Some events for your diary:

12th July 2009: 12th Annual Seafood Festival -    begins at mid-day. Held on the Quay, stalls run from the inner harbour to the harbour mouth. Loads of fish and shellfish are cooked in front of you by experts and enthusiasts alike – there is beach art and brass bands, mackerel barbecues and jazz, shanty singers, crab-picking and catching competitions and whelk racing –
Music in the evening at the pier head!

9th August 2009: The Welsh Cob Festival -
“The Aberaeron Festival took the Horse to the People in a spectacular attempt to raise awareness of the breed.”
31st August 2009: Aberaeron Carnival
Probably the best carnival in Wales with plenty of jazz from the Adamant Jazz Band.  The parade starts at 1:30 on the quay.

29th August 2009: A Celebration of the Humble Mackerel

A procession through the streets of Aberaeron from The Harbourmaster to the Yacht Club with a 30ft mackerel accompanied by wailing widows.  The procession arrives for a blessing on the beach, music, dancing and frivolity.

 THE STORY OF THE HIVE ON THE QUAY
In the days when ships used Aberaeron harbour, they would be moored at the far end of the wharf, known then as Cadwgan Buildings. Coal was off-loaded to be stored in the arched ground floor whilst grain was stored on the floor above in the long arm of the building. The smaller arm was the weigh house, and had an iron plate in the road where the horse drawn carts were weighed before and after loading.
James and Margaret Holgate, with Sarah and Louisa, came to Aberaeron in 1957 with 200 hives and the Quay took on a new lease of life. The weigh house became our extracting room and soon, with 500 hives, the rest of the building became a factory producing very good quality clover honey from this area. Later expansion of products included Honey Marmalade, nougats and other honey preserves.
The product side of the business was sold in 1976 and moved to Tywyn – now a huge concern known as Halo Foods – and the bees were sold before James Holgate died in 1986.
We had experimented with Honey Ice Cream in 1970, selling it through the wall onto the street: the present day kiosk is three times bigger and is an indication of how important this part of the business has become. When we could no longer gather our own honey, we bought it from local beekeepers producing the same fine honey and the range of Honey Ice Cream flavours has increased to the choice we offer today.
In 1975, Margaret and Sarah opened a small café in the old weigh house to sell special ice creams, good coffee and tea with home-made cakes. We progressed quickly to early suppers, including the legendary savoury pancakes and Cawl which still feature on our menu from time to time, and later we added the conservatory. We now offer a great variety of Regional recipes specializing in fish and organically produced food.
More recently, Will has joined our family, and he and Louisa run the Fish on the Quay shop across the courtyard and sell the freshest fish you’ll ever taste.
We can now seat 60 to 70 people and we need a staff of 25 in the high season. It’s a long way from the days of coal and grain – we’ve had 30 years of adventure, angst and entertainment – but we all look forward to welcoming you for the next 30!