Alex and Hugh Godfrey on the RIB, were the perfect safety crew. They stepped up when suddenly a superb weather window opened. 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩
Swimmer Chris phoned through the plan to a somewhat bemused Coastguard at the Holyhead station the day before. After an initial, “You are going to do what?!!!! 🤯,” he was quite happy with the plan and understood that we knew our stuff. We kept them informed throughout and didn’t need them. Phew!
We set out at daybreak (06:30hrs) to walk to Porth Ruffydd. The spring tide was going to be HUGE and we got in just as it started running on the flood. Our RIB support crew sailed out of Holyhead and met us as we swam out of the cove and turned right to swim through the main channel at Ynys y Ffrydiau, with The Fangs rocks just to our left. This area is a kayaker’s playground in the right conditions for practicing complex techniques. It is described as “treacherous” in kayaking circles in the wrong conditions. There isn’t a great deal (anything at all!!) said about swimming through there, but we were informed that kayakers swim through there not infrequently and quite unintentionally 🤦🏻‍♀️. So with that reassurance (😳😬), we were game! And it was so much fun! The sun had started to rise, the waning gibbous moon was still high and three shrieking women were catapulted through boiling, choppy water at quite some speed.
We then headed out to sea to pick up the tidal race and swam at a fair pace past Penrhyn Mawr, Porth y Gwin, Porth y Gwyddel, Abraham’s Bosom and on to South Stack. We were a kilometre off shore and just couldn’t believe how amazing swimming here is. This is what our heaven is like, there is not anything to surpass the euphoria of doing this 🥰😁😎🌊🏊🏻‍♀️🏊🏻‍♀️🏊🏻‍♀️.
We were at South Stack in no time. The race was running at around 3.5knots at this point. Swimming round South Stack looking up at the light house was very special. We’ve been to it on land and seen it from boats, but being in the sea was another level of fabulousness altogether! 🥰
On to North Stack we went, initially travelling over some colossal waves 🌊🌊🌊. Again, great fun! We got there so quickly and swam to shore to explore the caves there. They are huge, with a cathedral-like quality to them. We were greeted by two very curious seals 🦭🦭, one of which was enormous. He came so close to observe us, you could have patted him on the head. We didn’t, of course, but we certainly were given a thorough inspection! 🔎
We decided to swim between the stack and the mainland. The flow was against us and stronger on the mainland side. Chris and Carole somehow got through, Debs, rather sensibly, swam round. We met up and continued. We knew there would be a back eddy at this point and the going was tough. There was about a mile still to swim. As the flow was still getting stronger, it became impossible to move forward. Chris got to a point where she realised she was swimming as hard as she could and was making so little headway, that it wasn’t going to work. She had been staring at a large narrow inlet in the cliff face for at least 15 minutes of swimming. It was therefore named Chris’ Crack! 🙈😂(Apologies!!). Debs was just behind Chris and Carole had tried experimenting by moving closer and further from shore to see if there was any let up. There wasn’t and she was pinged backwards towards North Stack. Richard advised us to get out and we were each hauled into the RIB in a most undignified manner. Limbs everywhere! The team sailed and paddled to Soldier’s Point and the plan for each of us to swim back to where we got out was hatched. Two flapjacks each later and off to Chris’s Crack and a bit beyond we went. More unceremonious retrievals of swimmers onto the RIB then occurred and back to Soldier’s Point we sailed. There was a little disappointment 😔 that it hadn’t quite been how we had planned it (we reckon it is possible, but not in the middle third of the tidal flow on a massive spring tide), but we’re good at Plan Bs and are thouroughly ecstatic about what we have achieved. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, we reckon.
The usual picnic on the beach followed (the RIB was taken to Holyhead first), this time Carole finding someone she knew on the beach to chat to. The men were entertained by a naked lady swimming widths of the bay. This led to a debate about the whole skinny dipping thing. Let’s just say we agreed to disagree!! 😂😂😂
In summary, this was a most glorious swim: a real high point in our adventure, only made possible by some amazing people.
We want to thank:-
Richard Hughes for believing we had ‘the balls to do it’ and for him to have the balls to take us on!
Alex Rogers for just being so brilliant at taking all boat stress away from us and expertly supporting us as Skipper of RIB-Ribbit.
Hugh Godfrey, who describes himself as ‘Incompetent Crew’, but really isn’t and was the perfect side-kick for Alex.
Chris and Leon Guest, our regular kayak team for just being bloody fabulous and always reliable.
Craig, Bob, Lucy and Alec, it’s a shame you couldn’t be with us, but the ‘dry run’ when we initially tried to do this swim, gave us a lot of preparation information. We hope you’ll join us at some point in our future adventures.

