Poole harbour ideas?

[acraw]

Hi all
Will be in Poole harbour next week with my 4m rib and wondered if anyone had any advice of where to go or what to do. Don't think family will be pleased with going round and round Brownsea!
Fairly new to it all, so nothing too difficult.

Thanks
Alistair

[BigE]

You could take a trip up to Swanage, it's quite pretty and has some nice places for food and drink.

[paulbrown22]

Swanage and Studland are the obvious options just outside the harbour, nice beaches at both, and easy anchorages. A wonderful town to explore at Swanage with loads of quaint little shops, and a tiny village at Studland with a traditional village shop, church, good cream teas from Manor Farm, and various cafes along the beach.

If the family like a slow exploration, I really enjoy the trip up the River Frome and through the reed beds to Wareham, where you can tie up on the stone quay and visit the village. If fed up with Brownsea, you can go round the back of Green Island as well, past Goathorn Point, and behind Round/Long Islands at Arne. All very quiet spots to visit for a peaceful afternoon.

Speed limit in the harbour at the moment is 10kn, with 6kn in some places (behind Brownsea Island, up by Poole Quay, etc)

[boristhebold]

Here are some ideas;

1. Go past Poole Quay and head up holes bay, you will go under two bridges, poole bridge and the new twin sails bridge, the old poole bridge is having work done on it but you can go through, the twin sails bridge is worth viewing, watch it open if you get timming correct. Channel 12 is the bridge control VHF. Both have lights on 3 red mean dont go through, 3 green mean you have right of way to proceed as they would be on red the other side, flashing red means stop imediately as in an emergency situation dont proceed through, 3 red and one orange means proceed through if safe to do so. In holes bay is also the rnli college and boat works.

2. A trip to studland, head for the south beach area of the bay, anchor or tie up on bankes arms buoys or land ashore as in beach it, the bankes arms is a short walk away it has good food and a micro brewery. Watch out for some rocks which catch many boaters out not far from the beach.

3. Old Harry, ballard down and swanage, you can get a water taxi in swanage, nice seaside town, a good quiet anchoring spot is to the north of the bay.

4. Dulrston head, not far from swanage further west, lots of sea birds hangout on the cliffs.

5. A cruise around the islands, head as though your going out the harbour but by brownsea castle look for a channel which sweeps around a few islands, 6 knots max a nice cruise around some islands, but keep an eye on depth guage and stay within the posts as marked. by the way once you get to a certain point the colour of the posts swop round, as in for half the journey your heading in and then your heading out, that can catch some people out.

6, a cruise within the harbour heading past ferry terminal. past the marines and sbs base and up the wareham channel and further up the wareham river, you can get right to wareham and tie up by the quay where there are a few pubs, fish and chips etc. watch your speed up wareham river and it is rather tight in some places, also check the tide as it can get shallow.

also top tip get a decent map of the area to cover swanage, studland and approaches and also the main harbour, plus tide times, force4 (piplers) on poole quay.

[cgf10]

At some point you will require a nice burger. Lake Yard Marina and bar is a nice mid Harbour stop off place. If the weathers good they have a nice terrace looking dough towards Corfe Castle. On Poole Quay we like Portsmouth Hoy and the Micro bar. The RNLI college has a really nice restaurant. You can't tie up alongside the restaurant as the berths are reserved for RNLI but it's only a short walk back from the Poole town Quay.

[lukewhiting]

This was tonight at old Harry rocks...just to tempt you!

Another good trip you can do from Poole is to mudeford quay at Christchurch and stop at the pub for lunch then head home

[acraw]

Thanks everyone some great ideas. Couple of questions I assume the trip to Wareham is a case of go in with the tide and then out with it? Also for launching? I assume most people use Baiter as the marinas are very expensive?

[allroad4]

Wareham is generally reachable at all tide states. It is slow-going due to the speed limit but certainly worth the trip. The slip at Baiter gets very busy and depending on the tide is very shallow. Rockley Park at top end of Hamworthy has a slip at all states of the tide and I think it is around £25 to launch but that includes car parking too.

[paulbrown22]

In a small boat Wareham should be okay at most tide states. It does get pretty shallow in places, so maybe avoid low water springs, and stick to the outside of some of the bends at LW.

Are you thinking of launching/recovering the boat each day, or you want to leave in the water for the long weekend/week. If you want to leave in for the week, one of the marinas might do a deal with slipway access as well, or Poole Quay Boat Haven might be able to offer some overnight berths if you launch elsewhere and just want to leave in sometimes.

[acraw]

Originally Posted by paulbrown22

In a small boat Wareham should be okay at most tide states. It does get pretty shallow in places, so maybe avoid low water springs, and stick to the outside of some of the bends at LW.

Are you thinking of launching/recovering the boat each day, or you want to leave in the water for the long weekend/week. If you want to leave in for the week, one of the marinas might do a deal with slipway access as well, or Poole Quay Boat Haven might be able to offer some overnight berths if you launch elsewhere and just want to leave in sometimes.

Thanks I will doing in/out each day giving the flexibility to pick and choose day depending on weather and family. We will be up near sandbanks end where the kite surfers are. Does anyone use the Shell Bay slip?

[paulbrown22]

Friends used to use Shell Bay, but must admit I've never used it. It does get very shallow there, I don't know if thereare any tidal restrictions or not for the slip itself.

Unless you're going to drive the long way round, you'll end up paying 2 fees to tow over the chain ferry (another £15-20 each day), so might then be cheaper/easier just to use one of the Poole/Parkstone marinas?

[acraw]

First of all thankyou for all the ideas/help, we had a great week last week, the weather helped
In the end we used Salterns Marina, as it was close to the apartment we used, and to be fair they were great, not at all stuffy about our small boat. The slip is tidal, but the marina is not, so we put in and hired a mooring for the week, which makes life easy for us newbies. The cost was reasonable and was £37 slip cost and £14 per night. So we are using them again later in the year.
The highlight of the week was the trip to Wareham, and tying up next to the pub for lunch, so thanks for that recommendation. We were not brave enough this time to leave the harbour, but that leaves a new adventure for the trip in July.
Happy Sunny Days

[paulbrown22]

Excellent news, glad you enjoyed it. We used to keep our old RIB in Salterns and had very good service there, always very accommodating. Great to hear the Wareham trip was a success as well, I always really enjoy that one myself. You were very lucky with the weather, this week and the coming weekend look like a bit of a disaster!

[fjc2013]

Do you know if you there is any moorings for a 6m rib at brownsea island at all state of the tide?

[paulbrown22]

In the Wych channel (north side of Brownsea) yes, loads of private moorings, all accessible at all times - I keep a 40' sailing yacht over there. Depending on what you are thinking, you can't access Brownsea itself from that side, you need to go to the western and southern sides to be able to go ashore, but it is a fairly sheltered mooring location.

Salterns Marina certainly have moorings in the Wych that they will rent to visitors, and provide a free water taxi service. Most of the rest are private/yacht clubs, although potentially some of the yacht clubs might rent out as well if not in use by members.

[RichardinNZ]

Glad Wareham was the highlight....my home town.