Falmouth to Plymouth

Having given up on going north owing to the grim weather forecasts and because we needed to be back in our winter berth a little earlier this year, we had some decisions to make. Back to Penarth stupidly early or spend a bit more time on the south coast? The staying out thing won. As there was going to be one day without strong westerly winds in the whole week ahead, we opted to use it and head back on ourselves, to Plymouth. A better place to hide out in during rainy  / blowy weather than places like Fowey or Salcombe as it has proper food shops, walk ashore berthing, trains and buses and other civilisation if we want to take advantage of such things.

Leaving Falmouth early (for us) in the morning to catch a fair tide, the sky was suitably inviting:

A rather large and equally ugly Italian built motor boat headed off at the same time, only way faster, gently draining an oil well as they headed west:

The noise and wash when they put on power were not appealing.

 The one big difference to the many days before this one was this:

7 knots of wind and from varying directions too. The sea had calmed down from the gales and was quite pleasant for a change. The route is a lovely simple one, just a few "jinks" to avoid yachts and fishing boats plus the odd poorly marked fishing pot.

A nice 6 hour run - the stabilisers were not bothered too much, apart from one rain shower it was fine and we had lots of dolphins heading west passing us. Never seen so many little groups of them out and about before. They always liven up any journey. 

Entering Plymouth sound, the Military were out and about in their landing craft:

heading to Cawsand bay. Landing practice on the beach? Perhaps they had heard about the nice lunches over there? As the tide height was suitable we could sneak through the bridge rather than go around Drake's Island and then push a strong outgoing tide up to Mayflower marina. We'd been given a nice big hammerhead berth so we settled down there and then went for a walk up to the Naval base area as the sun had deigned to join us. Lovely views over the harbour area:

and an unexpectedly excellent coffee in a little seasonal kiosk near the outdoor swimming pool too.

The evening view across to the Royal William yard in the sun was lovely. We cherished it knowing that for the next few days it might be a little greyer:

A cruise liner update for you too - we posted the strange routes that some of the liners had taken between ports wondering why they seemed intent on burning more fuel than needed. Ken, the Northern Ireland man who you've met in here before enlightened us to a possible cause. He was a ship's agent and said that liners might need longer out to sea than the trip needs just to "process" their black and grey water tanks. Quite a thought to end on.

Another change of plan - flexibility seems key this "summer"

For our planned last day in the Fal area, we decided to revisit Truro on the train (they happened to be running) for a wander around and a chance to top up the dwindling chocolate stocks by visiting Mr Aldi. It was low water when we walked to the harbour area, where we normally bring our dinghy for any heavy shopping. In the delightful mud berths was this interestingly modified old Princess. Get the chimney fitted into the roof:

And the stylish upper helm addition:

Quite a liveaboard craft. The day was rounded off nicely when we found that Aldi had replenished their chocolate stocks so the captain could stagger back up the hill to the train station with a much heavier rucksack.

Falmouth was a bit of a no-go zone as a Saga cruise ship had arrived and deposited a horde of slow walking, pavement hogging, complaining, and most annoying older people. The thought that we are of an age where we could join in the Saga fun was quite horrifying really. At least they have some newer ships now:

 

but they seem to take strange routes between port calls:

That is one long way round for a short trip. Saving port dues but burning more fuel? Not departing or docking at times that might wake the elderly passengers? Helmsman on the sweet sherry? No matter, the town cleared early on and the liner departed for Scilly taking another strange circuitous route.

We were ready to head up the Irish Sea to Bangor. Route and timings all planned, a 51/52 hour trip. Typically the wind would be on the nose as we approached Land's End and then as we headed north, pretty much on the nose until we were abeam Dublin when it would pick up and swing to be on the stern quarter. The forecast wave heights were OK rather than nice so we were ready for a nodding kind of trip for at least 30 hours.

