Winter boating in the Bristol Channel: a three-day offshore raid

The seasons bring variety and spice to our lives with their ever-changing character. On land, we are aware that the passing of the seasons is marked by distinctive change, but of course, this is no less true out to sea. The temperature of the water, the nature of the winds and prevailing weather systems, along with the differences in the quality of light, all contribute to making the all-year-round boater’s time at sea ever rewarding, ever engaging. 

Personally speaking, I love what many would describe as ‘out of season’ boating. The seas around our coast grow in their intensity, and as winter descends, the colour palette and vistas are transformed beneath ever more cloud-harried skies. From October onward, the coastline sees the return of an emerging beauty where our wooded, tree-lined shores take on leafy golden hues, and bracken-covered headlands are swept orange brown with the artistry of late autumn. You begin to feel that this is nature’s time, a time and a season when the waters at last lie fallow, free from the cutting wakes of leisure boats or even the throbbing haul of fishing boats. 

But besides the allure of boating at this special, albeit more challenging time of year, we had further reason to take to the water this November. Britain’s summer had delivered, for the most part, a wonderful few months of settled weather graced by sunshine and sparkling seas, a summer that enabled our home waters to become an enticing playground for all those with a love of the sea. Nonetheless, such conditions tend not to lend themselves to providing a thorough ‘test bed’ for evaluating certain types of equipment.

However, before we reveal our findings, allow me to relate some of the highlights of our three-day ‘winter raid’ on the waters of the Bristol Channel and its unique coastline. It’s true to say though that it can be wild and can be hostile, so if you do decide to give it a go, a word of warning: perhaps don’t consider making your first attempt an ‘out of season’ jaunt. Pick your weather well and do your research, but be assured of the fact that the nature and atmosphere of this region, along with the sights you will see, are truly different to those commonly encountered along the more ‘popular’ southern coast. 

Up here on the Atlantic seaboard, where the ocean meets the narrowing Bristol Channel, the tides run virtually like no other place on earth. In fact, east of Minehead, the rise and fall between high and low tide can be up to as much as 50 feet. That degree of water, ebbing and flowing in and out of this funnel-shaped catchment, is truly awe-inspiring and hence the tide can run literally like a fast-flowing river at times. Even in undisturbed waters, wind against tide can produce particularly angry seas, especially if you add into the frame an Atlantic ground swell. But off the headlands, such as Foreland Point on the Exmoor coast or Worm’s Head on the Welsh coast, the overfalls and tide rips can deliver heavy, breaking seas that in strong weather are places one wants to firmly avoid. 

But just in case you’re reading this and thinking this all sounds like one big nautical nightmare, be assured that with good planning, a sound boat and some common sense, the inhospitable side to the Bristol Channel’s character is in fact where its rich beauty lies. Instead of regarding the tides here as restrictive ‘task masters’, you learn to appreciate them as being the life and soul of this entire sea area. Rather than allowing the region’s limited harbours and anchorages to be a frustration to your soul, you learn instead to become more adept at planning, more comfortable at allowing your boat to dry out at low tide. In my view, the rewards far outweigh any perceived negatives. 

The three-man crew for this onslaught on the BC represented a change of plan as both Jan Falkowski and Richard Terry sadly had to pull out at the last minute. In their stead, I invited an old friend, Adrian Kingdon, to join Paul Lemmer and myself. Adrian is a good-humoured and easy-going soul with a love of the outdoors, but he’d never done any boating of this type before, so for him it really was a case of being thrown in at the deep end with only 48 hours notice. Knowing that the trip had the potential to be tough going at times, I reminded him that enduring the rigours of this ‘adventure-styled boating’ was much more to do with the psychological than ever it was the physical. But I knew Adrian was cut out for any endurance required, regardless of his lack of experience. 

A fresh south-westerly was blowing as our little Ribeye 600 slid off her trailer and onto the rising tide within the Taw Estuary. The sky was clear and bright and wispy clouds etched their determined course northwards across the blue expanse above our heads. We finished stowing gear and donning the rest of our kit as the boat drifted on the current out toward the mounting surf of the Bideford Bar. 

