A birthday party in Padstow

My mum and Dad have been coming down to the Cornish port of Padstow for nigh on 35 years. We've celebrated Dad's 70th birthday there and yesterday, we celebrated Mum's 70th as well....at the same same place - Rajano's Pizza parlour! My sister brings her family down as well...and it always starts with a day out on Trevone beach.....the family beach! Cricket, body boarding and rock pooling....a  read of the newspapers, a walk along the cliff tops....lattes and bacon sandwiches......perfect!

Trevone Beach.....a great family beach

One of the shallower rock pools at Trevone but still teeming with life

Below, one of the deeper pools, when the tide recedes.....full of blue velvet swimmer crabs!

I'm never grabbed by Padstow....too crowded for my taste......I like the old quayside when it's empty! I am deeply intrigued by the Camel estuary and am sorely tempted to take Arwen down there for a family summer holiday camping/sailing trip

A lovely quayside when the tourists have gone!

Looking across to Rock and Daymar Bay

Copyright Ennor!

Padstow harbour dates from around 1844 when an act of Parliament appointed harbour commissioners. It grew along a creek on the western side of the river Camel; the port became busy, the town was built on reclaimed land and the inner quays built in 1538.

Not many in the inner harbour yesterday

1899 saw the arrival of the railway and a fishing industry developed with fresh fish being dispatched regularly to London’s Billingsgate Market. It must have been a fantastic railway line running along the River Camel estuary up to Wadebridge – stunning views. Curses to that Dr Beeching – can you imagine what a stunning steam railway line it would be now if it were run by the likes of the Bodmin and Wenford Railway, just up the road? Instead it is now a long distance cycle track (albeit a very nice one I might add).

One of the small Padstow fishing boats tied up at the outer quay wall

 The present day dock was built in 1910, such was the popularity of this port. In 1932 a new pier wall was built to protect the inner basin. However, all was not well......Padstow regularly flooded on very high spring tides and so a flood defence scheme involving extending the outer piers, raising the walls on Langford quay and building a tidal gate were all carried out in 1988. The tidal lock gate now provides a permanent marina within the town area. I think it opens 2 hrs either side of high tide and after that you are stuck – inside or outside – until it opens again next high tide.

The Old Custom House and tucked away up the street

is the London Inn....a lovely old pub and good food too

The inner dock now has floating pontoons for small craft and some large buoys off which to attach bow springs. I noticed that several yachts were mooring Mediterranean style with their aft end onto these pontoons. Bigger yachts seem to prefer to tie alongside the inner harbour walls and, where need be, raft up together.

                                                                                                                                       

                                

Is this mooring Mediterranean style?

Fishing continues within Padstow with catches being landed on the south jetty and lorry freighted to the Newlyn or Plymouth fish markets. The registration of Padstow is PW seen on many of the boats in my son’s pictures featuring on the blog today (new camera – toying with taking up photography as a hobby!) There are beam trawlers which occasionally visit the harbour (they tow a net along the seabed – aiming to catch sole, monkfish, plaice); there are two local boats which are gill netters (thin nets anchored in the water and floats at top) which enmesh fish; finally I think there are plenty of local potting boats – working inshore early morning to get crabs and lobsters. I believe most of the crab goes to the continent

One of the smaller fishing boats at Padstow

Lobster creels stacked on  the quayside

Bringing the pots home at the end of the day

It would be wrong though to think that Padstow’s history is a recent one....4000 years ago Travellers used the Fowey and Camel estuaries as part of their journey route from Brittany to Ireland....so avoiding the Land’s End sea route! However, when the Welsh arrived (I feel some national pride coming on here) in the form of St Petroc in the 6th century...Padstow came into being.

 

                                          Sadly, some wonderful boats fall by the wayside.......

St. Petroc set up a monastery which became known as Padstow.......which then got destroyed by the Vikings. Suffice to say Wales has a long history of setting up monasteries around the British Isles. In fact I often tell my students that I am doing missionary work on behalf of the Welsh nation – educating the heathen English........they fall for it too!

 

                         A Cornish Crabber regatta! Cornish Crabbers, are of course based at Rock

                                        on the opposite side of the Camel estuary to Padstow! Copyright http://www.in2clicks.com/ Mark Jago

I read somewhere that later, during medieval times, Padstow was given the rights of sanctuary and so became a haven for criminals who would not be arrested if they stayed within the confines of the town..........given the cost of some ice creams yesterday...I’d say daylight robbery is still alive and well!

Apart from fishing....ship building also developed in Padstow; and mining of copper ore and slate led to these being exported from the town’s quays. Padstow is now a popular tourist spot.....helped along by Rick Stein’s restaurants, guest houses, patisseries and fish and chip shop! My parents have been going there for around 35 years and are sad to see its demise over the years. It becomes a heaving hell hole at the height of summer – a great shame!

