There is a new piece of litter on the beach this month, a rather aged fibreglass yacht which lies stranded on the shingle at the north end of the beach.

The abandoned boat now wears a bilingual enforcement notice

I first saw it on 5 August, when not one but two boats had come ashore, the Hot Toddy and another boat  which was on the sand half way down the strand near the concrete barrier.  That second yacht has now been removed, while the Hot Toddy has today been pasted with a Council Notice.  Under Section 40 of the Aberystwyth Harbour Act 1987 it will shortly be removed and disposed of unless the owner serves a counter notice and removes it themselves.

The Hot Toddy on tanybwlch beach

Passers-by gather to inspect it and exchange news.  I have been told that the second boat got in to difficulties trying to help the Hot Toddy and both ended up on the beach. Another source had heard that the Hot Toddy was sailed ( or motored) by a complete amateur with no sailing skills who had bought the old boat in Cardiff and was trying to sail it to Liverpool!  It certainly appears that the owner has not identified themselves, and has abandoned it.  I looked more closely at it today and met an experienced sailor who owns a similar boat  He told me that, unlike with cars, the registration of boats is voluntary and an old one such as this could be bought for £2000 or so.   The costs of disposing of it will probably exceed any scrap value.

Further down the beach I checked up on another piece of flotsam, the Tanybwlch dragon which I first wrote about in December 2019.  This heraldic-looking tree trunk has been moving around the beach ever since, ( it even disappeared for a while), its dragon head steadily eroding away as storms rolled it on the pebbles until the likeness was lost.  Now it has had its final come-uppance, its headless body incorporated into a beach bonfire,  and now burnt through to create two pieces of charred trunk.

Demise of the Tanybwlch Dragon

A copious amount of timber, trunks and branches, brought down river, washes up on the south end of this beach and is soon de-barked by the action of the sea.  I wonder who was the creative soul who came down with saw and screwdriver and fashioned  the fine rustic bench which looks out to sea from the stones where the Wheatears breed.

A driftwood bench overlooking Cardigan bay

The Tanybwlch bench

For a while there was also a driftwood arbour tied together with fishermens’ rope and twine, but this blew down and disappeared.  Always something new to look out for on my favorite beach.

It is to be hope though that along with the disposal of the Hot Toddy the Council’s attention with be focused on the continuing collapse of the retaining wall above the river where the cars park.  It is two years since a temporary repair was done with white bags full of rocks.  Most of these have now washed away and the winter storms will play havoc with the remaining structure.  If only the small hole which developed before during Storm Ciara in 2020 had been promptly filled with cement!

The white bags protecting the riverside wall have mostly collapsed and more of the wall will soon follow.