Enjoying the Fal area

Feeling that we had to keep the hound entertained, we decided upon several trips out that allowed off lead fun / beach fun. The obvious ones being the glorious woodland walks around Trelissick that we have enjoyed many times, the walk from St Mawes around to the Roseland and St Just, the walk from Flushing to Malpas and the beaches at St Mawes. Izzy was lucky - dogs are banned from the beach after Easter day and she was being taken back home by her owner Anne on the day beforehand.

St Mawes was as lovely as ever in the unexpected warm sun even if the big spring tides meant that the harbour was not accessible around low water for the local ferries:

The beach kept Izzy amused for some time and us busy with sticks and fir cones that clearly needed throwing around and chasing. At Trelissick, the bluebells were out in force in the woods:

where Izzy's colour scheme blended in very well.

Sitting on a mooring buoy in the harbour we played with the new(ish) FLIR and once more were pretty impressed. This was the night view through the pilothouse screen:

and this is how the FLIR saw it:

even down to the line linking the boats to their buoys. Think we are going to enjoy having this on board during night passages.

Walking from St Mawes towards St Just, we got to see an impounded ship:

which was the Russian bulk carrier that dragged her anchor in storms just before Xmas and went aground on the beach at Gyllyngvase. The UK  readers might recall this, for others look at   BBC website report for a bit of background. It seems that the Russian owners of this could not pay the salvage costs and when the MCA inspected it there was a list of dangerous defects with her safety equipment as long as your arm so she was not allowed back to sea. As an example, the magnetic compass did not work..... Apparently this elderly craft has now been sold for scrap. Makes you even more keen to avoid any close quarters encounters with ships out in the big wet bit.

Falmouth itself was relatively quiet in the run up to Easter until our liner curse hit again. The Captain was awake early, went up to the pilothouse and was confronted with this view of a little old liner, the Hamburg, approaching the dock area:

Decision made, avoid Falmouth town today. Mind you we guess that lots of them get bussed off to the Eden Project or the Lost Gardens of Heligan. We imagine that they are very grumpy about paying for a trip and missing a free lunch on board. The few passengers that we saw in town had the regulation miserable face on. No pictures for you, don't want to spoil your day. Our escape plan was the ferry to Flushing then a walk to Mylor but the last ferry before low tide stopped the service running, was full (no spot to leave a dinghy there either) so we went back to St Mawes. The waterside walk was wonderful - more bluebells for Izzy to loiter and bark in.

and after a warm walk / run / bark / stick chasing session a girl needs a drink:

We had to wait a little longer than she did.

The plan (of sorts) was to hang around in Falmouth until just after Easter. Why? Well, Izzy was being dognapped by her owner (at least it felt that way) on Easter Saturday and we were meeting Norman and Julie for lunch on the Sunday. So, we get very settled on our mooring buoy enjoying the evening views of the town, harbour, Flushing as we slowly spun around:

It was not always this calm, a couple of days brought in the promised strong easterly winds and the run ashore by RIB was pretty soggy - big waves, spray and very pleased that we were in our RIB and not the little inflatable with the baby outboard on it which would probably have folded up in the middle with some of the waves.

Sadly the day dawned and we headed to Truro by bus armed with a huge bag of dog stuff that had to be returned along with Izzy. We did the "transfer" in Tesco car park (dodgy) then walked to Malpas for lunch with Anne, Bob and the kids. Kids? Well, as part of the children's menu they got a quiz sheet which soon bored them. The sheets seemed to perplex three graduates though:

Anne led Izzy astray, proving that the Princess can eat the pea (from a fork) even if she would not lie on one:

Izzy gave us the "are you abandoning me to this lot" look:

and then trotted off without even a backward glance. So much for teaching your children to say please and thank you Anne! We watched the annual Malpas egg throwing contest for a while, from a safe distance:

where couples throw raw eggs to and fro trying to catch and not break them from ever increasing distances. You can see how well it goes from the state of the road.

When we got back to Falmouth and opened the nice RNLI provided lifejacket locker, the loss of a crew member really struck home:

To cheer our mood, there was a big celebration underway. Lively Lady and Suhaili were in the harbour ready to re-enact the finish of Sir Robin Knox-Johnston around the world trip 50 years on:

For the non yotty types, both are famous yachts with famous single handed skippers. Look at Alec Rose Wikipedia for information on what he achieved in Lively Lady:

and Robin Knox-Johnston Wikipedia for information on Suhaili and the first ever single handed non stop circumnavigation:

When you see the boats and the equipment they had (even down to the waterproof clothing quality available then) you realise just what an achievement it was.