Relaxing (?) in the Fal

After a peaceful night on the lovely Ruan mid-river pontoon and a chance to catch up on sleep, we decided to head into Falmouth town. Simon, our rather excellent extra crew person, had a train booked back home from there the following day and it is quite a hike by RIB (especially in the forecast rain). So, we slowly pottered down the estuary, with Simon looking very relaxed at the helm - his new spot (to use a Sheldon Cooperism):

We opted not to pick up one of the mooring buoys - again as heavy rain was forecast for the time of Simon's departure. We tried to get a spot in Port Pendennis but no, they were full (bodes badly for later in the season) with superyachts being fettled by the Pendennis yard guys and a few other assorted working craft. This forced us to use the wildly expensive and not at all fitted out in a manner to befit the price "Falmouth Haven". The harbour authority have stuffed up their prices to above those of Port Pendennis now - supply and demand we guess. The infrastructure and shelter is still no where like their competition and they still have a weird power supply system using top up cards that you cannot top up until they run out (unless you are lucky and get the same chip card second time around). 

Arriving at low water was not planned or ideal. Calling them on the radio elicited no reply. Phoning just got an answering message. So, we gently berthed alongside an empty run of pontoon with our depth sounder going to 0.0 metres and plenty of mud being stirred up. A truly premium place.

Despite Simon only having sailing boots, he manfully managed the walk to Penryn (40 minutes) where we had promised him excellent coffee and outstanding cinnamon buns at the Muddy Beach cafe:

only the outside view was not as good as this borrowed picture (way more cloud), they no longer sell the awesome cinnamon buns and the coffee was weak. New ownership of the place and what turned out to be our last visit. Shame as it had been so good for so long. The exercise was good for us though.

The next day we joined Simon on a very busy little train to Truro and said our thanks and farewells as he headed home. After a wander into town, we met up with Norman and Julie who took us to a favourite and dog friendly pub in Devoran for lunch. Stanley seemed quite bored by things until the food arrived:

whereas Indie was ever hopeful in true labrador fashion:

It was great to see all four of them after our house / dog sitting time at the end of last year.

Maintenance news:

That pesky satellite compass had some attention. No, not from a hammer, no matter how tempting that was. The captain has a copy of the Furuno maintenance and repair manual that is given to dealers for it and so we read it carefully again. The parameter that allows the heading to be "held" and output for a while even if the GPS data gets corrupted was set to "off". We know it was "on" at the end of last year when we finished cruising. So, that was fixed and various other tests run on the three GPS antenna sitting in the dish up top:

Why the setting changed is beyond us, a bit like why the AIS changed us into a fishing vessel of 45 metres in length over one winter! Still, it has been reset and the hardware all checks out OK. One of the three GPS receivers might be in trouble? Time will tell....

Penarth to Falmouth

After many days (about 10) waiting for a lull in the seemingly never ending procession of depressions coming over the Atlantic, there was a brief weather window. It kept moving and shortening but it was there - kind of. So, we decided to use it. Simon the surveyor man joined us the night before as extra crew for the run and to get a boating fix as he is still boatless. Boatless is a nasty disease and we know a little about it, having been there briefly in 2008. A period of time we try not to remember.....

After being dropped off by his most understanding wife, Simon consoled himself with Patrick the penguin:

which was strangely disturbing in many ways. The alarm clock was duly set for a rather crazy 5:30 am lock out through the Cardiff Bay barrage locks. That meant getting off the Penarth berth a few minutes before and a 4:45am alarm call. Quite a shock to the system after months of ignoring the tides.

In the barrage locks, Simon studiously ignored the instruction signs - perhaps because this gate only spoke Welsh and he does not:

He did look the part though, proper yottie boots and all. Sadly, the weather was nothing like the forecast. What should have been a northerly wind (ie on the beam for most of the run down the Bristol Channel) and force 3 to 4, was more NW'ly and rather stronger so off the Hartland Point area we washed the anchor a few times - waves of just over 3 metres pretty much on the nose. The boat was not too concerned but the crew was struggling to get her sea-legs going after 6 months off and suffered. As we rounded the point, we passed under a clearly visible ridge in the clouds and a weather front. Things calmed down, the course change put the waves more on the beam and the stabilisers sorted them out. Life was much nicer.

The long slog down the north Cornish coast was improved by some dolphins and then, huge excitement. A couple of puffins were on the water - the first that Simon had ever seen in the flesh. He so needs to get a boat and go and anchor in the bay at Skomer. Land's End was rounded in pretty mild conditions, just the usual sloppy stuff, at night:

and to give you an idea of the geography, here is our route from the AIS system:

Once round Land's End, we knew that the forecast had the wind directly on the nose and slowly increasing all morning. To avoid letting it pick up some big waves, we had run a little faster than usual (1650 rpm) and sure enough, it hit 30 knots passing the Lizard peninsular (the sticky out bit to the south on this track image):

but we were through before it got unpleasant. We headed happily up the river Fal and onto one of our all time favourite spots - the mid-river pontoon at Ruan creek. After a much needed personal clean up and dropping the RIB for a trip to Trelissick (and a nice cream tea in the half term child infested National Trust tea rooms) we retired to the boat and opened the gin:

As it was a bit grey outside and not too photogenic, here is a picture of Simon's old yacht on exactly the same spot we used,  taken a few years ago:

As you can see, September Moon was a thing of great beauty. The ex-owner claims that he is too, you can judge that for yourselves from the photos. The run took us about 29 hours to the mooring and had a few bumpy bits to "enjoy". However, it was the first weather window in the preceding 10 days and in the following 7 so......

Maintenance News:

Not a lot really, the stern gland on the main engine was dripping a bit more than normal by the time we arrived so the bilge pump kicked in more often. Just needs tightening up a tiny bit to compensate for the run here.

Before we left Penarth, the domestic water filter was renewed - you can play the "guess which one was the new one" game:

and yes, they seem to have shrunk a bit although the price has gone up dramatically as with most things.

Most annoyingly, the Furuno Satellite compass kept losing the heading in the rougher spots when we pitched into the oncoming waves. We had seen this game before but never as badly. The technical manual is coming out to have another read. On passage, we just changed the device that gave the plotters a heading input so they were not upset. We also gave the autopilot a feed from it's own fluxgate compass so it was not upset either. Well, that is until we headed towards the north when we found that the fluxgate compass needed recalibrating / swinging! Electronics are such fun.