Falmouth to Plymouth

Falmouth over the bank holiday was not really that busy. We were able to wander around, visit the shops for supplies and generally enjoy ourselves. Even the train to Truro on Easter Monday was not rammed. Norman picked us up from the station and took us to Wadebridge where we enjoyed the regulation cuddles with Indie the labrador and some ball throwing for Stanley, the ball obsessed Jack Russell. He hasn't changed much 

Norm and Julie took us to Padstow (or Padstein if you prefer since Rick Stein gentrified the place) where we saw a more normal crowd of holiday folks. Parking was tricky as was avoiding the folks who liked wandering into the road aimlessly as though they had bought the place. Perhaps because they owned a holiday home in Rock?

Lunch was at a Paul Ainsworth bistro place, Rojanos. 

Good food, sadly variable quality service though. The manager came up to talk to Norman after the meal and handled the issue very professionally. A flashback to being at work when we both thought "I would give her a job". So happy that we no longer need to worry about such things! 

The return to Falmouth on the train was subject to the usual railway fun. This time every other train (there are two an hour) from Truro was cancelled due to the guard being taken ill. Looked like nobody wanted to come in on a bank holiday and cover for him / her. We realised how we almost expect a train journey to go wrong now and how immune to it we have become. Luckily we were not still in Cardiff trying to travel around the valleys,  where things were in chaos thanks to emergency repairs to a bridge.

The clouds built and the wind had a real "edge" to it when we walked to Gyllyngvase beach. A few hardy souls were braving the water though:

As Andrew and Linda (the N43 Zephyros owners) were coming to join us the following day in Plymouth, we raided the Co-op and staggered back up the hill to a warm boat.

Leaving the happy place of Port Pendennis the next day was OK though. A chat with Mark the manager, a bit of boat prep for sea (not too bad as we'd not got things scattered everywhere this time) and then we headed out in nice sunny and pretty calm conditions. Here is the view astern of the marina and National Maritime Museum - the odd building with the tower on the left of the picture:

Plenty of fleet auxiliary craft and little patrol things were around in the commercial docks:

We happily headed out to sea again and barely needed the stabilisers as it was so nice (initially at least). Our favourite little lighthouse on St Anthony's head said farewell:

just as poorly marked fishing pots said hello, in a quiet and often almost impossible to spot way:

That one was tiny but colourful. The black cans or old transparent milk bottles are way worse. The trip across to Plymouth was pretty quiet apart from some pot marker spotting and dodging. All went well. Approaching Plymouth that all changed:

There were 4 naval vessels (one from Canada) exercising outside the harbour and then one entered to anchor in the approved area just north of the big breakwater.  It made the captain happy to hear that even the best professionals get it wrong. HMS Richmond called the port control folks four times asking if they were OK to drop their anchor and each time they were told that they were still not in the correct spot for anchorage number 7. On each occasion they were told how far and in which direction to move. Each time it didn't work.  Then another UK naval vessel was supposed o be deploying their seaboat which would enter the harbour to do a crew transfer. Several minutes later they called to say there was a problem launching it and they would swap to another. Then the radio on that boat was very poor and the port control folks got very frustrated with them.  We think that the captain of the Canadian warship must have been wondering about the competence of our navy. We did.

Heading up to Mayflower Marina was OK, a large naval supply ship was leaving so we had to hang around for that before going to our allotted berth on the inside of the breakwater. On the outside was a Border Force boat with lots of crew on board who were standing chatting. Strangely nobody offered to help our crew with the mooring  lines as we tied up opposite them. Normally folks help each other - official guys like police, harbour patrols etc too. Their ability to totally ignore everyone and everything going on around them was amazing and so different to our usual experiences.

We wandered up to the office, chatted to the lovely folks there, then met Andrew and Linda from their taxi and got them settled on board. It was lovely catching up.

No maintenance news to report, again the mechanical and electrical bits all worked OK. We gave the wing engine a little run approaching the harbour just to make it happy and  so it didn't feel ignored. We fear that the genset was jealous and might get even with us when we need it next.