Log of Robinetta: Aberystwyth to Fishguard Bay

It was a bright sunny morning when we woke on the boat after an uneventful train journey the previous evening.

We had fish & chips for lunch yesterday so dinner had been a little supermarket sushi and fruit on the train. I was now starving. It’s nice to get something done before breakfast so we got Worm off the foredeck and into the water and got Robinetta mostly ready to leave.

Then we went into town for breakfast and had a pleasant one in a cafe. We paid our berthing fees and left as planned about 9:30. There was never less than 1m of water under the keel leaving the harbour. Alison helmed and I got the bowsprit out as we went through the narrow gap between the Oceanlord on the town quay and the marina’s fuel dock.

The plan for the weekend was to get to Milford Haven - the next place along the coast with a Marina where we could leave Robinetta. The half-way point is Fishguard. The old harbour at Lower Town dries and the recommendation is to anchor near the ferry pier but the pilot says the ferry wash can be uncomfortable and also mentions a nice anchorage at the east end of Fishguard bay called Pwllgwaelod. You can row ashore to the pub. This sounded better!

Robinetta was last in Fishguard Bay in May 1946. She had sailed from Caernarfon Bay in one go and then got weather-bound in Lower Town for four days. Tomorrow we would join her south-bound track at Strumble head.

As expected there was no wind. We bent on the No. 1 jib just in case and had the staysail up as usual but helming was delegated to George and we watched the pretty coast go by in the sunshine.

The day was truly a beautiful one. It didn’t look quite so nice over Snowdonia but for us it was lovely. The 3G signal was strong too so I could look up the places we passed. It felt a bit like a trip on the Waverley steamer.

There were a few other yachts passage making and a good few fishing boats lifting pots. One of them was a Northumbrian coble. The coast here is quite similar to the north east and we had seen a few moored in Aberystwyth. They are such practical and pretty boats.

In the morning, in turn we passed Llan-non which looks like it should be the mouth of the Istwyth, Llanrhystud, Aberaeron, and New Quay.

Clouds over Llanrhystud

Llanrhystud is a tiny village invisible from the sea. Where it’s river reaches the coast are two caravan parks, one on either side. Both have launching slips and there were ribs and kayaks having fun or fishing around.

Aberaeron

Aberaeron is a nice little town where an aunt of mine once lived. It has a proper harbour and a yacht passed us and went in there. The wonders of 3G let me know that today was the town “Mackerel Fiesta”. Tempting, but we did want to get to Milford Haven by Sunday night. VisitmyHarbour says the harbour offers surprisingly little protection and as we passed one could see why. The walls run parallel to the quays and the whole thing is completely open to the west. They need some kind of breakwater running north/south outside.

The chart shows an inner harbour on the north side of the river. It’s very small and I don’t know if it operates.

Newquay

Nesting on the north side of the headland beyond is New Quay. It is mentioned
In the CA cruising almanac but I knew nothing about it. Wikipedia tells us that it was created in the 1840s by act of Parliament to provide a ‘new quay’ for Cardigan. It soon became a major ship building town building smacks, schooners and transatlantic traders. The ship building only lasted about 50 years but ‘New Quay Men’ became renowned as ships captains. Today it has a population of only around 1,000 but it looks nice from the sea and quite ‘yachty’.

yachts racing at Newquay

Lunch was bread and cheese - the last of the Teifi cheese we had bought in Aberystwyth two weeks ago. Lovely stuff.

The next headland took us into the bay where the Teifi comes out - very appropriate! A narrow sound separates the headland from Cardigan Island, or Ynys Aberteifi. We went through the sound sort-of sailing and hopefully looked nice to the holidaymakers standing at the viewpoint over the sound. The sound, the island and the bay looked gorgeous.

Cardigan Sound from North

I want to call this bay Aberteifi bay but the language is really confusing. Aberteifi, Cardigan and Ceredigion seem to be completely interchangeable terms and since the whole outer bay between the Lleyn peninsula and St Davids head is called Cardigan Bay it’s hard to know what to call the little bay the Teifi flows in to.

Cardigan Sound, mainland side

The next river along is called the Nyfer and the bay it flows into is called Newport Bay. Newport is quite in-land and there is no harbour to be seen. The southern end of Newport bay is marked by Ynys Dinas. The ‘sound’ between Ynys Dinas and the mainland is a valley you can walk along. Sea level rise might turn it back into a proper island at some point. Both ends of the valley have sandy coves which make good anchorages. I had picked the southern one at the east end of Fishguard bay for us to spend the night.

We got there with good light and dropped the hook with about 5m under the keel. 40 m of chain went out to allow for the 4 m rise of tide expected. We took and checked bearings and then rowed ashore to the pub.

The Old Sailor is a noted and popular sea food restaurant. We expected it to be fully booked and we were right. It looked like we would have had a great meal there. CAMRA says it had a well kept real ale when they checked but the closest thing was a Brains ‘American style IPA’ and the house ‘Cream Flow’ ale. Nothing on a hand pump.

I had a half.

Alison was luckier with the cider. They had two Thatchers ciders on draught - Big Apple which she had enjoyed earlier this year and Haze. They also had Welsh craft cider in bottles. She chose the latter and enjoyed it. We sat in the beer garden looking out over the bay with Robinetta rocking in the swell in front of us.