Next swim: hmmmmm a few possibilities, watch this space! Discussion with Holyhead Port Authority is in progress.

Nofio Môn 24 Porth Ruffydd - Soldiers Point

We did it!! Swim 24 Porth Ruffydd to Soldiers Point including Fangs, Penrhyn Mawr, South Stack, North Stack, Crac Chris…… Parts A+B (all will be revealed in the video footage tomorrow). Thank you to our amazing support crew 🤩. No way could we have done this without you. Thanks also to Malcolm at Trearddur Bay Marine Services for storing our boat and Holyhead Sailing Club for allowing it to launch and land from there, all free of charge. We have had an amazing morning and our journey continues 🥰. Photos and video footage will be posted tomorrow.
Nofio Môn!! 😆

Try again… Starting at 06:30hrs tomorrow. ETA at Soldiers Point maybe 09:30-10:00hrs! 🤞🏼🙏🏼🏊🏻‍♀️🏊🏻‍♀️🏊🏻‍♀️

Swim 23 Plan B, Part 2: Swooshing, squelching and demolishing Oreos

Route: Four Mile Bridge to the Stanley Embankment
Conditions: Wind 13mph W. Largely overcast and smooth water.
Water temperature: 18 degrees and full on murk.
Distance: 2.5km
Swimmers: Chris Clark Debbie Jones Carole Louise Richardson

Whilst waiting for a weather window for our Plan A swim, we left the kayakers at home and continued with Plan B, getting in at Four Mile Bridge. The tide was racing in to the Inland Sea through the hole under the bridge and you could see it was almost a metre higher on the Cymyran Strait side than in the swim start area 🌊. This caused a huge current in the water. An unknown team were carrying out some kind of rescue practice at the bridge and they were a little surprised to see three wetsuit clad women 🏊🏻‍♀️🏊🏻‍♀️🏊🏻‍♀️ 🌊🌊🌊 hurl themselves into the flow to be swooshed out into the Inland Sea. It was great fun (but maybe not for people who would find being dragged under the water for a few seconds difficult, as well it being potentially dangerous ⚠️. Like all our swims, we do not encourage you to do anything that we do without expert input and appropriate safety support). Carole got the furthest on the swoosh. Chris and Debs were spat out sooner. The eddies it made were interesting. One minute you were going one way and before you knew it you were facing the other!
It was a peaceful swim. The water relatively shallow with silt underfoot, which felt quite grim 🤢. There wasn’t much to see underwater, as the silt made everything murky.
We got out at the Stanley Embankment and took the Coastal Path under the roads to the van. We rewarded ourselves with hot chocolate and performed a vanishing act on a packet of Oreos (other biscuits are available… On second thoughts, maybe not, because they’d vanish too! 🍪😋😂)

Next swim: Fingers crossed it’s Plan A: Porth Ruffydd to Soldiers Point on a very big spring tide this Saturday or Sunday 🙏🏼🤞🏼

Nofio Môn 23 Pont-rhydbont i Arglawdd Stanley / Four mile bridge to the Stanley Embankment

***UPDATE***
The amazing Richard Hughes is gonna help 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩
WE ARE GO - weather permitting!🙄😂

Hello everyone (again 🙄), as you know our Friday swim round Penrhyn Mawr and the Stacks was pulled last minute. Again we have a weather window this Saturday (maybe Sunday) and unfortunately Knight in Shining Kayak, Craig is not available to help. Can anyone else help? One (or more) experienced kayakers who know this area. We have a swim plan. We know that it is a very big spring tide, but intend being out before it really races (we have no intention of being taken out to sea into a shipping lane). Now desperately begging! 🙏🏼🤞🏼
Photos are of our support RIB and crew, of us in the Cymyran Strait and our intended route.

