St Marys Island

Julie had booked a flight back to Newquay around lunchtime. (We were amazed that she didn’t want to escape from us earlier, most people do). As the forecast was for NW force 5 winds, we decided that the trip from our mooring to St Marys would be a challenge for the RIB. Hence we took the ferry. Easier said than done as they hide their timetable quite well. Kind of a “last minute publishing” approach. Luckily, as the boats are run by the Tresco estate, we manage to get the times from the estate island office yesterday afternoon. Very strange way of operating.

So, we took the dinghy to Tresco, caught the ferry that was supposed to go to St Marys to find that it first went to Bryher to collect more passengers and then back to Tresco to drop off one person then over to St Marys. By then, the tide was very low and we grounded once crossing the drying area en route.

Interesting trip. Think the skipper of the ferry had a small buttock clenching moment as we were on a falling tide...

Luckily we made it over in time for a rapid coffee before Julie’s flight though. We continued to wander around Hugh Town (the “capital” of the island) and loved some of the old style shops even if many have become tourist clothing and "stuff" places now:

The island tour bus looks like another one of the pieces of equipment that has come over to the island to die, but the operator clearly has a sense of humour:

At the rear, a bungee cord was holding the engine cover down…. There is something very honest about a place with a lack of flashy cars, no outside lane hoggers (no dual carriageways here and very few roads!) and no need to display wealth or power by buying expensive unsuitable automotive toys. Here, flashy is a newish Land Rover Defender.

This view at Porth Cressa kind of sums up island life:

And these show the view that those two folks were enjoying:

The lifeboat station looks like one of the traditional slipway launched places:

However, the slipway is just to launch the boarding boat now - the lifeboat lives out on a buoy:

Although Hugh Town is the metropolis, it is still pretty peaceful and relaxing. We had a good day and even visited St Agnes on the way back as the ferry went to collect some more passengers there. Only St Martins to go now and we will have seen all the inhabited islands.