Appledore Pool - a 4 knot mooring

Another disturbed night afloat, this time at Clovelly, some 6 NM from the Tor/Torrridge estuary. I had intended this to be my port of call after Padstow, but wind and tide made Lundy Island a better late decision destination. Clovelly looks from the sea as though each house has been built on the roof of the one lower down the hillside, so steep is the gradient. A tiny stone harbour for the braver sailor offers a drying berth. Clovelly’s not a place to sail to in the dark as lobster pots/keeps litter the shoreline by the dozen and although clearly visible in daylight - tiny black flags, one could easily sail through the middle of them when making for the recommended anchorage after dusk, especially if you approach from the direction of Hartland Point – all those sailing from the SW

An odd mixture of incoming tide sweeping along the coast, wind coming inshore and swell coming in diagonally kept the long-keeled Equinox spinning on her anchor and spasmodically broadside to the swell. Rattle and Roll does not make for a good night.

After a late scrambled eggs and coffee, I headed for the RNLI mooring in Appledore Pool - my home for the next week. Timing is everything as up to a 5 knot tide; a mainly drying estuary and a constantly shifting bar, at the entrance, on which crash impressive rollers, makes for precise planning and careful navigation. You pick up the fairway buoy no earlier than 2 hours before high tide and head on a course of 118 degrees precisely. The joyride begins just offshore and parallel to Braunton Sands at some 7 knots SOG with the engine at little over tick-over, massive waves breaking to starboard and constant helm adjustments needed in the swirling eddies. Then a dog leg to starboard and still running at incredible speed you’re swept upstream towards Bideford. Loose your concentration for a moment and the depth reduces alarmingly - alarm blaring and accompanying panic attacks. The underwater ledges, to your port, are wicked. I’ve fished off their jagged ridges at low tide; and I dread to think what the consequences of an engine failure or a misread approach would be. I then had trouble finding the RNLI mooring and resorted to asking a chap on a massive rib where it was. He pointed out a single red buoy, which I had passed twice but was deterred by the ‘No Landing or Mooring’ printed on it. The No Landing gives a clue as to its size; and even so, the sheer power of the tide was pushing it half under. Trailing some 12 feet behind it in the 4 knot current, were two tethers as thick as my arm! Writhing pythons!

I’ve never picked up a mooring in such circumstances; and it took four attempts before I got the throttle set correctly - approaching upstream at barely a snail’s pace. Then using my hand-held remote control coaxed her to a rendezvous with the tethers. This meant kneeling at the bow, boathook in one hand, remote in the other, making constant directional changes in the swirling current and then finally, when close enough making a lunge for one of them....... Never again! I really mean never! The three failed approaches had me sweating with angst as each was made slightly too fast, so I either ran over the tethers, dashing back to the cockpit to put the engine in neutral before a tether tangled in the prop or messing up with the book hook. With hindsight, I should have waited until slack water, but in my defence I never expected the mooring, described in Reeds Almanacas being in ‘Appledore Pool’ to be in the main channel. Pool to me means tranquil, still or slow moving. Evidenty I'm wrong, so a lesson learnt!

A well chilled Speckled Hen was in order, as I started packing for disembarkation! I do so love that word. It sounds like a Jamaican vet’s description of canine surgery.

‘Cum back t’morra mornin Miss Marley and collect y’dog; I’ll disembark him in d’operatin theatre dis’afta noon . He’ll be reel quiet f’you den!’