Captain Rae, the well known (in here at least) Nordhavn owner had headed around Land's End whilst we were in Truro and reported it as bumpy. Bearing in mind his history as a naval helicopter jockey and then Lightning fighter pilot, his definition of bumpy is probably "unpleasantly rough" for the rest of us. When we awoke and looked at the latest forecast it was going to be "lovely", a good 30 hours with some chinky waves on the nose - so we opted out as it is supposed to be enjoyable. Especially as by the weekend we were in for this July weather treat:

Staying put and doing some hull polishing seemed preferable in many ways. Until we actually launched the RIB and started work that is. We did have a break to find a podiatrist in town who could take a look at the crew's hind paw. She had a lump forming in her heel and you could just about see some foreign object buried amongst the extra hard skin that was growing. A nice lady excavated the area and thinks that a grain of sand came out. Probably a little present from the hours we spent on the beach with Izzy the dog during her stay earlier in the summer. The nice lady said that sometimes dog hairs can get into the skin on a foot and have the same effect. So glad that Izzy has soft fur.

A happy, unexpected and most enjoyable visit from Tim and Laraine gave us another work break. They managed to get a picture of us in our best polishing outfits:

At least that part of the hull had been polished so the picture is less embarrassing.

The nice forecast above meant battening down, removing the bimini, recovering the RIB and preparing for a day more or less staying on the boat. Here is the Falmouth mooring area on the evening before with the clouds starting to build (spot the Nordhavn):

and the same view the following soggy morning:

You can see the superyacht Constance that we featured before is still in port. She made one more trip out, did the same set of strange manoeuvres out to sea and returned again. Then a workboat came alongside her - must be some serious repair work going on. 

Meanwhile, the (in)famous Fastnet yacht race headed off from Cowes, in our direction, with a force 7 wind and rough seas to contend with. Madness. Loads of yachts retired, one sank, several were dismasted and the lifeboats were busy. Madness. The  RNLI website link  quotes how multiple incidents were attended to by the lifeboats - we did wonder how the volunteer crews felt being called out to folks in racing yachts who set off knowing how bad the conditions were.....

A rather lovely large Swan yacht called Coco de Mer arrived in Falmouth, retiring from the race after losing all electrical power. As you can see from this borrowed image, quite a craft:

Nobody locally seemed to know how to get her Mastervolt electrical system up and running again so she will motor, with no electrics or navigation gear working, back to the Hamble to get sorted. At least the engine worked, quite an expensive little race for them. 

Being nicely sheltered in the harbour seems way nicer to us, especially when Norman, Julie and their two hounds joined us for Sunday lunch. Stan seemed rather keen when he sniffed Norman's lamb:

and got quickly restrained. Once he realised there was nothing for him he settled down to be cuddled in what looked like the most uncomfortable of positions:

Oh to be that flexible.....

We kept looking at the rubbish weather forecasts (load of fronts coming through with gale or near gale winds attached to them) and wondering what to do next.

More strong winds and hence more Falmouth time

After enjoying the lovely walks and tea room at Trelissick, things had to change. On the Monday it just rained and rained and got windy too. We didn't even venture off the boat and our single non-electronic social contact was the lovely harbour patrol lady. She joined us on board for a much needed coffee as she was in a pretty open to the elements launch considering the conditions. 

As you can see, it really was raining:

We took advantage of a drier but equally blowy Tuesday morning to head off. Back down the estuary area and into the same spot at Port Pendennis that we had occupied when we had a Tina invasion going on. En route we passed several interesting craft all sheltering from the conditions out to sea:

There were also a couple of Oyster yachts (nice) and a seriously ugly patio door flybridge fast motor cruiser that looked to be built for pose factor rather than seakeeping. We didn't upset or waste any bytes of storage by bothering to photograph it.

Already in town were Richard and Kim, the crew of Millie the sailing yacht - they have all been unlucky enough to get a mention in here before. We had a most sociable catch up over a beer, then dinner in the excellent Boathouse pub followed by coffee on board. Seriously decadent lifestyle really.

It felt important to keep this badness going so we took the train to Truro (as old characters with Railcards, it actually worked out cheaper than the bus despite the current bus fare cap at £2 per journey!) There we forced ourselves to join Norman and Julie for lunch at Mannings. The not working thing is hard you know. However an almost perfect day was seriously disrupted when the Truro Aldi shop only had one bar of the crew's favourite chocolate.....

Back in Falmouth we were moored near this rather lovely superyacht:

(a "borrowed" picture from Marinetraffic). One of the few superyachts that still look like a yacht, immaculate as you would expect and with a crew member on board who knew Richard and Kim too. That didn't get us a guided tour though... We were a little worried that too much champagne had been consumed on board the superyacht before they had a little day trip out from Falmouth and back again:

Testng the autopilot or navigation gear or just very happy?

The much protested over accommodation barge had been relaunched and sat looking pretty ugly in the commercial dock ready to be towed to Portland where it will house around 500 rubber boat channel crossing migrants:

500 does seem like a drop in the ocean (or should that be channel?)

Meanwhile, there had been plenty of drama around Lands End. A large roll on - roll off ship lost power and went aground on the Wolf rock, nearly taking out the lighthouse at the same time. Have a look at  BBC news report for more information:

This picture shows the lifeboat (there were three called out) standing by waiting on the arrival of a tug and the endangered lighthouse:

The ship was holed, and got towed back to the Falmouth roads (anchorage outside the harbour). Then some debates about allowing her into the docks ensued before she was towed in by two port tugs and one from Fowey:

The shipyard team put an oil boom around her, although there was no sign of any leak:

Some poor insurance syndicate is in for a hefty bill as she needs to be put into dry dock for repairs.

Focussing back on Port Pendennis life, we met the marina manager Marks' new friend, Bella. She likes the sun, having her tummy stroked and attention in general:

Dead cute too. Pretty typical dog really.

Maintenance news:

As the genset had been run for just over 100 hours since the last oil and filter change in February back in Penarth, it was treated to some fresh oil and a nice new filter. The book says you can run for longer but as the genset gets lots of shorter runs (eg to operate the crane when moving the RIB) and some low load operation, it gets babied with more regular oil and filter swaps.

We also finally got around to fitting a little push button switch to the new AC voltmeters that came from Neil, who runs Nordy Bits. That allows us to see the frequency of the power as well as the voltage:

50.1 Hertz is fine against the 50 Hz specification for UK power. For the American readers, remember that we like fewer Hertz and more volts that you are used to.  The inverters were producing the right frequency too, we need to check the genset next as that might well need a little adjustment of the rpm setting after several years of service..

We also finally got going with some polishing of the poor neglected fibreglass. The transom and a chunk of the starboard hull got tidied up and looked way better for it too. The port side hasn't been touched for around 18 months thanks to the crew's back issues last year and the horrid weather this spring, so that will be more of a challenge. One we are so looking forward to.

Heading north, just not very far

Our last evening in Port Pendennis treated us to a dramatic rain shower and then an even more dramatic rainbow. At least we think it is a rainbow but as it started from the military ship, who knows what it is:

The forecasts for the Land's End / Irish sea area were still grim. Here is a typical one showing the predicted wave height off Land's End at 3.3 metres which would be on the nose until we turn to run north. That is not appealing, boating is supposed to be fun after all:

So, we decided to spend a little while longer in the area and wait for things to calm down a bit. Our trip was hardly a long or difficult one:

 

Since things were pretty busy (as an example, all the mooring buoys off the town were full and the little anchorage area too), we opted to stop on the mid-river pontoon just above Turnaware Bar that had space for us. Not a bad spot on not a bad day:

The RIB was duly launched and we then exercised the legs around the Trelissick estate, more than once:

The house really isn't leaning over, it just appears to be so thanks to the strange angles of the hills it is perched on:

As always, we enjoyed the woodland walks and the compulsory stop off at the National Trust tea rooms. Returning to the boat, we got another quite distorted picture:

which, luckily, doesn't show how salty the boat is (hosepipe ban when in Falmouth remember) and how much she needs a polish:  From this angle, the boat looks a little more normal:

During the walks, we spotted a large and very ugly cruise liner anchored outside the harbour area. Marinetraffic showed it to be Regal Princess with a very strange track to get there too:

Steaming east up the channel and then back again? With high fuel prices that intrigued us, so a little bit of digging revealed that she should have visited Portland the day beforehand but cancelled thanks to protesters. Protests in Portland? Yes, they don't want the floating accommodation block that we pictured in a previous post to be sited in Portland and filled with immigrants:

The cruise liner visit that was due on the same day as a protest was called off for "passenger safety". See the Dorset echo article. Stranger and stranger this world becomes.

