St Martins Island

Having sort of visited all the other inhabited islands, we thought that we should collect the complete set by hitting St Martins too. Again, we decided to cheat a little and leave the boat safely moored up (no great anchorages around St Martins in this wind direction) and use the ferry from Tresco. So, we took the Firethorn again and this time they headed out from New Grimsby sound and around the islands (perhaps the grounding yesterday reminded them that things can go wrong!). We landed at "lower town quay". The island has settlements called Lower Town, Middle Town and Higher Town. Pretty simple really!

Here is the ferry leaving Lower town, as you can see, not too much water under her keel:

To add to the lighthouse collection, here is Round Island as seen from St Martins:

We wandered slowly through "Middle town" (not huge) and over to the capital, Higher Town. Again, not huge of course. However, they have some lovely gardens clinging to the hillside and great views:

We decided that lunch should be in Little Arthur Cafe / Bistro. Hum. Finding it from the local map proved a challenge, Still, once there we very much enjoyed a home-made pasty with parmesan pastry. Very good stuff.  Have a peek at their website.

Then a small issue struck. We didn't have as much folding money with us as we thought -despite having drawn out an obscene amount in St Marys yesterday just in case. Most of it was safely but inaccessibly tucked up on the boat. A quick calculation said that we were a little short as this place (like the rest of the island it seems) didn't take any type of plastic. Ouch.

The captain talked nicely to the lady, said he would walk to the Post Office to get some cash but managed to almost match the bill with all the cash we had and a left over Guernsey pound note that could be changed in a bank. She, for some strange reason, thought we looked honest and took the proffered pile of cash in settlement for lunch. Phew.

After a quick trip to the Post Office for cash, we resumed our wandering, loving Par beach:

The views and turquoise sea could have been in the Caribbean. Only the temperature was about 10 degrees too low.  To give you an idea of how shallow the bay was, we watched these trainee divers arrive in their dive boat, pick up a mooring buoy and then walk ashore!

Before catching the ferry back to Tresco, we felt obliged to check out the local (only) tea rooms. Boy are we glad that we did. Although there was a very tempting carrot cake on offer, we went for the even more calorie laden and fat sodden cream tea. We think that we have to start a new category on here - one of the best scones that we've found and so far, this place (see Polreath website) is way out front:

A bit of a trek just for a cream tea but when you visit the Scilly islands, this is a must do.

After returning to Tresco we managed a short walk to burn off the worst of the calories before returning to the boat. The beaches on Tresco are equally appealing:

These islands are truly lovely. Waking up, looking out and seeing the view moored between Tresco and Bryher is died and gone to heaven stuff. So glad we had a settled spell of weather allowing us to see them properly. We plan to head off to South Wales (Milford / Skomer) shortly but Saturday promises fog and 2 metre waves on the stern quarter. The combination of the nice corkscrew motion that the crew loves, together with 19 hours glued to the radar isn't too appealing. On Sunday the fog might clear but it will be bumpier. Maybe we will just hang about here for another couple of days....