I'm not much good at preparing Webpages, but here are some of the pictures we took during our recent sailing holiday. They are reduced in file size (quality) in order to help speed your download times, but much better quality copies are available!
Getting to the Scillies by yacht, from Falmouth, has been an ambition of ours (well, mainly Peter) for well over a year. We hoped we might achieve it last year, when Antony and Julia were aboard with us, but poor weather meant we had to turn back from Penzance, and plough through very unpleasant conditions round The Lizard back to Falmouth.
This time, the weather conditions looked absolutely perfect, with a large area of high pressure firmly established across the SW of the UK which was forecast to remain for the whole week. We were therefore assured of calm weather, if not sufficient wind to give us much sailing. It was a case of "If we don't give it a go this time, we never will!"
'The Raymond' was handed over to us on Saturday afternoon in Port Pendennis, Falmouth, and our food loaded on board. The swing bridge giving easy access to the pontoons was temporarily out of order, but the Maritime Museum very kindly allowed us access by car to the top of the ramp - saving a very long walk with the trollies of supplies and luggage.
Soon after 7am on Sunday morning, we set off for Newlyn, which we decided to use as our 'half way house' instead of Penzance, which has limited times (tide related) for entry and exit. Newlyn is very much a commercial port, used extensively by fishing craft, with no dedicated facilities for the yachting community, although we did have access to water and electricity. The following pictures are of Newlyn harbour, and that of the fishing vessel piled high with coloured fishing pots is included especially for Julia, who is the world expert at spotting fishing pots!
We took the opportunity to walk along to Mousehole for a late afternoon drink, overlooking the bay, and then managed to fall into the keyside pub (The Ship Inn) for a fitting, and filling, supper.
As a result of a conversation I overheard outside the loo (don't ask!) we realised that a bus to Newlyn was about to depart. We dashed out of the pub and just managed to catch it for the ride back to Newlyn. Time for an early night - early start tomorrow morning!
After quite a bumpy (but uneventful) ride across to The Scillies we found our way into Hugh Town, St Mary's Pool, soon after lunch time and managed to pick up a mooring buoy at our first attempt (well done Jenny!). Unless you've tried it, you won't appreciate that it can be quite tricky, both for the person at the helm, and the person at the bow wielding the boat hook. Once the buoy is hooked, a line must be secured pretty quickly as the boat will be blown away from the buoy by the wind (and/or carried by any tide stream) and holding it with just the boat hook can be difficult. The first picture shows the St Mary's to Newlyn ferry heading back to the mainland, and the second shows some of our new neighbours.
The large yacht below was moored on the adjacent buoy, and I decided there was a possibility that, with a wind change, it could swing into us, and so (foolishly) decided we should move to an alternative buoy. Big mistake - it took 6 attempts to pick up the new buoy, and we bent the boat hook in the process! With more rational thinking later in the day, I realised there had been no need to move, as there was actually sufficient clearance to avoid any possibility of it swinging into us!!
During our first full day on St Mary's, we took the Katie Bus (a 1948 Austin) tour of the Island - a round trip of about 6 miles! The driver was informative, and entertaining, and the bus's open top made the journey very enjoyable in the warm sunshine. This was the second time in 2 days that we'd made a hurried exit from a pub meal in order to catch a bus, but it was our only chance that day to catch Katie, and proved well worth the effort.
Here are some pictures we took around St Mary's - including one of Jenny scoffing an ice cream!
For our second full day in the Scillies, rather than take The Raymond and look at some of the other islands, we elected to take one of the pleasure boats from St Mary's which would first take us to the most easterly rocks in The Scillies where we were promised a good view of the many seals and bird life. From there we would be dropped off on the Island of St Martin's, to spend a few relaxing hours before being picked up at the end of the day and taken back to St Mary's.
Once again we were blessed by the weather, calm sea and tide state, and were treated to spectacular close-up views of so many seals that it was impossible to keep count, but there must have been between 100 and 150, including young pups (white in colour). As you will see, we also saw dozens of shags, resting on one particular rock before their next feeding period. Our decision to take the pleasure boat was a good one, as we would not have taken The Raymond anywhere near these rocks!
