The volunteers at the RNLI’s station at Burry Port launched on Tuesday 13 April 2010 at 3:45 to assist three local teenage boys who had been walking on the beach between Burry Port and Llanelli. Although they knew the time of high water they were caught out by the speed at which the tide came in.
They were seen by a number of people living in Pwll who called Swansea Coastguards to alert them of the danger that the boys were in. The boys were cut off from the shore by the tide which was on its way in following the course of one of the many rivers that flow into Carmarthen Bay from the Burry Estuary. They were picked up from the sand bank by the lifeboat and taken to Llanelli beach into the care of Burry Port Coastguards.
As the lifeboat was returning to Burry Port the crew was contacted by Swansea Coastguards to divert to the beach off Crofty, North Gower, where two men were also trapped by the incoming tide. The men who were from Treherbert in the Rhondda Valley had been cockle picking and had tried to make their way back to the shore but needed to cross a number of rivers which were quickly filling by the fast incoming tide. The alarm had been raised by the father of one of the men who had called Swansea Coastguards.
The men were taken aboard the lifeboat and taken ashore into the care of Loughor Coastguards. The two men had abandoned their clothes, kitbags, their cockling equipment and the cockles they had picked in their haste to get to safety.
These two calls once again highlight the importance of knowing the tide times and to appreciate the rapidity at which the tide comes in and the extra dangers of going on to sandbanks in an estuary with so many rivers
The lifeboat was crewed by: – Owain Davies, Lee Howells and Neil Roberts.
