I should say that I’m a new member to Lydney, and others have much more experience and knowledge of the Bristol Channel – I’ve simply joined in.
The route was: Lydney – St Pierre (between the Severn bridges) – Western-Super-Mare (River Axe) – Porlock – Watermouth – Lundy – Porlock – Barry – Newport – Lydney. However, there were quite a few variations on this.
Regarding the club at Lydney. The harbour there is part of an ongoing restoration project – it closed, I believe, at the same time as the old marine-ply sawmill, but the locks have now been restored and are in use again. The yacht club does mixture of sailing around tide times and longer cruises both up and down the river, one of these is usually in the UKWA cruising diary (advert); however, the club programme is available on the web, so get in touch if you’d like to join in anything else.
Elvers? I’d rather Salmon, but have not been lucky with either. Perhaps I should capsize more.