Swim 22 Plan B: Well we couldn’t let our kayakers drown, could we?!

Route: Cymyran Bay to Four Mile Bridge
Conditions: Wind 13mph W. Largely overcast and smooth water.
Water temperature: 16.5 degrees and reasonably clear.
Distance: 4.5k
Swimmers: Chris Clark Debbie Jones Carole Louise Richardson

We were obviously disappointed to postpone Plan A. It was an awful lot of hard work to organise, finding a willing and available expert kayaker had not been easy. But the disappointment was short-lasting. Chris had a half plan for us to swim the Cymyran Strait in her head and, with the aid of a few online resources, it became apparent that the tide would favour us if we waited an hour or so. We drank tea and ate Fflapjacs Nofio Môn (secret recipe! 🤐) to kill time ☕️🥮.
Whilst this was going on, Chris Kayaker and Alec (who has kayaked for us once before, though not with Chris) had a little chat. They didn’t know each other, though they live a mile apart on Ynys Môn. Turns out they went to the same primary school in Burnley 🤯. One of them was two years ahead of the other in school; we didn’t ask who! 🤭
Eventually we got to swim/indulge in behaviours not normally expected of ‘women of a certain age’. The water was warm and fairly shallow in places. The incoming tide pushed us nicely along and we meandered around sandbanks. In some areas it was really too shallow to swim. In other areas, we gave an entirely new meaning to ‘front crawl’ by actually just crawling on the seabed!
As we approached Four Mile Bridge, the current slowed and crabs (largely small ones) were present in plague proportions! They scattered all ways as we swam 🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀
The outlet of the Inland Sea was draining into the Cymyran Strait and the kayakers 🛶🛶 struggled to get through the flow, but they did. They didn’t think the swimmers would manage. As you can probably imagine, that particular gauntlet was picked up and we all got through (hard work!) 🏊🏻‍♀️🏊🏻‍♀️🏊🏻‍♀️💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼 and then floated back through to enjoy a sumptuous feast on the beach. We really do know how to picnic! 🥪🥮🧁🍰🍌☕️🧃

We just want to thank:-
Craig, for volunteering to help and provide expertise and knowledge of the water in this area. It was gratifying that he thought the plan we had made for the Plan A swim was sound, but we still wouldn’t do it without expert on-water support. We really hope we can do this swim with Craig (and the other one he suggested 😁).
Alex for being the second ‘knight’ in the postponed Plan A swim, for taking ‘all things RIB’ off us to worry about and just sorting it so expertly.
Taidybob for coming to skipper the RIB.
Lucy for being the most capable First Mate and helping Alex with getting the RIB prepared and then unprepared and staying on to be land crew for Plan B.
Emyr and Caleb Môn for delivering the mountain of sandwiches that Carole Louise Richardson forgot at home in the fridge 🤪🥪
And of course our kayakers, Chris and Alec. We have small pool of regular kayakers to help us now and there is no way we could have got this far without them. We are grateful to the ever growing team of wonderful people who care about this project enough to give up their free time for this. Thank you so much 🥰🙏🏼

Next swim: Four Mile Bridge to the Stanley Embankment or the Plan A swim that didn’t happen, which definitely is going to at some point…

