Hello world!

Welcome to the Blog of Ishtar, a Cobra 850 28ft Sailing yacht based in Cardiff Bay



We've just moved Ishtar to a mooring in the river Cleddau, a few miles up river from Miford Haven. Hoping to do some exploration of the Pembrokeshire national park. Sailing wise, that is, we've dived the coast down here for 20 years.

The trip down:

We left Cardiff at the top of a 12.2m tide - Louise went below as she'd been on nights and I motor sailed us, past the outside of the Nash and Scarweather sands, touching 10 knots speed over ground with wind and engine. The day brightened after a wet start.

The remaining wind vanished and we anchored off Oxwich bay, for an evening of curry and fishing. The former was more successful than the latter.

The next day we set off early, punching the last of the flood as we headed West. We were joined by common dolphin, playing in the bow wave and seemingly, teaching their young the rules:

 A short video:



Some chop off St Govan's and punching the tide again off Freshwater West, but we finally made Milford around 17:00. Delighted.

Up the river, past Milford, Pembroke and Neyland and under the Cleddau bridge:

Navigating the upper Cleddau was easy, with the help of the invaluable 'Sea guide to Pembrokeshire' by Tom Bennett, published by Imray, ISBN 978 085288 99 0

We arrived at our temporary mooring, Llangwm, and dived to set up our mooring chains:

The upper reaches of the Cleddau are beautiful and unspoilt, and Llangwm is a perfect and peaceful mooring. We are so lucky to be able to 'borrow' a mooring there for the summer.

We are here: