Six Cardinals of the Severn

Setting out from St Donats

Combination of a spring tide, the prospect of another gift day for sea paddling, and a wonderful understanding wife, were the ingredients to go play on the Severn Estuary.

The proposition was to just ride the Severn tide down for most of the day and back again, just to see what happened. Richard was interested. So we left St Donats with approx. 3 hours left of the ebb.

To add a little interest and to break up the monotony a bit we came up with the idea of following a line of cardinal buoys that seemed to have been placed in a perfect position just for the job, that also led us to a fairly large sand bank (nice place to stop for a bite to eat we thought).

Heading past East Nash along the Glamorgan Heritage Coast

East Nash Cardinal taking the strain at Nash Sound

Sticking our noses out towards Nash Point we are making a good 5 knots towards the Sound without dipping a paddle in. We clock up about 8 knots as we paddle past the East Nash Cardinal.

Next up is the Mid Nash South Cardinal.

Richard a few miles offshore at the Mid Nash South Cardinal 

Mid Nash South Cardinal

This trip now becomes a case of joining the dots, as we head on a bearing from buoy to buoy. Each one is approx. 4 nautical miles away from the other so to begin with we can't see them. We head on a bearing to where we think they are. It becomes a bit of a game to see who can spot the next match stick on the horizon first. At about 3 nautical miles away one of us normally spots them. Then we have something to aim at rather than paddle on a wish. At about 3/4 mile the head markings normally become clearly visible - this is with the sun behind us on a perfectly clear day.

Richard spots a single gannet up in the sky, and then below it a porpoise.

We sit and watch as it trawls for fish.

Magic to watch.

Porpoise trawling the Bristol Channel

Before very long we arrive at West Nash cardinal.

West Nash Cardinal

Next hop is over to the South Cardinal at South Scar.

South Scar Cardinal at Scarweather Sands

This is where we had planned to stop for our lunch. There is no sand bar to be seen. We have made good time and the tide has not turned yet. We see plenty of waves breaking over the sand bank and decide to take a closer look.

Seeing some interesting rough water we decide to head over to the waves breaking over the sand bank

The mast/tower thing is or was a monitoring site for an offshore wind farm which has now been shelved.
Some very tasty waves are seen and we have a little play in the rough water.

Surf spot some 5 nautical miles offshore - no boardies out here to drop in on

I can only imagine that this spot must be the gateway to some neptunous hell on a rough day!  Some 100m further on and all is back to an oily flat calm sea . . .

Given the good time we have made and we still have an ebbing flow, we decide to continue on towards the West Weather Cardinal.

West Scarweather

We stop here for a lunch break. Slack is approaching. While munching away I notice on the chart that there is one more cardinal, the Ledge South Cardinal, a few nautical miles away. A pity really to have come this far and not bag that one as well. So we decide to give it a go. We put our backs into it and manage to reach it despite the tide having turned.

The Ledge South Cardinal - time to go home

We both look at the chart and think it's a job well done. Only need to paddle all the way home now.

With all the sights taken in, we don't bother to stop on the way back. Just make a B-line for Nash Point.

Passing Nash Point lighthouse before the final slog around to St Donats

For what could be regarded by most as a pointless boring paddle, this has been quite an amazing days paddle.

37 nautical miles (69 km) covered in just over 7.5 hours - channel riding at its best!

69 km round trip

Purple Haze. Not quite Hendrix, but still an experience

I really enjoyed the late evening paddle last night. The high pressure and calm weather are still with us, so decided on a repeat of the trip out from Southerndown beach to the Mid Nash buoy to catch the last of the day's rays.

Leaving at about 1900 the water was like a mill pond. With no wind to talk about I'm at the buoy within 40mins.

More Black Yellow Black Cardinal Buoy than
"White Boy Black Boy Blues"

It's not until you get to the anchored buoy that you have any idea of the speed of the water flow that you're traveling over.

Golden Brown texture like sun . . .

There is a lazy hazy feel about the evening. No sound at all other than when I'm paddling. It's bordering on the transcendental.

I see wind

You can see the light breeze on the water. It's dancing in front of your eyes, the pattern it introduces to the water reveals its intention, you can anticipate the moment it touches you as it approaches.

The sun heads on down and the sky turns colour and the offshore wind begins to play with the mirror finish as the balance of heat changes from land to sea.

The Purple Haze

The sun disappears over the horizon, and I turn and head on back to dry land.
As I said, not quite Hendrix, but still an experience.


5.9Nm (11km)

Kayak, Still sea, Nash and not so Young

I think a high pressure system may be sitting over the top of my house. The weather has been glorious all day, there is no wind, the sun has been out and it's Friday evening. It's getting late but I'm in need of some paddling, really quite fancy a dusky excursion.

Driving down the road to the beach I can see out across the flat calm Bristol Channel and spy the Mid Nash buoy way out off the coast and the Somerset coast beyond. That's it then, a paddle out to the buoy and back before dark.

The tide has started to ebb and we are on neaps. The navigation on this is going to be a bit suck and see, the buoy is directly off the coast so some sort of ferry glide is in order. Leaving the, now exposed, sandy beach at Southerndown I head out towards the middle of the Bristol Channel. Keeping the buoy on the down stream side, I use some dips in the hills on the backdrop as transit points and paddle out towards the Nash sand bar. It's very calm, almost eerie out here on your own.

