Swelly Good

The Menai Strait is one of the most fascinating and challenging stretches of water to traverse – Miranda Prynne helps you plot a way through

Wales is the Narnia of nations. Outwardly tiny but, viewed from within, suddenly an expansive dramatic wilderness where you could lose yourself for years. Its coastline reflects this land of myth and magic, the last stronghold of the Druids.

It is rugged, wild and beautiful, but once you sail north from Fishguard in Pembrokeshire, you will find little reliable shelter for a 43ft (13.1m) yacht-like N’Tiana until you reach Anglesey.

Even there, the principal marina in Holyhead had been all but destroyed by Storm Emma a few months before our arrival, leaving few options for those seeking safe haven.

Sailing north across Cardigan Bay towards the LlÅ·n Peninsula, you cross an invisible dividing line. North Wales is where Britain gives up on being the green and pleasant land of soft rolling hills with patchwork quilt fields and rears mountains that loom dark and brooding against the horizon.

After weathering a storm at anchor in Fishguard bay, we headed northeast along the undulating Pembrokeshire coastline with a perfect 15 knots of wind on our stern. We quietly admired the secretive coves and soaring rock faces giving way to green fields behind, until reaching pretty Aberporth bay, sheltered from the southwesterly swell.

Having nosed in as close to shore as we safely could before dropping anchor opposite the beach, we lay back sipping beer, listening to the squeals of excited children leaping around in the shallows.

We were up the next morning with the sun, which rose over the distant headland, bathing us in the golden whisper of warmth.

Our planned passage was to cut directly north across Cardigan Bay and round the LlÅ·n Peninsula to moor up somewhere on its north coast. This would place us just a short hop from the southern entrance to the Menai Strait, the notoriously tide-ripped slither of water that separates Anglesey from mainland Wales.