Sept 27th

Today there were more boats leaving the water than on it. As Summer draws to a close the little day boats on the moorings are slowly being taken to the Village Lane slip where they are taken up to the Promenade for their Winter hibernation.
It was extremely quiet in the Bay. The Mumbles Lifeboat briefly disturbed the peice for a few moments during a launch and subsequent recovery but even this was a corporate event and not a mercy mission. The Bay itself was as flat as a mill pond and with only 1-2mph of wind and sunny intervals it was an extremely pleasant 3hrs pottering around under motor. Both Harry and Elliot helmed and although Elliot hasn't quite got the knack of keeping us going in a straight line it was very amusing watching him try!
Unfortunately, the camera was left at home but the fishing rods were kept pretty busy, in total we caught six fish, 3 Pollock and 3 Red Gurnard. Although, 1 of the Pollock was pretty small so was put back for another day. On the way home we stopped for some charcoal and you can guess the rest.

Sept 12th

We went for the quick get away today as The Mumbles Yacht Club was
hosting a Topper Nationwide Event. There were 184 Toppers in and around the boat park so we decided to leave the sails behind and just go under motors (plural). Clare did mention 1 motor and a pair of oars but lets just say I knew who would be doing the rowing if something had happened, hence 2 motors.
Well... a woman's intuition prevailed! I managed to break a part of the starting mechanism on the 4 stroke Honda whilst afloat but still at anchor. So we spent the next 3 hrs pottering with the spare 2 stroke (Yamaha Malta) What a great little engine, very light and pushed us along quite happily. In fact this little engine has really opened our eyes and will
probably be our second choice of propulsion from now on,
sails obviously being the first.
I started the day by taking the boat down to the boat park prior to the Topper crowds and had a good chat to an owner of a Drascombe long boat (21'). He comes from Hereford but makes the trip to Mumbles quite regularly. This was the first time we had met, they were off down the coast to Three Cliffs and as the owner rigged his crew were digging for bait. With this in mind I decided it was time to purchase my first fishing rod (not a brothers hand me down whilst in my early teens)
Too cut a fairly long story short we had an excellent afternoon in Swansea Bay getting close to the Topper racing coupled with a quick jaunt through the outer sound (gap between the lighthouse and middle island) to Limeslade and back. For tea we had Gurnard and Mackrel which were both caught by Harry using his £5.99 rod and reel!!