Tenby Harbour

Tenby Harbour, Wales

 

Tenby Harbour – Pembrokeshire County,Wales, U.K.

memoir

by Gregory E. Larson

          The travel literature in 2008 described Tenby as a picturesque harbour and a must see. Gretta, my wife, shared more information as she did her research for the trip. "It sounds like Tenby gets pretty crowded in the summer with vacationers, or those on holiday, as they call it. There are tour boat rides to Caldey Island where an order of monks have an abbey, AND they make chocolate. How cool is that? Oh, and there's a tea garden, too."

          I could tell by the look in Gretta’s eyes that the harbour and the tour boat ride were definitely on the list of activities. I decided to put in my two-cents-worth. “We could hit a pub in town for lunch with Ale and Cider.” That would give her tea and chocolate, and give me ale and snacks. Something for both of us.

          The day trip to Tenby, Wales, didn’t disappoint. Arriving early in the day, we were able to park the rental car in a car park for a few pounds, and we scurried into the charming village of pastel-colored town homes. Streets and alleyways angled in every direction, with views down to the harbour full of sailboats and fishing vessels. After purchasing tickets for the trip to Caldey Island, we felt like pinballs dropping down to the harbour as we walked out on the seawall and down the stairs to the water’s edge to board the tour boat.

          While sitting in the boat, waiting to start the fifteen-minute trip to Caldey Island, I snapped a picture of the harbour as the clouds filled most of the sky. For a Kansan, it was a rare view of boats and the colorful buildings of the town. Gretta looked excited. She was more than ready to get to the land of tea and chocolate, so I snapped a picture of her in the tour boat.

Gretta ready for the tour to the island of tea and chocolate

          Finally, the boat began to pull out of the harbour and past the seawall. We passed the lifeboat station and launch ramp, and bounced on the waves as we continued to Caldey Island. The wind was cold and brisk, with intermittent sun and clouds. I concluded after a few days in England and Wales that I could easily be a weatherman there in the summertime. Every morning the forecast was for a low of 48F and a high of 68F, and cloudy with a chance of rain. Day after day, that forecast would suffice.

Lifeboat Station and Launch Ramp

Coastline of Caldey Island

Tea Time

          We walked through the woods on the isle until we found the monk’s chocolate factory. Then we stopped for tea, scones, and clotted cream. Gretta was almost giddy while having tea. She looked like she was living out a fantasy from her childhood.

          After tea, we walked out onto the paths that followed the coastline of the island, to look at the rocks and take a photo of the lighthouse. Other than a few short months of summer, the place looked like it would be pretty bleak most of the year.

Back in Tenby, we spent part of the afternoon at a local pub that was a half-level below the street. One had to duck below the beams inside, just to get to the bar. It had that old musty smell with a pinch of ale thrown in.

I had fun ordering the beer from the cask, called Old Speckled Hen. I ordered Gretta a Strongbow Cider. Two men at the bar looked at me and one said, “Hey laddie, you don’t sound like you are from around here.”

I replied, “So you didn’t detect my Cockney accent?” They burst out laughing.

“Okay, so where are you really from.”

“Kansas, U.S.A.”

“Is that a fact? Is it flat out there in the middle of the country?”

“Part of it is flat out in Western Kansas, but I’m from around Kansas City, and there are a lot of hills around the Kansas and Missouri Rivers.”

They looked me over again and one of them said, “You are a long way from home, for sure.”

The buddies at the bar talked about how they and their spouses took a trip once a year, and they picked Tenby. One of them said, “Our wives have been out shopping all day.” He looked at his buddy and said, “I suppose we’d better go find them or the two of us may be forced to sleep in a tent tonight out by the caravans.”

Gretta and I enjoyed the nuts and chips with our drinks, soaking in the local atmosphere, the laughs of the patrons and the smell of ale. And that was pretty much our day in Tenby.

The Red Boat - Tenby Harbour
2021 watercolor by Gregory E. Larson

* * *

Now, in 2021, I scrolled through the photos with mixed emotions, happy and sad; happy to see how much fun Gretta and I had on the trip, and sad that she’s not here to re-live the memories with me. I looked at the harbour photo and decided to do a large watercolor of the red fishing boat with all the harbour and buildings in the background. I knew it needed to be a large painting to get all the details. The photo was taken on a cloudy day, so I wanted to make the painting a sunny day, to make the colors more vivid. It was my most ambitious watercolor to date.

While I worked on the painting, I would think of that moment in time, just before our tour boat began to move, when I took the photo of the harbour. I’m glad that tour put me in the spot to see the harbour from it’s edge, all the way back to the townhomes lined up on the hillside. I decided, yes, it was a picturesque harbour, just as the travel literature described it.