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.