Every year since I joined the Dinghy Cruising Association I have attempted a cruise, and each year I have failed. Good sailing I have had, but a real sleep-aboard, cook-aboard cruise has always been beyond me. This year was no exception.

Alan Smith and I started to discuss this year’s voyage just after Christmas. We had sailed my Albacore dinghy Pskua just about as far as was sensible from Port Madoc in both directions, and we cast about for a new sailing ground. One of the possibilities was a trip round Anglesey and, although each of us privately thought it was too long and exposed a voyage for our inexperience, neither of us would admit it to the other, and the decision to go was made in spite of our misgivings. Shades of Donald Crowhurst!

Neither of us knew anything about the island, but we studied the Anglesey and North Wales Coast Pilot and decided to go in a clockwise direction and to allow three days for the trip. The last weekend of May seemed the most suitable time, as it would offer a slack tide in the Swellies early on the Saturday morning. As slack water lasts for only 15-30 minutes, and as the tide sluices through the rock-strewn narrows at anything from 5-8 knots, it was important to navigate that particular channel at exactly the right time, which meant that we really ought to start our journey from as near the north end of the Swellies as possible.

On the preceding Saturday, we took Pskua up to Anglesey to find a suitable launching place and to have a look at the Swellies from the safety of the road bridge linking the island to the mainland. We found a public ramp almost under the end of the bridge, and as we watched the tide racing past we wondered in alarm whether, if we managed to sail round the island, we might not be swept down the Swellies a second time when trying to regain our launching point. After finishing our survey, we had time to sail from Beaumaris round Puffin Island and back before we had to set off for home in Wolverhampton, leaving Pskua in the Royal Anglesey Yacht Club’s dinghy park at Beaumaris.

On Friday 29th May 1970, we were back in Beaumaris at about 9pm, and trundled Pskua back to Menai Bridge, where we rigged her ready for launching and stowed away the usual incredible amount of gear, including bedding, bed-boards, clothing, food, cooking stoves, a small container of fresh water and twenty four large cans of beer — after all, Welsh pubs close on Sunday. That done, we felt ready for anything, and slept in the car alongside the boat. The forecast for the morrow — wind south force 5, becoming west force 4.

High water slack on the Saturday morning was at 0530, and we were up at 0400, cooked and ate a good breakfast, filled the thermos flasks and were afloat by 0520. The morning was grey and cold, but there was no wind, and we drifted out into the channel and paddled down against a quickly fading foul tide.

By 0535 we were under the road bridge, and half an hour later we sailed under Britannia Bridge which showed few signs of the fire which had damaged it a day or two earlier.

For the next two and a half hours we sailed slowly and quietly along down the Menai Strait, leaving Caernarfon Castle abeam to port at 0805, and setting out from there under unbroken cloud in a cold force 3 north west wind to face the unknown hazards of Caernarfon Bar.

At 0915, just when we were approaching the bar itself, the pin linking the tiller extension to the tiller broke with a bang, and we hove to while we attempted a repair. We searched the boat high and low, but nowhere could we find a pin thin enough to go through the hole and long enough to project at the bottom. When we had given up hope, and had almost succeeded in stuffing some nylon cord through the hole, we remembered the stainless steel pin which I had fitted only the day before to hold the tiller firmly in the rudder head. This just fitted the tiller extension, and the elastic shock cord held the tiller in place well enough.

We crossed the bar at 0935 and set off to the N.W. The wind was still about force 3, and at 1030 we changed from the Firefly sails we had cautiously set at launching to the normal Albacore suit which we carried.

By 1100 the wind had backed to W.S.W. and strengthened considerably, so that we bounced along in great style past Rhoscolyn Point and on to South Stack, which was abeam at 1300 hours.

By 1330 it was becoming decidedly rough, and we changed back to the smaller sails again in the middle of Holyhead Bay. Everything looked grey and cold and slightly ominous, and we were undecided whether to put in somewhere for the night or to press on into the afternoon. At this point I brought up my lunch, which caused me great distress as it involved saying good-bye to my most recent intake of our precious beer and a very large portion of pork pie.

After I had recovered, we decided to go on a bit further, and made for the gap between the Skerries and Carmel Head. The detailed chart showed every sort of hazard at this point including overfalls, and before I could say “Pass the Kwells and a bucket” we were in the thick of it. Neither of us had been in this sort of sea before, and we were astonished at the complete lack of pattern in the waves which rose vertically in pointed heaps all around us. Luckily the Albacore has a good foredeck and coaming which kept out the worst of the sea. Nevertheless, we buried our bows twice and shipped a lot of water before staggering out into, if not calmer seas, at least more regular ones, which allowed us to bail out and tidy the boat up.

As we were very wet, we decided we had had about enough, and ought to seek out a place for the night. The road map showed little of interest before Amlwch about 8 miles away, so we settled down to drive the boat there as fast as we could. The wind was now off the land, and we careered along on a broad reach with great gusts of wind roaring down the valleys at us as we passed. Marvellous sailing.

Amlwch, our longed for haven, turned out to be horrible — a narrow desolate gully in a bleak landscape with a filthy chemical factory pouring out smoke and effluent so that the whole area was noisome. We could not stay there, so decided to press on round Lynas Point to find a place for the night. The wind was still strong and we made marvellous progress, but the point proved an inhospitable place with no obvious shelter for the weary dinghy cruiser.

Round the point we went, and there in the distance was Puffin Island. Might it be possible to get as far as the Menai Strait before dark? We decided in spite of strengthening winds and a general gloom to press on. When at last we passed between Puffin and the mainland, we were puzzled by the disappearance since our visit the previous week of a large quarry and prominent lighthouse which had marked the Anglesey side of the channel.

Being cold and wet we had rather neglected our navigation and ‘Puffin’ was in fact Ynas Moelfre, a much smaller replica about 7 miles to the N.W. We were very lucky — that could have been a disastrous mistake! The wind was now strong out of the S.W., which gave us very fast sailing indeed as the land to windward kept the seas relatively small. As it was, we surfed down the waves with our bow wave foaming deck high amidships. The weather was closing in with heavy rain in the squalls.

About this time, we realised that the ship’s chronometer — my wrist watch — had at last succumbed to the day’s soaking and given up the ghost. We had no idea what time it was. The encircling gloom made it seem likely that the sun was already setting somewhere behind the murk. At least we knew where we were as we passed inside the real Puffin Island and plugged into the steep seas of Beaumaris Bay. The wind was blowing hard from the S.W., which was exactly where we wanted to go. The favourable tide helped us along, but we got wetter than ever in the process.

On the long lonely beat up the channel (we glimpsed only two other yachts the whole day), we agreed that as much as we should like to cruise in our dinghy some day, on this occasion we would give in to the anguished cries of our middle aged flesh — cold, bruised and hungry as it was — and seek out a hot bath and a meal in a pub if we could get back to our starting point that night. That beat up from Puffin Island to Menai Bridge seemed endless, but we finally landed at 1955, and by 2001 we had organised bed, breakfast and bath at the Auckland Arms — a splendid pub within a stone’s throw of the landing stage.

Having sailed the 76 miles round the island in a little over 14.5 hours, there seemed little point in just pottering around on the Sunday and Monday, and we hadn’t the courage to attempt a repeat performance, so we packed everything up and went home again. It is a pity really. We had so looked forward to spending three days on this trip — cruising gently round the coast by day and bedding down in some quiet cove at night, but it was not to be. Now, next time…