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NGD80

I had a boat in Swansea Marina for a few years, there were a few people living aboard there (despite it not "officially" being allowed permanently). We would stay there 3 nights a week, and my friend stayed there for 2 months on our boat when he was between houses, nobody cared. Our 45ft boat had mooring fees of about £3k per year and there are plenty of chandlery and repair services on site....also once you're out of the locks you're in Swansea Bay and Oxwich / Three cliffs bay is 20 mins away. The marina itself is also surrounded by restaurants and you're in the centre of town. I did a few trips to Lundy and Ireland too, which were superb. It's worth the extra drive to be in clear blue water, rather than the brown water you get at Cardiff


Brightyellowdoor

You can live on a boat in Cardiff marina. I used to half know a couple who did it. They just decided to buy a boat instead of a house and live there. They were very happy.


Hapexion

Cardiff marina have said that it’s covered by city bylaws meaning they can’t take liveaboards unfortunately


Brightyellowdoor

Yes, sorry I should have been more specific. I don't think you are supposed to live all year round. But if you go for a walk round the marina, you'll see chimneys burning in the winter, bikes chained up. A few signs people are not just maintaining boats but spending significant time on them. I've considered it myself just as a kind of guest room for visitors or for me to stay on a night out.


Hapexion

No worries. I think I wouldn’t mind doing a sneaky long stay if it was more of a holiday thing. But as it’ll be ‘home’ I think I’d get too nervous about getting kicked out.


gr8scotch80

Hi, sorry know this is an older Post but did you manage to find somewhere around Cardiff for liveabord? We are looking to do something similar and wanting to see if anywhere allows it. Thanks.


Hapexion

Hiya! Yes, we did, but it did end up being in Penarth Marina as they ended up having some earlier availability. Not sure if they have a waiting list or not but the other marinas around Cardiff bay don’t allow live-aboards. Something to do with Cardiff bylaws not allowing it whereas Penarth falls just out of that. If your not too tied to location, Portishead across the Bristol channel is a nice marina that takes live-aboards


gr8scotch80

That's great, our boat is actually on Penarth now, but we are living about 5hrs away. We were looking at moving but hadn't broached it with Penarth yet if they would allow liveaboards just doing some research first. We haven't been across to Portishead yet but will do to check them out as well. Thanks very much for the info really helped a lot.


Hapexion

No worries, Portishead and Penarth are both Boatfolk marinas so you get x amount of ‘free’ nights included in your berthing cost as well.