Nofio Môn 22 Cymyran - Pont-rhydbont

So, as you have probably already gathered, Swim 22 Plan A was pulled at T-19 seconds. The onshore breeze was going to be a tad too feisty for our sit-on-top kayaks to deal with. Knight in Shining Kayak, Craig called it and we immediately agreed. It was felt that the swimmers would have been ok, but we can’t swim without our team and we use sit-on-tops for support, because we can get on them if needed. There will be another opportunity. We stood down Skipper Taidybob, land crew Alex and expert kayaker Craig…

And then two amazing things happened…
1. Craig came up with a phenomenal suggestion for a swim. We are 🤐 about this for now, but we’d really like it to happen 🙏🏼🤞🏼😁. Craig, you’ve created a Nofio Môn itch, that’s gonna need scratching! 😂
2. We did the Plan B swim, the Cymyran Strait from Cymyran Bay to Four Mile Bridge in some fast flowing water and it was truly fab 🥰🥰🥰
Photos and video as soon as Carole ‘Scorcese’ Richardson can get it sorted!

***UPDATE***
Swim has been pulled last minute.
Details later…
☹️

So far, so good for tomorrow!
Fantastic team of absolute heroes/heroines assembled ✅
Wind ✅
Swell✅
Visibility ✅
No 💩 in the water (big freakin phew!) ✅
Boat transported to Treaddur Bay ✅
Boat booked for launch out of Treaddur Bay at 09:30hrs ✅
Kit required for all eventualities 🤞🏼 ✅
Deflated boat sponson sorted ✅
Boat keys found after being mislaid for a little while ✅
Chris not having an exploding head whilst keys were missing 🧘🏻‍♀️✅
Coastguard being pretty chilled about it all 😎 ✅
Boat landing at Holyhead Sailing Club sorted ✅

We are setting off from Porth Ruffydd at 10:00hrs if anyone is passing, do say hello. Swim route was posted yesterday. Not sure what time we will arrive at Soldiers Point, maybe 13:00hrs??? So fingers crossed no glitches 🤞🏼
Nofio Môn! 💙🏊🏻‍♀️🏊🏻‍♀️🏊🏻‍♀️

🥁🥁🥁
Well, we have found a Knight in Shining Kayak! The rest of the team has come together and a comprehensive Swim Plan has been made (which includes a large amount of cake - obvs!) Pray that the weather window remains good, because on Friday it is going to happen! All will be revealed very soon. Thursday is going to be bonkers organising all this entails! 🤞🏼🍀

Hi everyone! We still haven’t had anyone able to help with kayak support for our next swim. We have a plan B to swim up the Cymyran Strait now this weekend, so we can at least continue on our adventure. But the Porth Ruffydd to Soldier’s Point swim is not being abandoned. If any suitably experienced kayakers would like to help with this to plan it (we do have decent plan, but happy to modify if required) and for us to go at your convenience (in an appropriate weather window), then please get in touch 🙏🏼🤞🏼We really do take our safety very seriously, even though some people think we are crazy. We accept risk, but we minimise it as much as is practicable. We are more than happy to pay the going rate.
Below are a few of the many photos of our adventures. Difficult to pick favourites, but we certainly need more on our quest to get the whole way round.
Nofio Môn! 🥰🏊🏻‍♀️🏊🏻‍♀️🏊🏻‍♀️🌊

Hello everyone. We are half way round now, but are about to embark on probably the most difficult part of our adventure and are looking for 1-2 (or more) experienced sea kayakers to help. We are happy to pay for the service. We want to pick up a tidal stream to get from Porth Ruffydd to Soldier’s Point (11km approximately). We already have our two regular kayakers and a RIB as safety crew, but wish to have a kayaker per person. We are hoping for a weather window between 25-27 August (looking promising). We would only contemplate this swim in smooth water and have a swim plan in place. Safety is paramount. We are keen to do this swim with kayakers experienced in navigating these waters. If anyone is interested, please could you message us.
The photo is of Chris and Bob testing the sea worthiness of the RIB this week. It’s fine!
If you can’t help, please share this post. We just can’t do this particular stretch without an extra kayaker or two.
🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼
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