                                                                  One of Rick's places

One of the redeeming features about the place though is the River Camel estuary – oh my! It has fierce tides, a huge tidal range, massive sandbanks and downright dangerous bar to boot! It certainly makes for entertaining sailing........and entertaining the idea of sailing there is what I am doing....hence the trip this week (well along with the fact that It was my old mum’s 70th birthday (Happy birthday Mum – I don’t want you thinking I only came down to see you in Padstow so we could research things for the blog!!).

Looking across the sandbanks and up the Camel estuary towards Wadebridge

The Camel rises on Bodmin Moor and exits into the Atlantic between Stepper point and Pentire Point. Apparently the word camel is Cornish for crooked! Um! Most of the upper Camel drains moorland where livestock farming is the main land use. The river is tidal until just up above Wadebridge (which used to have its own quays).

Another Cornish Shrimper heading along the Camel

Copyright Martin

In the lower estuary are several fine beaches...Daymar Bay, Tregirls beach, Harbour Cove and the whole area is designated an area of outstanding natural beauty. There are sites of scientific interest (SSSI’s) as well – so it has a fantastic range of wildlife, flora and scenery to explore and learn about.

Some of the wild flowers on the cliff tops around Padstow

It was only a year ago whilst out on a boat trip that we came across a large basking shark actually inside the outer estuary area......truly an awesome experience! I know the area is a bass nursery and that sea trout and salmon frequent it at different times of year.

My all time favourite marine creature

I've fished Rame Head in Cornwall when these have drifted past no more that 10m away from me!

And so what about the sailing, now that we have covered the geography? Well you can launch trailer sailers at Padstow, although the steepness of that slipway could cause some interesting moments I have to say!

It's steeper than it looks in the photo

I'm not sure my poor old car laden with trailer would make it back up!

The notorious doom bar is at the mouth of the estuary and it has a tragic history. Many ships have been wrecked on it over the centuries. Legend has it that the Mermaid of Padstow created the doom bar as a curse after being shot by a sailor......apparently this Mermaid had been a lucky one up until that point guiding ships safely to harbour and serenading anyone who would be in Hawkers Cove, as she sat upon the rocks there.

Looks idyllic now, but add westerly winds, a retreating tide and an Atlantic swell............

It gets a bit murky after that....some versions of the legend say she met a sailor, fell in love with him and being love sick she tried to lure him down to the ocean deeps......where upon, the sailor realising not all was well in his relationship....shot her! Another version suggests that a local sailor thought she was a seal and so shot her!........Probably not the brightest in the pack was he! Anyway whichever version you like, her dying breath was to curse Padstow and its harbour for all time.........ensuring that it would be unsafe for ever....hence the doom bar.....and some might suggest...the subsequent hordes of people from up north (by the way, down here we regard anyone coming from further that Exeter as being from ‘up north’!)

The RNLI Lifeboat 'Spirit of Padstow' in action

I’m not going to get into all the wrecks that litter that bar area but suffice to say it is genuinely a dangerous place in certain wind and tide combinations. It does open out onto the Atlantic for a start....so there are big swells. Then there 7m tidal ranges; rip-roaring tides going out against North West winds blowing in..........not a good place in bad weather is it? Much of north Cornwall’s coast is also a leeshore.

 

                                              One of Padstow's noisier residents

That said there aren’t many places along the north Cornish coast that provide safe anchorages.....and as long as the winds aren’t blowing from west, then it is a safe navigation into the main channel, or so I am told! I guess you would need to pass it about 2.5 hrs before high tide so that there is sufficient depth of water in the area...but that is only a guess on my part! Part way along the channel you then need to start to look for the creek that branches off to Padstow – it’s marked by green and red buoyage

The Padstow - Rock Ferry departing the outer quay wall ramp............and that massive sandbank in the middle of the estuary!

I think as you near the harbour walls stay close to them – there is a huge sandbank which dries out at low water on the port side as you approach the outer walls! There does seem to be quite a bit of tidal flow in this channel even at low tide. Watch out for other traffic at this point; there is the Padstow/Rock Ferry which regularly commutes across the estuary; the Jubilee Queen operates during the tourist season as do the lovely old wooden jet boats....on top of that are the potting boats and the small charter fishing fleet as well....busy little place!

The famous Jubilee Queen along with a couple of charter fishing boats

5pm on  Friday in early June.....perfect!

Yes..........I definitely feel a possible trip up the Camel in the summer .....now I need to find those charts, almanacs and locals wot know a thing or two about them tides!

Steve

PS  thanks to my son Sam for most of today's photographs