Back in early 2022, Mary and I stood on Barnstaple Quay and admired its row of smart ladders, timber fender posts and rings for mooring warps. But something was missing: there were no boats, and locals confirmed that visiting yachts were very rare. We had come by road, for a recce, and were determined to re-visit by water, although charts and pilot books were highly discouraging.
An expedition to Barnstaple, on the estuary of the rivers Taw and Torridge, is hard work – a passage to a notorious lee shore, across a dangerous harbour bar, up a tricky river, over drying banks and finally under a not-very-high bridge. Despite the natural obstacles, the town served as a busy port for more than a thousand years, largely because the southern shore of the Bristol Channel has no harbours with all-tide, all-weather access. Estuary silting restricted commercial shipping and, in 2007, a bypass bridge created a new obstacle, downstream of the town.
THE LEE SHORE
The north coast of Cornwall and Devon (Diagram 1 and 2) faces Atlantic weather, with all harbour entrances dry or very shallow at low water. Outside the Taw-Torridge estuary, Bideford Bay can become a nasty trap in strong winds from the NW, and a prudent
