South Cornwall
Cornwall is one of my favourite places and so we decided to spend a little time here. We booked into Falmouth Haven for a couple on nights which gave us time to explore this busy fishing port, sample at least one cream tea and eat some very fresh fish in a lovely little restaurant.
The Haven at Falmouth is tucked in behind the dockyard which at the present time is home to the RFA new support vessel Tidesurge who, following her maiden voyage from the yard in South Korea where she was built, is being commissioned in Falmouth. Whilst we were in the yacht haven we were treated to the sight of Tidesurge being turned around in the harbour. This involved lots of space and four tugs. Now I love watching tugs they are tenacious little boats bravely pushing into the bows of huge vessels and hooking themselves onto large wire hawsers to pull these massive ships around whilst these great monster vessels are in maritime language "constrained in their ability to manoeuvre". The four little tugs did their job and after about 45 minutes of manoeuvring Tidesurge was safely back alongside in the yard ready for work to begin again and we were able to leave our berth.
I was by now well over half way through Frenchman's Creek and felt that it was vital that instead of going straight to Plymouth we needed to visit Fowey, a plan that the skipper agreed with. We made good time to Fowey and were soon tied alongside one of the midstream pontoons opposite Fowey village. Sailing in past the forts protecting the entrance to the river I could imagine very easily the events described in the book and expected to see a large square rigger rounding the bay at any second!
Fowey is a very popular tourist town and the narrow streets were packed with tourists and cars but it was still possible to appreciate the beauty of the place - I was however glad we arrived by water and hadn't needed to thread a car through the narrow streets! The pontoon we had been guided to to by the harbour master was opposite the main town and so getting ashore required either a dinghy trip or a ride in the water taxi. Being a bit lazy we called up the water taxi!
The village is really very tiny but with a huge church sporting the second highest tower in Cornwall! Walking around the church it was clear that Du Maurier had taken some of her character names from those laid to rest in the church. Walking along to the end of the village close to the ferry we had a look at the Du Maurier monument - a large bird with a book in one set of talons - and then realised that the Du Maurier house was just a few yards from our mooring. This explained the tourist boats chugging past Teteli regularly!
After a lovely afternoon in Fowey (and a much better cream tea than the one in Falmouth) we set off the following morning for Plymouth. The weather was gorgeous, the wind in a perfect direction at about 10 knots and the tide was perfect! Very soon we were bowling along at 6 knots heading for Plymouth. We had a brilliant sail down to Plymouth Sound but as we closed on the sound we came face to face with a huge racing fleet! Not being familiar with the route through the sound and with lots of boats racing towards us we decided it would be wise to lower sail and motor through the throng. Very soon we were behind the great breakwater looking at the old lighthouse on the Hoe and heading towards the lock into Sutton Harbour Marina. We chose this particular Marina on advice as it is very close to the centre of town in an area called the Barbican and never having visited Plymouth before (I'm not usually drawn to large towns!) we decided that we would like to spend a day or so exploring.
Our plan was to spend the weekend in Plymouth catch up with an old friend we hadn't seen for several years and then move on via the River Yelm and Salcombe to Dartmouth - that was until we worked out the tides! But more of that next time.
The Haven at Falmouth is tucked in behind the dockyard which at the present time is home to the RFA new support vessel Tidesurge who, following her maiden voyage from the yard in South Korea where she was built, is being commissioned in Falmouth. Whilst we were in the yacht haven we were treated to the sight of Tidesurge being turned around in the harbour. This involved lots of space and four tugs. Now I love watching tugs they are tenacious little boats bravely pushing into the bows of huge vessels and hooking themselves onto large wire hawsers to pull these massive ships around whilst these great monster vessels are in maritime language "constrained in their ability to manoeuvre". The four little tugs did their job and after about 45 minutes of manoeuvring Tidesurge was safely back alongside in the yard ready for work to begin again and we were able to leave our berth.
I was by now well over half way through Frenchman's Creek and felt that it was vital that instead of going straight to Plymouth we needed to visit Fowey, a plan that the skipper agreed with. We made good time to Fowey and were soon tied alongside one of the midstream pontoons opposite Fowey village. Sailing in past the forts protecting the entrance to the river I could imagine very easily the events described in the book and expected to see a large square rigger rounding the bay at any second!
 |
| Tied to the Midstream Pontoon in Fowey |
The village is really very tiny but with a huge church sporting the second highest tower in Cornwall! Walking around the church it was clear that Du Maurier had taken some of her character names from those laid to rest in the church. Walking along to the end of the village close to the ferry we had a look at the Du Maurier monument - a large bird with a book in one set of talons - and then realised that the Du Maurier house was just a few yards from our mooring. This explained the tourist boats chugging past Teteli regularly!
After a lovely afternoon in Fowey (and a much better cream tea than the one in Falmouth) we set off the following morning for Plymouth. The weather was gorgeous, the wind in a perfect direction at about 10 knots and the tide was perfect! Very soon we were bowling along at 6 knots heading for Plymouth. We had a brilliant sail down to Plymouth Sound but as we closed on the sound we came face to face with a huge racing fleet! Not being familiar with the route through the sound and with lots of boats racing towards us we decided it would be wise to lower sail and motor through the throng. Very soon we were behind the great breakwater looking at the old lighthouse on the Hoe and heading towards the lock into Sutton Harbour Marina. We chose this particular Marina on advice as it is very close to the centre of town in an area called the Barbican and never having visited Plymouth before (I'm not usually drawn to large towns!) we decided that we would like to spend a day or so exploring.
 |
| Plymouth sound with the last of the racing fleet passing |
Comments
Post a Comment