[Autumn 2011] Falmouth festivities and a new home port

Picking up from the last blog, 2011 saw the 350th anniversary of the granting of a Royal Charter to the town of Falmouth, following its rapid rise from a hamlet at the confluence of the Penryn River and the Fal to one of the most important harbour towns in the country. It made for quite a celebration.

The town’s role in the Civil War was a particular focus, with Pendennis Castle having been the one of the last Royalists strongholds to fall. The 155 day siege was happily significantly compressed in the reenactment, with the bicycle cavalry being a particular highlight.

And of course you can’t go wrong with a cannon or two.

(The structure in the background is the fascinating National Maritime Museum Cornwall)

I very much enjoyed the live music in Falmouth as well – here are the excellent Aberfal Oggymen (now The Oggymen as people kept thinking they were Welsh) singing with the crowd packed into the Chain Locker after their performance in the Shipwrights’ Bar

and this is Falmouth Shout putting on a great performance in The Front.

In fact it was all good enough entertainment to persuade me to stay on in the area for the town’s annual Oyster Festival, though I’d now decided to keep Maid on the River Tamar (on the Devon border) for the next year.

So in the meantime it was back to enjoying walking round Falmouth, both along the coast

and inland

Except of course for the recovery time after gatecrashing a game of beach football. Turns out however much walking you’ve been doing up and down the Cornish coast, it’s still not adequate training. Good fun though.

I also roamed further up Carrick Roads again, back to St Just (seen here in rather murky weather to say the least, in fact Maid’s anchor light looks to have come on already!)

and to the splendidly named Feock, where I rather admired the use of a redundant post-box

before returning to Falmouth for the aforementioned Oyster Festival.

This is a big event here as it marks the start of the dredging season in one of the world’s last traditional oyster fisheries, with the harvest undertaken under sail and by hand punts. It’s also grown to become a celebration of Cornish seafood and culture in general, and draws a big crowd.

(The figure hovering above the crowd is probably Neptune, but no, I have no idea who the man on the left is either)

There were cookery demonstrations

obviously good food

the hotly-contested oyster-shucking competition (a race to extract a bucket of oysters from their shells, for kudos and probably a fair few pints of Betty Stoggs over the year)

and more live music – this was my first introduction to the fantastic Dalla

I caught up with Mike in the bar at some point once he’d brought Phantom Lady round from the Helford- here they are, just to show I did check up on the boat occasionally:

and here are Falmouth Shout belting out sea shanties again, this time joined by the redoubtable Betty Stoggs from Skinners Brewery.

After all that I thought I’d actually better get around to trying some oysters by the Sunday, especially as I never had despite growing up 10 miles away from Whitstable, and having helped my parents gather them at low tide at least once.

After that it was time to enjoy the racing, with magnificent skill shown on a very congested course, especially considering the sail area and especially the bowsprits of the traditional working boats.

10 feet of wood projecting from a boat smaller than Maid looks quite a risk at times!

Sadly, it was soon time to pack the dinghy up

and sail out to take the tide east towards the Tamar

with the help of the tide being especially important as there wasn’t much wind for a while!

Still, there was no ocean swell and rolling here this evening, but a beautiful sunset

followed by a handy light breeze overnight – very welcome along with the very gentle sea as I hadn’t done any night sailing since getting back from the Azores. I can’t say I’d missed it, but apart from the lack of sleep (especially marked from not being in the routine and being close to obstacles) it was a very easy passage.

Dawn came somewhere off Rame Head

to welcome Maid to her new home at Torpoint

So Maid had a new home – and so did I – time to go and start work again.

A strange feeling – it had been a fantastic couple of years away, including the few months of autumn back in the UK, but by this point I was keen to start work again, and it was getting towards the time of year where being based in a house and an office rather than a boat would seem fairly appealing. So more anticipation than sadness, especially as I would get to holiday in Cornwall the next year.

Carry On 2011

It took me a while to figure out that the blog actually leaves 2011 high and dry. Oops. Or to express those concepts in picture form:

I’d had no problems anchored in that spot for a several days, but had evidently got complacent about increasing tidal range getting towards springs. Walking across the Roseland to meet up with Si and Cat in Portscatho got delayed for a few hours to wait for low water and make sure nothing dramatic happened. Happily the mud was clearly quite soft and with little current, no wind and the tide to come back in it wasn’t really a problem, unlike other incidents I can think of (chiefly https://maidofmettle.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/oops/).

I’m clearly playing rather loose with the timing of events here, as the original reason I’d anchored up the Percuil a few days previously was to be able to leave Maid anchored safely (no problems with lack of water with neap tides) in a sheltered spot while I travelled up to Redhill for a job interview. It was a rather early start, but a very beautiful one.

The journey involved one dinghy, two feet, and one bus to get to Truro, where the early morning haze seemed to have set in to stay..

..and then feet again and a couple of trains to get to Redhill. It’s fair to say it was quite a long journey. Plenty of time to think what to say though. Having worked there for several years it seems I didn’t take any photos of that bit, and it would be a rather strange activity at an interview even if you do already know the people there.

It was very good to get the prospect of a job confirmed and catch up with people, but I must confess that with Maid down in Cornwall the fact an imminent start date wasn’t likely did not seem like too much of a problem.

Especially as despite everyone saying that summer had been terrible, the autumn was turning out to be rather splendid.

In fact I did a lot more swimming in Cornwall in the autumn than I’d done in the Azores in summer. It wasn’t as deliciously warm as the volcanic spring-fed waters on Sao Miguel, but left you feeling splendid after a quick dip.

It helps that the water is beautifully clear as well:

I also got to catch up with Si and Cat again – this is them sailing past off St Mawes with Planet looking splendid.

When the wind was very light in the east I also took the opportunity to spend some time anchored off St Just in Roseland; a beautiful spot though often quite exposed.

This is the local church, occupying a beautiful spot down by the water.

The scenery around is every bit as splendid – this is looking out over the anchorage again

and this is from a walk further up the Roseland, looking across fields to Carrick Roads (the slightly curious name for the Fal estuary) and Penarrow Point, with Falmouth (left) & Mylor (right) in the distance.

Another bonus of sailing at this time of year is that the crowds have gone you do tend to meet some interesting people – it turned out the chap with the beautiful boat in the foreground here used to skipper one of the Brixham trawlers.

Speaking of intersting people, as well as enjoying Cornwall I did make one brief dash up to Reading to meet up with Claire before she left the country. Well, I say dash – not sure term really applies when you’ve rowed ashore to get a train at half six only to find it’s been cancelled and there’s not another one for an hour. Well worth it though 🙂

Back in Cornwall again I made sure I was in Falmouth for Charter Day – more to come on that, and why a regiment of bicycle cavalry featured..