should we move to the exmouth area?

[Burnham_Bob]

We live in Burnham on Crouch at the moment. We didn't sail before me moved here over ten years ago, but took it up and found we enjoyed it. We now own a Trapper 500 fin keel which is just right for us. Currently we sail in the Crouch and the Roach at weekends and when we want to go further afield we have the Blackwater, the Deben, the Orwell and the Stour. Lots of peaceful anchorages with birds and seals and places like Woodbridge and Ipswich with city centre marinas where we can walk into town easily. Ramsgate is seven or eight hours away and Calais is an easy hop, or we can get to Holland from Harwich. The boat is on a swinging mooring in the summer with a launch service from the boatyard and when that's not running its an easy trot out with the dinghy and the outboard. No tidal problems we can sail when we want

But before we started sailing we always thought we'd move back to the West Country when we retired, and thought it would probably be Exmouth area. But now we sail will we have the same good sailing we have here? We can't afford a marina berth so what are our alternatives? Where could we moor and have the same all tide access we have now for day sailing and for long weekends and weeks away where could we sail to?

Advice from forumites please.

 

[ccscott49]

Exmouth is a good place for a cheap mooring, not as cheap as the east coast and heaps of places to go, all the way down to plymouth and beyond, west and up to dorset east, I would consider it.

 

[mormargh]

Nice part of the world (Exmouth!)

I'm lucky enough to regularly sail both in the Southwest and in your current area (in a Trapper 500 no less!). Like Burnham, Exmouth is rather at one end of the local cruising ground and Start Point is a pretty serious tidal gate. Unless you need to have the boat on the doorstep, I would consider whether you could keep her in, say, the Plymouth area (an hour away), which would widen the scope both ways. Not much available East of the Exe for a fin keel boat.

 

[roger]

With the cost of moving house you could probably trade up to a bigger boat.

 

[KAL]

Moorings in the Exe are dirt cheap and easily obtained. Cruising is excellent going west. Depends how much you like passage-making as to how far you can go. It's a great area to live in - just don't tell everyone else!

 

[hlb]

I'm told that the Ex is drying out, and more difficult to get into every year. Some folk moving to Plymouth.

 

[Dave_Rolfe]

Yes, the Exe is silting up a little and is in fact very shallow on the main channel entrance. However, I have been reliably informed that a new channel is opening up much nearer to Dawlish Warren and that it will be buoyed from next year (2009). Speak to Powderham Castle Estate who you lease the seabed from if you have a mooring at Starcross, just opposite Exmouth.