Plymouth to Falmouth

After the gales died down, we moved on west a little. The initial plan to stop in Fowey was abandoned when we saw that there would only be one day of calmish, and hence Izzy suitable, weather before some strong easterly winds were going to set in. As Easter was approaching and with it the hordes of "first trip of the year" boaters we opted to head to Falmouth and hunker down for a few days.

An earlyish start to take the tide with us was needed but not enjoyed. The route is a dead simple one:

Leaving Plymouth a couple of naval ships wanted to make it more interesting for us. The red triangles are for ships that the AIS thinks are a danger and the others are the attending tugs and patrol boats. Wonder why we are in red too - perhaps we are a danger to ourselves?

First of all a departing RFA ship was on the move which meant we had to keep well out of the western entrance channel:

The little RIB and police patrol boats that were escorting her didn't seem even a tiny bit interested in us. We "small Nordhavns" don't look scary or terrorist like it seems. Then the Hamburg, a German naval ship, came into the harbour to carry out a passenger transfer before heading out to sea again:

We kept well clear of him in the gloom just in case he was upset about Brexit.

Passing Rame Head there was a little residual slop from the gales that caused Izzy to up her periscope and try to see what was going on. Nothing dramatic (a couple of metres) but with little waves superimposed on top of them from dead ahead of us. To make it all better the sun came out big time:

and that helped us see the stupidly tiny pot markers that the Falmouth fishermen seem to favour as we approached the harbour entrance.

We headed towards the town, picked up a buoy mooring first time and with great aplomb but with nobody to witness our amazing double act. Why are there always folks about to witness dismal failures though?

Maintenance news

Our pesky crane still needs to have its droop trouble sorted (see earlier posts) so parking it after launching the RIB has to be a little more careful than before. As the luffing cylinder seals need replacing and that is not going to happen until the winter when Roland can dismember it again, we will have to get used to retracting the boom and fastening the it in the fully down position. Nothing else exciting at all to report.