What is the worst marina/ harbour you have ever been to?

jdc said:
We must have been to a different Howth; when we went there in October 2014 they were amazingly welcoming and friendly and the facilities are superb.

You have to realise that it's privately owned by the club and is already full with quite a waiting list of club members, so a visitor is a guest rather than a customer.
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+1 I found Howth a very pleasant stop over.

JumbleDuck said:
What's wrong with Lower Fishguard, I've only ever driven through, but the harbour looks nice:

the-harbour-at-lower.jpg
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Stayed in Fishguard last year . Town's a bit limited but harbour is fine.

Amlwch, Anglesey takes the biscuit. £17 to raft on a wall covered in stinking fish remnants, no showers, water or toilets and pilot boat departs in the small hours requiring visitors to cast off. I was reluctant to use the place when it was free, redeemed only by the the nearby Adelphi Arms offering showers.
 
Quiddle said:
Amlwch, Anglesey takes the biscuit. £17 to raft on a wall covered in stinking fish remnants, no showers, water or toilets and pilot boat departs in the small hours requiring visitors to cast off. I was reluctant to use the place when it was free, redeemed only by the the nearby Adelphi Arms offering showers.
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Sounds as if it should be twinned with Portpatrick. Very similar experience there.
 
Ramsgate fine, but I had to enter about 10 pubs before I found a pint of real ale.

Grimsby was not too bad, if you ignored the rotting piles. Lots of metal boats set up for long distance cruising which were going nowhere, I thought, so a bit sad. I had a friend from London who said, "I feel out of place here". A different country indeed.

Port Edgar was great under the bridges, but they employ a woman ("Control") who doesn't much like her work or yachts, perhaps.

Portpatrick needs to sort out its toilets. Mind you, most people don't seem to pay when they visit.
 
KevO said:
Arrived piss-wet through on a Service Sadler 34 on a January evening having been battered stupid all the way round the mull. Heading for a shoreside shower and drink in the Royal Hotel, I stepped off onto the pontoon in the dark and slid right off the other side on a thick slimy layer of seagull ****. Made it out of the water with no fresh clean clothes left and only one deckshoe. Dragged some 'less' smelly clothes out of the dobey bag and managed to get to the hotel in one piece. The lift broke down on the way to what I think was the 4th floor, stuck for nearly an hour. Slipped over in the bath while showering and broke 2 ribs on the bath-side. Stumbled to a series of nearby pubs (in the pissing rain) where my "nutter magnet" was stuck on full-power. 8 pints, 4 fights, 3 or 4 drams and a bag o' chips later.... back to the boat...

Slipped over on the pontoon for the second time... covered in sticky, stinky shite from head to toe again.
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But, apart from that? ;)
 
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AND, And I know I've said it before but I have (unfortunately in storage now) an old 1950's pilot book which describes Malaig as "Predominantly a fishing port, the fishermen not very well disposed to yachtsmen, nor indeed to each other."
 
To do this "survey" properly the various aspects of a good and bad marina experience have to be rated (more or less in order of importance):

1) Approach and navigation
2) Shelter
3) Cost
4) Facilities
5) Staff courtesy and helpfulness
6) Local ambiance
 
I have never taken my boat there, but Peterhead marina must be a bit grim. No pub etc nearby, and sited in the middle of an oil service base. No wonder it is cheapest rates in all uk in annual magazine surveys.
 
OceanSprint said:
I have never taken my boat there, but Peterhead marina must be a bit grim. No pub etc nearby, and sited in the middle of an oil service base. No wonder it is cheapest rates in all uk in annual magazine surveys.
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Strangely enough, Peterhead marina is OK. It's beside what's really quite a nice sandy beach and this year we actually managed to find a nice pub, although it was quarter of an hour's walk away. And the marina manager is a nice guy, although you need to take his tips on tidal gates with a pinch of salt. They'll even speak English to you, though the chat between Port Control and the locals is quite incomprehensible.
 
Lowestoft Hamilton Dock, nice pontoons but craphole location. RNSYC much nicer.
Funny, I like Ramsgate, Dover, Boulogne, and have been very glad of Eastbourne on a rough trip.
QAB Plymouth defo very bouncy though.
 
OceanSprint said:
I have never taken my boat there, but Peterhead marina must be a bit grim. No pub etc nearby, and sited in the middle of an oil service base. No wonder it is cheapest rates in all uk in annual magazine surveys.
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When I was there in 2013, I was advised by the harbourmaster that I could not enter the marina at LW due to silting after a bad storm and I had to tie up to the harbour tug in one of the fish docks. They could not have been more welcoming. We were invited up in the harbourmaster's office, got an extensive account of the history of fishing and the oil industry, were invited into the giant and mostly empty fish market hall. When there was enough water we went across to the marina, which was quite allright. Stocking up with diesel was rather an adventure, but apart from that, no complaints about Peterhead. We only stopped for the night, though, and did not visit the town. Hartlepool was far worse, as I me,tioned before.
 
Lisbon in the early '70s in the grip of typhoid ? outbreak - kids sitting under the big bridge puking up, some kind of civil unrest/strike going on - everything very glum. Think it's changed a bit now.

But still in Portugal we've got Leixos and it's rats - big 'uns too !
 
May I nominate Great Yarmouth.

Harbour staff initially curt and unhelpful, then completely unresponsive (VHF or phone). Lie up to rough wall on town quay in strong tide with projections that defy protection of a small boat with fenders and board (up every half hour all night to adjust them to suit flow/height). No suitable rings or bollards to tie onto (unmodified ship quay), so you have to tie to the cat's cradle of gash bits of rope and string you find there. To arrange this you have to climb up the wall, where you find the quay is popular as a dog toilet.

When (or if) the bridge will lift to give access to the Broads is a closely guarded secret - no information (about this or anything else) is provided at the Bridge or town quay, and harbour control don't answer phone or VHF. The lift has to be booked the previous working day, office hours only. Whether anyone has already booked it who can tell? If there are any facilities we certainly didn't find them.

Throughout the evening and night the road along the town quay is used as a drag race track and sound system volume test facility by the local youths who have cars, while those without cars use the quay for drinking, shouting, fighting, urinating and vomiting.

All the more galling is that the town looks like it desperately needs to find ways of attracting some extra cash into the place, could be a real gateway to the Broads and an attractive stopover for coastal cruisers , and appears to have extensive areas of vacant land on the river/harbour side.
 
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