Sailing in Pembrokeshire

The Milford Haven waterway is a drowned river valley, deep, long and sheltered, and it has been called one of the best natural harbours in the world for about four hundred years. For sailors that means a large area of protected water with genuine sea at the end of it — you can learn in a dinghy off a beach and, in the same week, watch a boat set off for Ireland.

Dale is the sailing village. It sits in a bay that faces up the waterway, sheltered from the prevailing south-westerlies by the whole peninsula, with a slipway, moorings and a long history of teaching people to sail dinghies. Dale beach shelves gently, the water is flat in most conditions, and there is a safety boat about. If you want to learn in Pembrokeshire, this is where.

Upstream, Neyland has the main marina, with Milford Haven and Pembroke Dock also on the water. Above the bridges the Daugleddau opens into quiet wooded reaches past Lawrenny — shallow, tidal, and a lovely afternoon in a small boat with the depth sounder on. On the south coast, Saundersfoot has a harbour that dries, Tenby has an anchorage in the lee of Caldey, and Solva is a narrow, twisting inlet that has to be entered on a rising tide and is one of the more satisfying pieces of pilotage on the coast.

For a cruising boat, the county is a crossroads. West lies the run out past St Ann's Head to Skomer, Skokholm and Grassholm; north is the passage up to Ramsey and the north coast; and Ireland is a night's sail away. All of it is governed by tidal gates. Jack Sound and Ramsey Sound run hard enough that passages are planned around slack water rather than around lunch, and Ramsey Sound's rock ridge, The Bitches, produces overfalls that will spoil anyone's day.

A first dinghy course is usually two days or five, mostly on the water, and you will capsize deliberately on the first morning so it stops being frightening. Club racing on summer evenings is the cheapest way to improve and most clubs will find a crew place for a willing beginner who turns up and asks.

Season runs April to September, with the best of it in May, June and September when the wind is steadier and the moorings are less crowded. August has more people and, often, less wind.

What catches people out: this is a commercial port. Tankers under pilotage move fast, cannot alter course meaningfully, and are not looking for you. Know where the channel is. The second thing is the entrance — the stretch between St Ann's Head and Angle turns nasty when a strong south-westerly meets a spring ebb, and a passage that was comfortable in the morning may not be at teatime. The third is fog. It comes in off the Irish Sea in spring with very little warning and a GPS is not a substitute for having stayed at the mooring.