Fighting The Tide On The Menai Strait

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The Menai Strait separates the island of Anglesey or Ynys Môn, from mainland Wales. It is a tidal stretch of water which has some interesting characteristics, driven by the dynamic of how it starts emptying or filling from one end at a different time to the other combined with some rock features in the middle.

So, there are interesting flows to be experienced here. When the water is slack it seems very benign. Indeed our day trip by open canoe started this way, with us paddling along the strait towards the end of the period when the tide was going out.

We started our return leg after lunch with the water around its low point where we were on the straight. As we reached the Britannia bridge, the water was coming in from the end of the straight behind us. Then, the flows kicked in over the cribbin and in the area known as The Swellies.

We had some fun - and a workout! - in this powerful water :-)

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Tags: canoe,canoeing,paddling,canoeing video,Menai Strait,Anglesey,Ynys Môn,the swellies,cribbin,the cribbin,tidal water,tidal rapid,Wales,North Wales,open canoe,Ray Goodwin,Paul Kirtley,Frontier Bushcraft,salt water,canoeing on the sea,canoeing on the Menai Strait,menai straits,menai straights

Video Transcription

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while we're in a tidal rapid [Music]

what we're doing stay away we're having a little play on the Menai Strait yeah another Telford bridge it'll wipe your ass yes I'm obsessed with Telford I can only do rivers and bit and straights if they got a Telford Bridge no no not true anyway we're at Mennonite bridge on the on Innes mom on the Isle of Anglesey and we're gonna launch and go and do Telford bridge the Menai bridge into an area called the swell ease which will be quite quiet now it's beginning to die off the tide through the Britannia bridge which originally was Stevenson's and then we'll come on down here somewhere the tide is gonna turn around 12:30 we'll get slack water in this area and then we can come back and there be some good play places here just so that everyone knows this is my little you've got these things called dike tidal streams atlases and this is a little footnote I give somebody back to hold this is a little footnote in and one of them they'd normally you can have one for the whole of the Irish Sea or the whole of west coast of Scotland doesn't give you any detail men are like straights has a complex in and out because it fills from both ends so it starts filling it the western end an hour before it starts filling it the eastern end and that causes all sorts of issues here like you can get where the tide turns it goes the other way but the tide continues to rise for another 4050 minutes which catches people the carpark I'm parked in over there this morning may have been under water and I've seen cars up to the torch didn't eggs people didn't calculate the tides through high watering Dover this morning was at quarter past eight approximately and these arrows tell me which direction it was going at quarter past eight so if we go in an hour later that's quarter past nine this is quarter past 10:00

this is quarter past eleven and it's really beginning to slow off now in fact it the eastern end it's already beginning to flow out still running through the swell ease what this is is three set of two separate diagrams and of note here and so that I don't have to think I've cut them all like pasted them but this little piece of information so this is actually what it is this isn't scale but I don't have to think anymore I can just look at this so this is quarter past eleven is dying and still a little bit there at quarter past twelve and then it starts flowing back through this way on a clock so so right you've got those pre-cut and laminated and you've just written on the relevant times yeah what I could do is if I want them to yeah yeah those aren't right for today that was another one I've not I've not wiped out but that's basically what you do you write it just right the real times for the real day and you'd do it on this calculation now the only other thing you want to look on here is if you look at it it's got 0 5 and 10 for the speed through the swell ease that's pretty impressive if you don't know what it is any idea what those are well it's on the C so everything is calculated in knots but it's one point zero and zero point five knots this is on a neat tight we're closer to Springs which is the larger number yeah so in every fortnight it rotates around you don't tend to put dots into these numbers for work on the C on charts because you get little spots of mildew dirt on a chart and suddenly the speed has changed totally yeah so is the convention is it's done in tenths of a not so 1.0 but that saves me having to think about what's happening at various parts of straight actually today pretty well we're relevant because I know it's going that way in the area we're doing to about 12:30 slack and we can come back but if I was doing a longer journey on the straights this is what I would use to do my planning saves me having to do a lot of calculations and the thing is the slack water point because of emptying in and by emptying from both ends filling for both ends the slack moves up and down the straight is quite a weird phenomenon I stop bothering to think about it just follow the diet [Music]

so there you are that's what we're doing today a little bit of salty stuff [Music]

and

and

so far it had been a gentler run on placid waters but things were about to change as we waited the water started to move

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you want just paddle fast that's hard work it's really hard work hard work we huddle in the shadows back now you've got the new swanky whitewater panel it's unlike you so what's going on here right while we're in a tidal rapid the rim between the two bridges area called the swell ease Lord meet those Swami's is catchy and rock just at their Cristo I stood on a ribbon the ribbon is a it just means ridging well show it's a great I'm sorry ribbon in this case it's a ridge of rock that runs out and almost closes the channel so behind me when you see boats come through at high water but if they've got any draft to them they come too tight on that far sure there and it is a narrow channel but what's happening now is the tide rises at the western end of the straight it's beginning to pour over in the cribbing I've given us some tidal rapids with mighty boils and lots of fun and a bit of a workout I'm a bit of a workout doing laps is the modern boys call it yep

look at that shipping your rack into that moving water James no really so we've been practicing fairy glides and s turns you didn't get any very very wrong there you're still in your boat good day it is now the sun's going down [Music]

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