Crossing over the sand bar and approaching the deeper waters the transit points are moving and I have to adjust my ferry angle as the tidal flow really starts to become apparent. The last few hundred yards I have to work hard not to miss the buoy. But I make it.

Mid Nash south cardinal buoy

3 miles off the coast and starting the return trip, I decide to let the coastguard know that I will be returning to shore and arriving at dusk. I didn't want the embarrassment of looking up at the Porthcawl lifeboat. Jim and Neil had that pleasure last year on a dusk paddle when they were helped out by a 999 call from a walker on an evening stroll.

After the normal questions of "what colour is your boat?" and "what's your ETA?", I'm rather amused by the question "what life saving equipment do you have on board?". I thought better of the reply that I would just nip below decks and check. Visions of defibrillators were going through my mind, so I asked politely that I didn't quite know what she meant. Lifejacket was what she was after. I didn't like to tell her I was already wearing it, just in case she got the wrong impression and thought I was expecting to go down.

The trip back towards the shore is a nice relaxed paddle, the sky begins to dim as the sun slips behind some low grey clouds that have materialised. The smell of bar-b-q smoke and fire lighter drift on the offshore evening wind playing with my nose and the flicker of the orange flames come into view on the approaching beach.

I land as the sun finally slips out from behind some clouds and starts doing that wonderful trick of turning into a fiery orange disk as it slips over the edge. Rock on the summer.

Sands of Time

Sea kayaking on the Bristol Channel can't get much better than this in February, can it?

I’m going to take you to a private island that will be all yours for the duration of your stay, and a sandy beach filled with sand of such fine quality that it is dredged for its renowned smoothness.


The down side of this is that the beach is notorious, nay often described as treacherous and it is not attached to the island. To maximise your stay on either you will need to visit them a few hours either side of spring low tide. But I think it’s worth the effort.

Nash Sandbank is the sandy beach, and the detached island is of course our trusty Tusker Rock.

Leaving St Donat's Bay

Adrian, myself, Jim and Richard, leave the slipway at Atlantic College on a fantastic clear morning.

Jim in full swing

And head westward with the ebbing tide.

Approach to Nash Sound from the east

Cwm Marcross

At Cwm Marcross, the eastern tip of Nash Sandbank lies just off the cliffs of Nash.

Richard finding some excitement in the slightly confused water

Shadowed by the two Nash Lighthouses, the sandbank here is marked by an east cardinal buoy. The west Nash cardinal is a further 8 miles along the sand bank and can't be seen from here, not even on a day like this.

Our little place for a while

The Mid Nash cardinal, well, is in between the two in, errr the middle.
Not all of this vast sand bank is visible at low tides, but enough on the eastern side dries out on a spring low tide to enable a brief visit.

On Nash Sands looking down the sandbar towards the west

I think it's quite impressive.

My blue boat having a rest

Strange things happen at sea

The sand bank has a history of taking many lives, most notably the disaster that occured on the 16th of March 1831. The passenger steamer “Frolic” was wrecked on the sandbank, with the tragic loss of all on board (estimated at 80 passengers and crew – General MacLeod, army officers and Pembrokshire merchants among them).


As a consequence of the public outcry that followed, in 1832, Trinity House built the two lighthouses that can be seen today.

An early etching of the lighthouses at Nash Point

The Nash lighthouse was the last manned lighthouse in Wales. It’s other claim to fame is that in 1977 a rare tuberous thistle (Cirsium Tuberosum) was discovered growing in an unploughed limestone pasture in it’s grounds. Just thought you might like to know.

There are tales of the sand bank being used to gain revenge:

In the mid-15th century Sir Harry Stradling set sail from Somerset (his permanent residence) to visit his castle at St.Donats and en route his ship was captured by the Breton pirate Colyn Dolphyn. His ransom of 2,000 marks was so high that he was forced to sell his manors of Sutton (Glamorgan) and manors of Bassalleg, Rogerston and Tregwillim (Monmouth).
A year or so later he received information that this same pirate was approaching the Glamorgan coast, probably to revictual her in one of the inlets near St.Donats. That night by the use of false lights on the cliffs, Sir Harry lured this ship on to the treacherous sandbank at Nash Point, where he and his followers captured Colyn Dolphyn. After a summary trial, for which he was afterwards severely reprimanded, the pirate was condemned to death. The method of his execution was to bury him up to his neck in the sand at the mouth of Tresillian Cave, leaving him to drown when the tide came in. It is said that his screams still haunt Tresillian.
Stradling - Legends of St. Donat's Castle

Children in the local school at Wick, re-tell the story of Colyn Dolphyn the pirate – who used to take refuge on the island of Lundy.

Adrian crossing the sandbank

Leaving these tales of woe behind we head out towards the Mid Nash cardinal with the last of the ebb, arriving at slack water.

Richard passes Mid Nash Cardinal

Glamorgan Heritage Coast at its best

We head now against the start of the flooding tide, towards Tusker Rock to stop off for our lunch break.

Tusker has it's own stories to tell

We sit and watch as the tide begins to rise and reclaim the rock. This place also has claimed many lives and vessels in the past - but I think we'll leave this for another time - enough history for one post I think.

Looking back towards Nash from Tusker

After taking our tucker on Tusker, we hitch a ride on the accelerating conveyor back through Nash Sound at a sedate 6.8 knots.

Rounding Nash Point we head on back to St Donat's Bay to finish quite a spectacular day's paddling.

14.5Nm (26km)