Episode 12 Departing Falmouth and arriving in Ireland just in time for a big low...

 Episode 12, Departing Falmouth and arriving in Ireland just in time for a big low...

Well at 0600 we knocked on the boat rafted to us, he had promised to be up and he was. 0605 Cast off and under way.  

Fair foggy and high barometer.

Good forecast, what we needed.

 Where the cruise ship had tied up. They too had missed the trooping of the colours but by two days not hours like us.

 Had the radar on standby.

 The day got brighter and the seas were not a problem. At Newlin we decided to keep going. Knowing we were to be weathered in we figured we would prefer to head to Ireland as opposed to be weathered in at the Scily Islands, we have more people that we love in Ireland so we decided to keep heading west.

 Dr. syntax head, the names are great.

 Same as above just greater detail 

 There is an anchorage indicated on the charts. Even with the binoculars' we could not find it nor did we pursue a closer inspection. 

 Tried to get a photo of fogy night watch. We have radar, AIS, Depth down, then the 4 red on the right are the engine bulkhead display and bottom of the photo is the compass light just fwd. of the wheel.  

 The hook light.

 11:30 Anchored outside Dunmore East.

 Swimmers kept safe behind the yellow markers wearing high visibility arms on their wet suits. The water was 11C.

 Optimist's race training.

 Families tubing

 Had the best seat in the house

 Noel topped up our fuel from the deck jugs

 All this while a roast dinner cooked. Felt like the last one was with my sister and family Easter Sunday. It was very good we had to wait for the tide and there is only so much sleeping and boat jobs that you can do. One of the children  of the families that were tubing asked if any one had anything to eat he was famished! They wrapped up their activities and went to find food. I think they smelled our dinner. 

 Underway heading up river.  Bridge was open waiting for us

 Closed quickly behind us, we were later then we had estimated with our arrival time. Just after the bridge closed we were hailed on the vhf radio by our good friends Patrick and Sheila who have a house overlooking cheek point on the river. Great chat with them and then later in the week we had lunch with them at the DunBrody centre.

 The new bridge is now complete. Our earlier blogs you could see this progressing. It is a bypass for New Ross town itself and has brought life back into town as there are no longer large vehicles trying choking up the place. 

 Dry dock is full with a queue of two on the pontoon. 

 New crane.

 And we are home again! along side the pontoon with a lovely new ramp and the a wonderful warm welcome from our pals Michael, Steven and Miss Sadie the dog. Very happy to be here. With the forecast we expect about 4 days and could not be in a better place. 

And so ends this blog with more to come. 

 

 

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Episode 11, Salcome Fowey and then Falmouth, continuing west along England's south coast

 Episode 11, Salcome Fowey and then Falmouth, continuing West along England's south coast

Dart harbour has a fuel barge anchored in the middle of the harbour servicing both the commercial and the pleasure craft and then the next pontoon up is the rubbish pontoon so lots of docking involved. We sorted our rubbish and then went and got some diesel fuel. The skipper of the diesel barge recognized us from 2019 and mentioned that his predecessor moved from Dartmouth UK to Dartmouth NS, Canada. He thought this was a laugh as the mans address was so similar and yet so far apart and totally different with things like snow in the winter. 

While we were there Jamie called from his Scallop fishing wishing us well. They were having a family BBQ that weekend and had invited us. Regretfully we had to keep heading west while the wind was not against us. 

Departing with the tide we had a short over cast sail to Salcome Harbour 21 miles very lovely. We crossed the bar at low water and found a mooring. The place was hopping, boats and people everywhere. Then we figured out it must be half term...Well it was more then that, it was the Jubilee week end. In recognition of this it was an extra long long weekend...This was explained later by a man from Wales. 

The harbour had boats three to a mooring, children swimming water taxi's working flat out. When we got to go walkabout ashore there was a grass fire so the air was bad. We could not get in any where for sit down coffee or pint there were notices excusing poor service due to staff shortages and only if you had a reservation could you be served. We returned to the boat and had a lovely evening. Somehow we have deleted the photos taken during our walk. The harbour was blocked with expensive RIB's and fishermen were dragging  scallop or crab storage cages right up to the warf's behind the kitchens. Now that is fresh seafood delivery. 

  Beautiful morning

Still need our jumpers.

Departing Salcome about 0830

Making good time so decided to skip Plymouth and head to Fowey 

 Noel was a bit bored as we were motor sailing so decided to take in his trousers. Life on the boat is a lot more exercise then lock down life in the city. 

Pleased with the result. 

Our course took us inside the Eddy Stone Light.

Figure it would be more visible at night.

 We had marking's of "Military's exercise area" so we were being vigilante on watch. Well nothing showed on the AIS but we had one lone wave that got us green water to the mast and knocked our speed down by two knots. Figure a sub must have made a sudden dive or acceleration from fairly shallow. We could not come up with another explanation. 

 Its cool so our floater coats are perfect

 Very sheltered entrance

 The ruins noted on the chart

 The Yacht Club

All kinds of boats, troop transport, bilge keeler, developmental class international 14 and just up stream is a chain ferry.

 We have seen these too before

Getting underway about 8 AM

Entering the river Fal estuary looking over towards St. Maws

After a lovely sail of 24 miles we were alongside at the visitors yacht haven in Falmouth. We had missed by hours the "Trooping of the colours" and the place was bursting with people. The Queens Jubilee celebrations were everywhere. The harbour had a cruise ship in and the place was packed. 

Pub lunch, refuge from the masses of people. 

Servicing the winches

 Oh how much better they are for the attention.

The next day we tried to get the marina dues back as we wanted away from all the people and because it was a 4 day long week end...being the Jubilee it was going to be a massive undertaking that could not happen till mid next week as every one took vacation around this week end....so we went on a day trip boat away to St. Mawes.

 Great day tripper boats

 The harbour

Can not resist a map

 Beautiful sights everywhere you looked

 The honey bees had this wall humming.

 Standing next to the 6th century holy well with the stonework done in the 15th century. 

 Across from the well more walls of flowers

 The anchorage

Jubilee sand castles

We had a lovely day. One boat went over and lost their place on the pontoon and when they came back there was a queue to raft onto us. We are small so the rule is biggest boat inside then raft smaller. Thankfully a 33' boat had asked so we were able to direct the heavy big Scottish boat onto another similar more suitable vessel. The 33' was single handing so it was good we were on board at the time.    

 Falmouth getting ready... For the next days celebrations. No where could you find any timings on events. Everyone was so excited they just figured all would know the timings. Not the people we asked.  Saturday street festivals everywhere. Pasties and sausage rolls street picnic with a Cream Tea outside the church (scones jam and a dollop of fresh cream) with a cup of tea. Donation bucket at the table all so simple and fun.  The day was cool and windy with boats rafted and fenders flattened. Getting off the boat was a break from the noise and wind.  

 Even the safety barrier's were lovely.

The poor weather had passed and we figured we had another window to travel. 

And so ends this blog, we hope you enjoy our sharing our adventures.