The last trip out: Over night at Lawrenny Yacht Station

Shoestring moored up to her buoy for the night

We had our last night in Pembrokeshire, (due both to The Rum Situation and work demands). We left our moorings in Neyland at 11am just before the high-tide, and went out for a sail. Initially we were going to sail up to Angle Bay and then turn back up river to Lawrenny, but the wind and tide was against us, so we sailed as far as the entrance to the Pembroke River and castle pond, then turned to sail up river towards the Cleddau bridge.

After pottering around under sail, Michael had a go at the helm under sail, this time without hitting any buoys, King slept as usually. We realised how much the time flies while we're sailing as four o'clock came round we turned back with hardly any wind -we even tried motor-sailing to speed up things, and headed back from Picton Point towards Lawrenny.

Michael (and new hat) at the helm.
(Shoestring is in need of a new mainsheet traveler!)

The Lawrenny yacht station is a wonderful location, but popular, we managed to get a last minute visitors buoy by calling in advance. -£10 for buoy B28 on the edge of the Cleddau and the Cresswell river mouth, a beautiful spot as you can see but requiring a bit of a paddle to get to the Yacht Station's pontoon -King's first trip in the Sevylor Canoe! (link to the review), needless to say he was nervous but very trusting and eventually enjoyed it.

Thankfully our charts are a bit more up-to-date, but you get the idea.

Once ashore we realised that the wallet was still on the dashboard of the car at Neyland! A quick, but expensive (£60) return trip in a mini-cab solved this. We didn't go in but the Lawrenny Arms pub on the old quayside has been recommended to us many times.

Me(Tony) off out in the canoe.

We rowed back to Shoestring in the canoe, after having a bit of fun trying to get King into the canoe over the edge of the pontoon. -Thankfully he had his lifejacket on so he was easier to carry. -Or at least aim and throw as it must have looked like to the people watching with great humor in surrounding yachts.

After dinner on board we had an amazing sunset at Lawrenny, we sat on the fore-deck in our woolly jumpers with a scotch and coke (YES NO RUM) and watched the still water reflecting the light from around. Then complaining as a motorboat user, just after sunset decided to show off water-skiing skills with no navigation lights and making lots of noise and lots of wash. Thankfully this ended after twenty minutes or so.

Sunset at Lawrenny, looking up the Cleddau river.

We settled in for the night, noting that Shoestring didn't move that much more than she did in the Marina. I was in the double bunk up front and had to have the forward hatch open for a while longer to look at the amazing star-fields you get in the very low light pollution skies.

Shoestring's bow, with No.1 job awaiting a tie-down for the night.

Come morning all had changed. Rain, and I mean RAIN, was falling, Shoestring's cabin roof leaked again, this time in 1 new spot too! We had a quick breakfast of toasted muffins and jam then decided to return to Neyland under engine. -Wearing every waterproof garment we had.

King relaxing on his bunk (again)

Safely docked at Neyland about 2 hours later, we both wished we had spent the night out there before in our trip. We decided to leave Shoestring at Neyland during the wet stormy weather, and drive back to Lawrenny for lunch at the (award winning) Quayside Tea Rooms, where we had a very reasonably priced lunch that was one of the best we'd had on our trip.

One of our best shots from the evening. (Before the storm hit!)

We can't wait to take Shoestring back to Lawrenny. Perhaps next time exploring by Canoe further up to Cresswell Quay (the water is too shallow for Shoestring) where there is another great pub which has the best hog roast and BBQ in Pembrokeshire on a friday night apparently. We'll investigate and report back!

Link to Lawrenny Yacht Station