This sandy ridge, which extends out from the western side of the channel, is infamous in terms of the seas it can produce. As I’ve related before in a previous article, the coxswain of the Bideford RNLI lifeboat recounted to me an experience he’d had some years before when he was at the helm of a 70ft twin-screw pilot vessel seeking to get back into the shelter of the estuary. The height of the seas over the bar, he said, “were at least the length of the boat …” The ‘ride of death’ is how he described it. Happily, the bar’s killer instincts were less evident on this day, but nonetheless, the 10ft breakers along this demarcation line between river and sea still needed to be negotiated with a keen eye and a steady hand on the throttles. 

Big ocean swells left over from a force 11 gale 48 hours earlier caused the sea to undulate as if a lazy leviathan was stirring in the depths below. The distance from wave crest to wave crest I estimated to be about 100 metres in length, and with a relative height too that, from the perspective of a wave trough at least, occasionally obscured Lundy’s rugged profile from view altogether. 

Upon reaching the isle, we first closed Rat Island on Lundy’s most westerly tip, then ran through the overfalls off the Devil’s Kitchen, on past The Rattles and Seals Hole before rounding up just off the reef at Shutter Point. The waves crashing over Little Shutter Rock were spectacular. 

We pushed on through the spume-covered waters with the sun on our backs as close as we dared to Lundy’s west face – a scene that is undoubtedly one of the most dramatic and geologically fascinating stretches of cliffline in the whole of the British Isles.

Pulling away from the captivating isle and the lighthouse on North West Point, we held a northerly course bound for Caldey Island and the Welsh coast some 30 miles distant. It was an exhilarating ride as the boat climbed, her head held high on every sea, before she then succumbed to plunge determinedly down the long face into the trough.

By now we could see the Welsh coast about 12 to 15 miles ahead of us. But the weather was on the change and darker, more threatening clouds were forming. The seas began to shorten, becoming more erratic in nature, and spray flew back into our faces relentlessly. But despite being the middle of November, the seawater felt unusually warm. 

Among the repetition and the instinctive helm reaction required to negotiate each relentless wave, suddenly, without any notable warning, the boat leapt off the crest of an awkward sea to land unusually hard within its pit-like trough, straight onto the flat of her portside chine. Paul, who was sitting in the navigator’s seat, let out a shrill cry of pain and shouted to me to stop the boat. He was in agony. 

The shock mitigation seat had bottomed out on its suspension system, metal on metal, and the force had ricocheted straight up through Paul’s spine. The situation was serious. Adrian and I initially lay him down on the foredeck atop the soft kit bags before moving him onto the aft bench seat. He was in shock and great discomfort, to the extent that I thought he may have crushed a vertebra in his back. The colour in his contorting face was fading and his lips had a tinge of blue about them. Over the years, Paul and I have covered thousands of miles at sea together and taken our fair share of knocks along the way, but this was the first time I had ever witnessed him in this state. I was on the verge of radioing for an airlift to hospital but Paul refused to allow it. 

Amid the cresting seas we wallowed and hoped that Paul might stabilise. I tried to assess the situation and determined, with some relief, that he could still feel his feet and move his legs. It was agreed that we should proceed as gently as possible, but frustratingly the tide and wind had taken us at least 12 miles west of where we wanted to make our landfall. 

Caldey Island, lying off our destination of Tenby, took a long time to reach as we clawed our way through the steep, short seas. Paul continued to lie outstretched on the aft seat, his eyes tightly shut, his lips clamped, his woolly hat crammed down over his head as he was continuously doused by the flying horizontal spray. 

As the lee seas flattened out between the island and mainland we were able to increase our speed accordingly. We actually made Tenby in the nick of time before the tide retreated fully from the sandy-bottomed harbour. Paul got himself up and, accompanied by a few groans and grimaces, gingerly negotiated the harbour steps with Adrian’s help. 

I made the boat secure for the night on a visitor’s mooring while Paul hobbled to the B&B located a short walk from the harbour with Adrian following in tow with the kit bags. A good long, hot bath appeared to do the world of good and, like a resilient and stubborn-minded bulldog, Paul steadily restored his equilibrium. He was stiff and mightily sore, but, if only by a hair’s breadth, he nonetheless appeared to have escaped seriously injuring his spine. We were all hugely relieved. 