St Martin's is a beautiful and peaceful island, with a population of about 2000. It has one pub (The Seven Stones), which surely has one of the most idyllic settings in the UK. The view from its garden is absolutely stunning, and their friendly hospitality, homemade cornish pasties and delicious beer gave us a memorable lunch.
This delightful cottage adjoins the pub.
The following pictures will hopefully give you some idea of St Martin's, and its beautiful serenity.
And this is the small jetty where our boat will arrive to take us back to St Mary's. When we first arrived at St Martin's, the tide was so low that there was barely enough depth of water for it to berth at the very end of the jetty, but now the water is deeper, and the skipper's job much easier.
After we got back to The Raymond, still on its mooring buoy at St Mary's, we were treated to one of the tradditional, and fiercly contested inter-island Gig Races. Navigation around the Scillies can be extremely hazardous, and many years ago, the crews of these boats used to race to vessels approaching the islands in order to be the first to put a pilot aboard, and therefore collect the fee. The 32ft wooden gigs, some of which are over 100 yrs old, are raced every week during the season with an appreciative crowd following in passenger boats. The male crews race on a Friday evening, female crews on Wednesdays, and so we saw one of the woman's races. The first picture shows the start, and the second shows the winning crew crossing the line, late in the evening, after a race lasting about 15mins.
And here are the crews fighting for the minor places, with a large yacht just visible on the horizon.
The following morning (Thursday) we were up at 5am, in good time to have breakfast, prepare some warm soup for the long jouney back to Falmouth, and be ready at first light to slip our mooring. And so at 6.20am, with The Raymond's navigation lights switched on, we made our way carefully between the islands and then set course for Falmouth. It was a little while before the sun came up and, as you can see from this picture, it was quite nippy. The low-lying Scillies can be just be seen on the horizon behind us.
Rather like our trip back to Sicily in June, we were visited by a school of dolphins. But on this occasion, they stayed with us for almost 15mins, playing around/under/behind and ahead of the boat. No other boats were near us, and this proved to be an experience we can never forget. They tended to appear, one and two at a time, at the bow or leaping out of the water beside the boat (about 3 feet away), and then momentarily disappearing. It was quite difficult knowing where and when they would next appear, and at one time we thought they had left us - only to spot the whole 'squadron' heading towards us at speed, in formation, leaping out of the water as they hurtled at the boat, and underneath it. Initially I did not worry about taking photographs, preferring to enjoy the display myself, but after 10 minutes I did my best to capture something of it on camera. This proved very difficult, having to guess where they'd appear, and hoping the camera shutter would react fast enough. Consequently, I only have two shots I can include - the first showing 3 members of the formation squadron heading towards us, and the second showing one dolphin at the bow, and the splash of a second as it disappears below the waves. In retrospect, I should have put the camera into 'movie' mode, but the memory of those magic moments will remain with us. Truly amazing.
Our journey back to Falmouth was otherwise uneventful, apart from the very close attention of a Royal Navy helicopter which flew a couple of times towards our stern, at a height of about 50ft above the sea, veering away only at the last minute. We were out of sight of land for many hours, but there were 2 or 3 other yachts visible, along with the inevitable commecial shipping. And so we rounded The Lizard around 4pm with Jenny at the helm - a complete contrast to the last time (in 2006) we fought our way round heading for Falmouth, with most of the crew feeling distinctly unwell! We passed the St Anthony Head Lighthouse around 6.30pm and then into Falmouth, Port Pendennis. A journey of over 12 hours, but we were safely back in our 'home port'.
To finish, here are one or two sunset photographs, taken from on-board The Raymond at its St Mary's mooring.
For both of us, the achievement of sailing to the Scillies has been a true adventure, and a fantastic holiday. Perhaps next time we will be able to do more of the journey under sail, rather than having to rely on the engine, but we felt justified in celebrating our successful venture once we had arrived back in Falmouth.
(Webpage compiled 1st October 2007)