Great Orme - 9th September 2012

Paddle from West Beach Llandudno to Rhos on Sea, via Great Orme and Little Orme. Accompanied by 3 members of Macclesfield and District Canoe Club.

I drove Rachael to Llandudno, and we met Alan and Alan at West Beach. We unloaded the boats and performed the shuttle to leave my car at Rhos on Sea.

We left the beach just after low tide and paddled into a squally SW/W wind that was kicking up some reasonable sized waves on the shallow water as we started to round the Great Orme. After that excitement things calmed down a bit as we were more sheltered on the N side of the Orme and we were able to explore the rock features and small caves.

Little Orme

After a paddle through Llandudno pier we stopped for lunch and had a cup of tea at the Pool Cafe on the main Llandudno beach and then headed for the Little Orme. The spectacular cliffs had a colony of cormorants with many young birds looking slightly awkward, but the guillemots and razorbills had all gone.

Reversing in to a Little Orme cave

We left the shelter of Little Orme and again picked up the wind that seemed quite variable and this made the paddle round to Rhos On Sea a bit more of a slog with the occasional splash from the choppy waves.

Rachael paddles her Shoreline on its maiden voyage

We landed at the large slip in the middle of the beach but had to hurriedly clear a way for the inshore lifeboat to be launched for a shout. A jetski had been reported to be in trouble after running out of fuel, but the lifeboat didn't seem to find any one in difficulty and was soon back on the slip.

Just under 16km paddled.

The photos are stills from some gopro footage. The gopro cover is a bit scratched hence the blurry area around my head, but I was mainly trying out the new suction mount which seemed to work quite well. I'll try to remember to use a new unscratched case I have next time!