Following the excitements of the day, like all ‘ready-salted’ mariners who’ve just stepped ashore, the three of us made for the hotel bar without delay, and amid the rumpus of the cheering mob watching the Wales v Fiji rugby match being played out on the video screens, the pints were poured and duly lined up on the bar top. Our good friend and fellow Round Ireland Challenge veteran Huw Stiley also joined us and we talked boats, Wales and more boats.

When it came time to search the neighbouring streets for a place to eat, I was amazed how busy and alive with visitors this congenial and attractive Victorian seaside town was, even on a winter’s night such as this, and how, frankly, it put the likes of Salcombe and Fowey at this time of year to shame. Tenby’s restaurants and bars were truly bustling and we were lucky to get a table at the Plantagenet Restaurant – an intriguing 12th-century stone building with the biggest fireplace and open chimney I think I’ve ever seen. To give you some idea of the latter’s size, our table was comfortably accommodated within the old chimney’s hearth. Here we met Charles Mangles for dinner, an old friend of mine whom I hadn’t seen in over 20 years. It was a lot of fun, and I can confirm that all three of us slept pretty soundly that night. 

The next day dawned bright and brisk, and though we fully expected Paul to be as stiff as a rusty ironing board, blow me if he didn’t rise from his mattress looking pretty perky. Huw Stiley was absolutely tremendous, running us to the filling station in his Land Rover Defender to help fill the boat’s spare flexitanks with fuel and helping ferry kit back down to the harbour. 

Liquid Inspiration fairly skipped her way through the seas. Beneath the weak winter sun, the green profile of the Carmarthen coast, with its distant hills and sandy beaches, and Pembury Forest’s thickly wooded shores looked just beautiful. But as we rounded due south on our course for Worm’s Head the sea’s depth became shallower and this brought other sights. 

Not far from our encounter with the guillemots, it was soon possible to pick out, in the distance, plumes of steam-like spray being forced high into the air from the blowhole on the northern face of Worm’s Head. Coming upon it, we edged our bows right in close to this extraordinary natural wonder caused by the narrow cave or tunnel that runs from one side of the headland to the other at little more than tide height. 

The south Gower coast lived up to its reputation in every way – rugged and magnificent – and amid the rolling seas we passed such sights as Mewslade Bay, Culver Hole, Port Eynon Point, Oxwich Point and Pwildu Head. With every few miles, though the ocean’s energy lines were constant in their west-going procession, the water’s surface changed depending on the depth or the effect of tide spiralling off the headlands. 

But thanks to our being able to maintain a healthy cruising speed of a little over 22 knots, we decided to pull in briefly to the coastal town of Mumbles to see our good friend Dai Thomas – another Round Ireland Challenge veteran and crewmember of the Mumbles lifeboat. 

Dai is a special chap – hardy yet gentle, able yet humble. Stepping off the heaving deck of the RIB onto the quay’s stone steps we embraced each other with a manly Welshman’s hug. But sadly, all too soon, it was time to get going again, and so after just enough time for a brief exchange and a rummage in the rations bag, the prospect of a falling tide demanded that we make tracks and wave goodbye. 

‘Steer 150 degrees,’ shouted Dai as we swung our bows to windward to face the darkening skies advancing upon Swansea Bay. 

A thin, broken line of dark grey, as if made by the delicate stroke of a watercolour brush, lay on the far horizon across the menacing sea. This was the first glimpse of Exmoor’s highland, which could just be picked out from our vantage point eight miles off the Welsh coast. We had a good 30 plus miles to run with the weather and sea on our ‘nose’, as well as the knowledge that we had to push the boat and ourselves hard if we were going to make Porlock in time for the tide. 

