Salcombe Institution up for Sale

You may think I am going to tell you that Salcombe Yacht Club or The Marine Hotel are up for sale...NO...this is far more important! Captain Morgans is on the market and could be yours for a very reasonable £130k...

I wish I was in a position to buy this place as it could be a real gold mine. I hate to think how much I have spent on bacon sandwiches there over the years!!! At £130k I would say it's a steal, surely if you get it right you could turnover at least £200k a year?

If I was the Salcombe Coffee Company chap I would be snapping this place up to cater for the over-flow form his Fore St cafe and the plentiful punters getting off their boats in the summer.

Also for sale is what I presume is the Oyster Shack which I hadn't heard was for sale. This you can get for £125k, £5k less than Captain Morgans. I must admit I have never felt the need to go to Island Street and pay a fortune to look out a mud whilst eating an over priced seafood meal...maybe I am not the only one and this is the reason for the sale and the cheap price??

Read the prospectus for both businesses....

Salcombe's Waterski Conundrum

So the water skiing in the estuary scenario seems to have raised its head again. This debate has been going on for years. I can remember when I was about 15 and we nearly had agreement to be able to water-ski up at Widegates but at the last minute the decision went against. We still did in but made sure that we weren't being towed when people were around. No-one ever reported us or made an issue of it...plus we weren't going anywhere near as fast as we did on our windsurfers!

It's reminiscent of the ongoing debate up in the Lake District. The main arguments against are the disturbance of the natural habitat in an AONB. Despite my escapades of youth I tend to side with the "NO" stance as the Kingsbridge/Salcombe Estuary is one of the most amazing places in the UK. Do we really need the scream of outboard engines shattering the peace & quiet and scaring the wildlife or the wash from the outboards gradually eroding the shorelines and the habitats of the creatures that dwell on these shores??

The again...the prevailing winds send a large chop onto the shores of Widegates and some places in South Pool so that seems to negate the outboard wash argument to a certain extent, and up at Widegates most people open up their outboards to in excess of 20 knots anyway and it's generally excepted to be ok.

I can see the water skiers point of view as South Pool Creek or Widegates would be awesome places to water ski in safety. However, bar one horrific incident in Starehole Bay about 18 years ago I have never seen any safety issues out there. I think the safety issue is more of a cloak for the less than ideal conditions usually found in Starehole Bay.

Perhaps just perhaps there could be a compromise and water skiing could be allowed for certain periods of high water between 9 and 5, the harbour office could charge and plough the money back into the up-keep of the estuary...it has to be Widegates as South Pool Creek is just too small.

Who knows one day it just may happen...

Salcombe Beaches the Best!

There has been a lot of stories in the press recently about award winning beaches etc...South Sands missed out for the second year in a row, apparently due to a wet summer bringing sewage in?!?!?! The rest of Salcombe's beaches are not eligible due to the fact they allow dogs all year around.

We all know that the best beaches are to be found in Salcombe! We don't need an award to tell us that!

So with this in mind here are my top 5 Salcombe beaches:

1. Smalls Cove
This for me has to be number one as I spent my entire youth on this beach playing volley ball and racing my Mirror and Topper from there.
2. Sunny Cove
Where else do you get waves like that in Salcombe even when the wind hasn't been blowing.
3. Mill Bay
A great beach for kids, safe and huge so there is always space. Although last year the winter storms had significantly changed the shape of the beach and there were huge rollers coming in all summer so landing or launching was chaos!
4. Splat's Cove/South Sands
South Sands is a great place, every facility you could ever want and lovely golden sand! The walk (or boat ride) round to Splat's cove is well worth the trip if you want a bit of P&Q..
5. Ditch End
Salcombe's newest beach! This appeared over the last 4 years basically out of nowhere! It now forms a lovely arc of sand that looks up the estuary towards the Marine Hotel (RIP). No sun before midday though! I think most of this sand must have come form smalls which has shruk alarmingly over the last few years!

There also has to be a special mention for North Sands which although not much of a beach sand wise, can have great waves for body boarding and you can stay on the beach late into the evening and still have the sun which pours down North Sands valley, or pop over to the Winking Prawn for a beer and BBQ in the evening sun.

Salcombe Land For Sale

These houses(land) were originally touted around as one house at over £2.5m...now you can get the land for £800k!! Still a mad price but a whole world away from £2.5m!!

Has the worm turned in Salcombe are we about to see more realistic prices return? The local estate agents would have you believe not, but it seems they quite often protest too much about "not falling" property prices and hence the end of their gravy train.

With no huge city bonuses around for the foreseeable future and falling house prices elsewhere who will have the money to fund the Salcombe housing market?

Interesting times...