Padstow - Falmouth - Bexhill - Falmouth - France!!

Wed 8th Padstow – Falmouth

We awoke at five thirty to the sounds of other yachts making ready to let us out of the harbour and thought we better get on with it. We bid farewell to our rafting companions then headed out to sea.
We saw some yachts take
a peek out around the corner and then turn back. Twenty minutes later I was wishing we had done likewise and by the time I was pleading to, then it was too late to turn back and there was nothing to do but keep going! It was blowing a ‘good six’ in Ali’s words , butI felt it was more of a ‘good seven.’ By the time we had got past the first headland both girls had been sick the auto pilot had packed up entirely and I was clinging onto the upper deck (upper because of angle of boat not that we have two decks) grimly trying to hold on to my breakfast! Thankfully it was dry and I suppose the wind did push us along at about 7 to 8 knots so we got to Lands End at about lunch time. Once again the two little ladies who were lying fairly comatose except for spewing bouts recovered amazingly quickly as soon as we had changed direction, between them they scoffed a packet of Pringles before we had gotten to the South side of Cornwall! The tide was a bit against us as we were rounding Land’s End and the wind had dropped a bit (typical just when you wanted it) so we ended up putting the engine on for most of the rest of the way to Falmouth.
We went past the Lizard and could see to our right (or should that be starboard?!) quite o few big ships going up and down the channel. Here as always there were a few fishing boats around and loads of creel buoys to look out for some are very visible and some are almost submerged and so slimy you would have no chance of seeing them at night. There were loads of big ships anchored outside Falmouth. I phoned the new Falmouth Dock Marina to see if we could get a berth using the numbers supplied in the almanac only to be told it hadn’t been built yet! So we just headed into the harbour and tied up to a mooring then decided we maybe shouldn’t be there and so tied up to another finally getting to scoff the chilli I had made in Padstow at about 10pm. Then off to bed for a well earned sleep.

Thurs 9th Falmouth

We were awoken at eight by the harbour guy collecting fees from the moorings before the boats sneak off. We got up and headed over to the pontoon. Ali got on the phone to Raymarine UK to talk about the Auto pilot and so two local engineers came down to have a look. They went off for a sail to look at the compass again so I took the girls up to town as we couldn’t really face any more sea time so soon. We were here a few years ago when we collected the boat so I knew my way around. Falmouth is a lovely old town- the main street is full of cafes and shops. It has a few of the big shop names but not too many. We trotted off to one of the piers for an ice cream. When we got back Ali was hauling the saloon apart to relocate the autopilot compass as the engineers had decided that was the problem, let’s just hope that they are right…

We got a text from Lyndsay to say that Chevonne had had a peerie boy the day before which made us very happy. Congratulations to you both! We can’t wait to see photos of peerie Thomas.

We headed out for a pint at the ‘Grapes Inn’ a local hostelry that Uncle Hughie recommended as he used to go there when docked in Falmouth. The ‘Grapes’ turned out to be a naval/merchant navy pub and looked like it maybe hadn’t changed the decor since the last time Uncle Hughie was here! lets just say it is the Thule of Falmouth by way of a Shetland comparison although the Thule doesn‘t have a dancing pole…. We had a pint of ale each and Ali thought that he really should have some old navy rum in honour of Uncle Hughie but it nearly made his eyes water it was so strong!

Fri 10th Falmouth

Went shopping in the rain, tackled the washing, nothing exciting except for the usual scrum for the washing machines you get here! It is the only marina I have been to where people feel compelled to guard their washing instead of leaving it. Ours got unceremoniously dumped around the laundry and all that was said when Ali went to get it was you should have been back earlier! In Padstow when we returned late to get our washing it had been folded by Andrea the nice lady on the boat next to ours not strewn around like litter! I winched Ali up the mast twice to relocate the TV aerial to the top of the mast. It was extremely hard work considering he is such a scrawny individual, must be heavy bones!

Sat 11th Falmouth

The weather was OK in the morning and we went out to explore and have a pasty for lunch. It turned out there is more to the town centre than we realised and we found a cinema. The lasses found the poster for Ice Age 3 so we were persuaded to get tickets for the tea time showing. It was very good and Ali did eventually recover from having to put down a £5 x 4 deposit on the 3D glasses on top of the ticket price! It was raining when we left and so we decided to eat out instead of the trek to Tesco’s. We went to a ‘noodle bar’ I had spied earlier. I have always wanted to go to a noodle bar and ‘Xen’ did not disappoint! It was excellent the food was great and the service really efficient however the waitress did not smile very often and seemed to make a point of making us jump by popping out form different sides of the pillar we were seated next to. The rain had really come on when we left so we got a taxi only to be completely soaked through on the short sprint down the pontoon.