Falmouth, a Tina invasion and some excursions

Wandering around the docks area we admired the superyachts being fettled by the Pendennis yard. It was harder to admire this thing being tended to in the commercial docks, probably at equally great expense too:

It is being prepared to act as floating accommodation for the many asylum seekers who come across the English channel in little unsafe dinghies from France, thanks to the many people smugglers that are doing rather nicely out of other folks misery. It seems that not all the locals support this concept though, a poster in a local shop (quite an alternative shop to be fair):.

Although the floating accommodation block didn't look violent to us, or worse than the tent villages these folks seem to live in whilst on the French coast waiting for a smuggler to put them in a totally unsuitable cheap inflatable and point them at England. Sad stuff all round. 

On a nicer note, we were collected by Norman and Julie and driven to the Pandora Inn which is prettily situated on Restronguet creek. We'd only visited once by dinghy but it was a lovely day and the place was rammed so we didn't stop. This time, Julie had sensibly arranged to get there early - important as the car park is postage stamp size too. Lovely old building that was ravaged by fire several years ago but nicely restored:

We enjoyed an alfresco lunch, Indie and Stan (the two dogs) enjoyed anything that we didn't. Very limited menu now, like many places with staffing issues but what was on there was great. Rather a good day all in all!

Things continued to improve when Tina arrived by train, managing to time things between some rain showers too. We forced ourselves to walk to Penryn again, after the very disappointing trip to our ex-favourite cafe there, Muddy Beach, earlier in the season. This time it was for a light lunch and they redeemed themselves. Still no lifetime best cinnamon buns though. On the walk back we spotted a very sad looking jet RIB that used to be owned by folks we know. She was laid up in the same spot nearly 10 years ago with a wrecked cover even then. You can guess what state the engine is in now but it does prove how durable hypalon tubes are though:

Not nice to see, especially as the captain enjoyed a fast trip from Hythe marina to Bucklers Hard on this very boat many moons ago. Penryn waterfront has more than its fair share of decaying boats ashore and the odd business with what seem like strange names:

and unusual service offerings too.

After a while on the mooring buoy with the pickup chain from hell, we needed to get some fresh water and it would be good to fully charge our domestic batteries again. The AGM batteries don't like being cycled for long periods without a full charge (the manufacturers say this should be done every week). We would be running the genset for many hours to put in that last crucial little bit of charge needed. Luckily, Port Pendennis had a slot we could use to do just that so we made the long trip over in the almost constant strong winds. The local hosepipe ban didn't seem to apply to this very shiny thing that was being washed off and cared for on what seemed like a daily basis:

No matter how clean, and shiny, it still didn't appeal to us.

Letting Tina choose what she wanted to do each day could have been dangerous. However it worked out well. We took the ferry over to St Mawes, raided the only open cafe for a very poor coffee but nice sweet treat (it was a pretty good cinnamon bun!) and then hiked to St Just, taking the path that leads up onto the ridge for a change. Well, that is because we just followed the path signs for once. Great views from up there (once we could breathe again after the climb) which the camera flattens out and makes so very ordinary:

The little cafe at St Just near the church rejuvenated us although Tina's look suggests otherwise:

The Crew at least hid her expression , whatever it was:

A few crumbs from a scone kept this brave little guy / girl happy:

You have to visit the picture perfect church and take the same scene that visitors have captured for years and years:

It is such a tranquil spot, next to the water and in perfectly maintained grounds too. The walk back along the waterside was less strenuous. Probably a good things as our diet of  cinnamon bun and half a scone since leaving the boat was not ideal for tackling steep hills. The wildlife was out in abundance, especially the butterflies who were very busy enjoying their brief but pretty lives:

The only drawback to the day was when we returned to find some most annoying wildlife sitting on our satellite TV dome:

So much for the bird deterrent spikes that were fitted in April.....

Like all good things, Tina's visit had to come to an end so we escorted her to the station, saw that a train was actually going to run despite the "work to rule / strike / cannot be bothered" action underway and left her to do battle with the short notice changes to the timetable. Luckily it all worked out, we got back to the boat and she got to the Isle of Wight. Our journey was a little simpler and quicker of course.