At least the tide and wind were in our favour, but it was plenty rough enough all the same. As the rain descended and the seas grew, the boat bucked and reared, plunged and slammed, occasionally ‘bellyflopping’ into a trough to send shock waves slamming through every last vestige of its and our anatomy. Adrian gritted his teeth and hung on, Paul determinedly wrestled with the wheel, and I resigned myself to the fact that this simply had to be regarded as a ‘workday’. However uncomfortable, however wet and miserable, it was still a privilege to taste the salt on one’s lips, and indeed a whole lot better than sitting behind a computer screen in the office. But this, in truth, was largely what we had come for – the opportunity to push the boat and its equipment to the point where the conditions would reveal exactly where both the strengths and weaknesses of each component truly lay. Some items excelled, others fell way short of the mark. 

We bashed on relentlessly and it wasn’t pleasant, but as we neared the coast we clocked the sight of the great Foreland or Countisbury Point, with its lighthouse blinking a stalwart beam out through the gloom. It seemed to take an age to claw our way past this highest cliffline in England, measured at 991 feet above sea level. 

But the big round bluff of Hurlstone Point on the east side of Porlock Bay was a welcome sight indeed, and for this we aimed, knowing a log fire, a large brandy and a hot bath were our reward if we kept up the pace. 

Finally, the withy branches marking the channel into Porlock Weir’s tiny haven hove into view, and, as hoped, we were within just 30 minutes of the tide barring entry into the harbour. We gently powered up on top of a rolling wave to provide extra depth beneath our hull as we crossed the bar and then slid in on the muddy waters of the narrow stony-bordered channel up to the harbour’s ancient quay. 

We thoroughly enjoyed our time staying in the eccentric surroundings of the Anchor Hotel. It was very comfortable and the food was good too. Furthermore, we enjoyed well-priced and comfortable rooms with stunning views over the harbour and Porlock Bay. I would heartily recommend this hotel even for a weekend break away, especially if you fancy exploring and walking the dramatic shoreline here as well as Exmoor’s wooded coast. 

The main village of Porlock itself is only a mile away up the lane, but down here at the weir there is a charming 15th-century thatched pub that also offers B&B and several very attractive holiday-let properties too. That night, following dinner, after slumping in an easy chair beside the fire with a book and a brandy, I pushed off to bed. Adrian, on the other hand, went off to lie under the stars for a couple of hours on the deck of a boat in the harbour. 

All three of us awoke ‘bushy-tailed’ for our final run westward, down the remote and sometimes unforgiving Exmoor coast, back to Appledore. By 11.30am sufficient water had crept beneath the boat’s hull to lift it clear of the bank upon which it had dried out overnight. A fresh westerly was blowing, but again, at this point at least, it was in harmony with the direction of the flood tide. 

We suited up, stowed as much kit up on the foredeck as possible to help keep the bow down, said our goodbyes and idled out of the harbour. 

The scene was grey and uninviting at first glance, but nonetheless it was full of character. Exmoor’s high, majestic coast, with its thick oak woods still laden with late-autumn splendour, stretched out before us as we turned westward on the last leg of our anticlockwise circumnavigation of the mighty Bristol Channel. The waters, flooding beneath our hull on their race up toward the Severn Estuary, were ripping toward us in a style only experienced in this particular sea area. 

The more miles we made along our westerly course, the more the seas grew, and especially off the headlands of Foreland Point, Highveer Point, Blackstone Point, Bull Point and Morte Point the waves piled high with breaking crests. We picked our way steadily through the overfalls and the boat handled it well. 

I love this coastline. The entire stretch from Porlock Weir right over to Hartland Point, including Lundy, remains, in my view, one of the most dramatic and alluring sections of coast in the whole of the British Isles. Prepare well and give it a try, you’ll understand what I mean. 

This final ride was exhilarating, with the moor’s sights along the way never failing to arrest the attention above the tops of the waves. We felt the mission had been accomplished successfully on every level by the time we crossed the Bideford Bar for the last time, in perfect time for us to haul out without the slightest difficulty. 

As we reflected on the last three days in the warmth of the local café, all were agreed that our voyage around the wild coasts of Wales and Exmoor, including the islands off their shores, had reaffirmed in our minds the timeless beauty of the region. We’d experienced all this at a time, too, when few other people ever make it their business to become acquainted with the character of the Bristol Channel and its neighbouring waters. One thing is for sure, this much overlooked and often forgotten quarter will not be easily forgotten by Liquid Inspiration’s crew of three.