Hugh Marriage Posts

August is obviously the time of year when the Harbour is at its busiest. There are more boats and more people around. The sun shines and the East Portlemouth water temperature is 18°C and rising. So August is when we should think about safety in and around the water. The Harbour Board has to review safety regularly and even has a designated external examiner (as a university might say) to help with the task. But it’s not easy: as anyone…

The miserable weather of May seems a distant memory as June turns up the heat. Suddenly (as last year) the Harbour is busy, with lots of boats moving about, and yachts rafted up on a single mooring in groups of five or six. Even if the Covid restrictions can’t be lifted, life feels a little freer again. But, of course, there are no foreign visitors to speak of. As the UK is no longer part of the EU, regulations have…

The South Devon AONB Estuaries Steering Group meets twice a year and May’s meeting had a full agenda, partly because a number of issues had slowed up during the Covid months of last year. One of the items which particularly affects Salcombe Harbour is pacific oysters. These huge molluscs are native to Asia and have been farmed in Japan for centuries. Because they are really adaptable, they have become the World’s most commercially important oyster variety, supplanting many others. Japan,…

One might think fishing would be one of the least controversial industries but, sadly, that has not been the case for some time. We have just lived through the wrangling over Brexit and the end result isn’t very happy for many in the trade, not least because it seems well-nigh impossible to export live shellfish to Europe (except, it seems happily, from Salcombe, at least at the moment). But fishing’s problems go back so much further than this. For some…

Are we past the worst? The Harbour has comfortably broken even; the fishing fleet is managing to maintain its level of exports to both China and the EU (albeit with increased bureaucracy); another round of now-routine dredging has begun; the contract has been let for the Harbour workshop and maritime units at Batson at a reduced, so therefore affordable, price; and the great majority of last year’s seasonal staff are returning so there should be a full complement on 12 April…

In October 2014, commenting on a super-yacht in Salcombe, I remarked that the Cunard Captain, Inger Klein Thorhauge, who was born and brought up in the Faroe Islands, must have made the ultimate super-yacht visit by taking the Queen Victoria into Klaksvik. And now, as this lovely picture kindly made available by James Day shows, the Queen Victoria has paid a visit locally when she moored off Hope Cove and Thurlestone recently. Jonathan Ward is currently the Captain: he hails…

The Harbour may be empty but there is still stuff going on. The Salcombe-Kingsbridge Conservation Forum has been considering the effects of a lockdown summer. One of these was that more takeaways meant more litter since pizza boxes rapidly overflow the available bins and a gust of wind then carries the boxes into the water. For some reason, as yet undiscovered, fat, oils and, it seems, paints, are repeatedly being poured into the Kingsbridge road drains but, as these drains…

2020 has been an extraordinary year. I wouldn’t recognise a pangolin if I met one (not that this is likely), yet this most docile of creatures, which eats only ants and termites, has brought the world to a standstill. And it’s not over yet: it now emerges that mink, rats, mice, ferrets or voles can catch Covid-19 and pass a mutation back to humans. 2021 has significant rays of hope but also potential black clouds. Some extraordinary things have come…

The autumn is when the Harbour’s infrastructure gets maintained and the moorings lifted and inspected. It is also when the Harbour Board looks at how the finances have turned out and sets a fresh budget, fees and charges for next year. It is, of course, pretty problematic to foresee what may happen next year and equally difficult to work out whether to freeze everything, or to plan ahead as usual. In the end, the Board opted for business as usual,…

The summer was fine, the people returned, and the Harbour was busy. Much of the financial crisis which loomed over it in June may have largely (but not completely) melted away, which is a big relief as it reduces the need for steep increases in fees next year. However, sadly, September’s traditional yacht-club rallies did not happen. They were always going to be problematic as many crews involve people from more than one household, but any hesitancy about whether they…