Sun 12th Falmouth

Neil Kernow came along in the morning to fit the steel bars for our ‘bimini’ ( sun shade ) as it had finally stopped raining. He made a template for the canvas which he will make up over the next few days. We went to the maritime museum which is well worth a look, I had been previously impressed by the boat hall in the Lerwick museum, well now it seems like a little shed. There were loads of thing s for the kids to do there including sailing model yachts around a pool, jumping in life rafts and going inside a genuine diving bell. There is a display about a family who survived for weeks in their life raft and dingy after their yacht was sunk by attacking orcas. I didn’t realise that ever happened apparently they sometimes mistake a yacht for a whale and only realise their mistake when the boat sinks…… Anyway the trick to survival is to lasso turtles and drink their blood before eating the meat!

Mon 13th Falmouth

We decided it was time for the girls first lesson and we taught them how to write ant. They seemed to enjoy it and loved learning the ant on your arm song! Later we went for a look around the shops, Ali had an opticians appointment booked and it turns out he has glaucoma which needs a specialist to confirm and prescribe for. The optician phoned the hospital at 2pm and Ali was seeing an eye specialist in the Truro hospital at 4pm, impressive! The girls and I went to a book shop to stock up on a few reading books for them before we leave the UK. We took the boat out to a mooring for the night as we were leaving early in the morning to catch the first of our trains to see ‘Granny England’

Tues 14th Six trains to Bexhill…..

We got a hold of the harbour master to come and collect us from our boat as we didn’t fancy leaving our dingy unattended for four days at the pontoon. Then we raced up to the station to get the first of six trains (unbeknown to us!) There is no station in Falmouth so you just jump on the train to Truro and buy a ticket for the rest of your journey from the girl. She planned us a route which got us to Bexhill an hour earlier than I had planned it on the internet but meant going into London, not realising the full reality of this we took her itinerary and thought nothing of it. The next train was fine from Truro to Paddington station. It was the transfer from Paddington to Victoria that caused the mayhem as we only had ten minutes to find our next train and didn’t realise it meant going down onto the underground. We thought we had made it onto the correct tube train until it didn’t go down our path at all then we had to make a quick exit and go back down the line. We made it and got the next train to Brighton but had missed the train to Bexill so we had to wait for the next one and got in at 5pm – phew! Uncle Nick was there to pick us up and take us to Grandma’s. We spent the evening catching up and had a Chinese takeaway. The girls were really excited to see ‘Granny England’ and ‘Uncle Aberdeen.’

Wed 14th Bexhill

Ali took the lasses off to find the play park and I stayed home with Grandma until we met up for lunch later on. Grandma is a woman who I am in awe of as she lives alone, is 83 years old and has been partially sighted as long as I can remember. She is very active, going out for lunches with friends and to the local association for the blind once a week and is forever getting phone calls from people, I think she has a more active social life than I do and she is always cheery. Uncle Nick lives a few blocks away and is always on hand to help out. If I am as active as that at her age even wholly sighted I will be happy. Uncle Nick had a barbeque at night and we met his new girlfriend Judy, a very good night was had by all with good food and great company but we really shouldn’t have drank that bottle of Port later on!

Thurs 15th Bexhill & Hastings

We woke feeling a bit dehydrated and I had to skip out of bed early to take Alisha down to the doctors to try and get a new inhaler for her, it was a very hot day and not good for a hangover!
Uncle Phillip (aka ‘Uncle Invercockaleekie’) came over from Tunbridge Wells and took us all for a run to Hastings for the afternoon. It is a pretty town with a big seafront promenade like Bexhill. We walked along the seafront to the old town and went to the fishing museum. We were going to take the funicular railway to the top of the cliff but it was under reconstruction. Ali and Phillip walked up whilst we were at the funfair. I took the girls into their first Ghost train. I was a bit worried in case it scared them but they just laughed at the ghouls jumping out at us. We made tea at Grandma’s and got the girls to bed as early as we could for setting off back on the train in the morning. We had a great time and thanks to Grandma and Nick and Phillip for taking us around and making time for us. Hopefully we may see some of them again out in the med.

Fri 16th Bexhill to Falmouth

We got up, said our goodbyes and Uncle Nick gave us a run to the station. We were on the first train when Falmouth harbour called to say one of the mooring ropes on our boat had worn right through but they had fixed it! They had obviously been having much worse weather than Bexhill! We planned a route that didn’t include going into London this time but did include a psycho with a huge dog on one train and then a seriously overcrowded Friday train from Reading to Cornwall where we had to stand until we found one seat for me and the girls in one carriage then another for Ali in the other eventually. It was a real scrum and full of teenagers heading off to Cornwall for surfing and partying. When we got back to the harbour it was blowing a real gale and the lift over to our boat was rather wet to say the least! When we got aboard we realised we weren’t going to get back to the pontoons that night as they were packed and rafted already. There was no way we were going to inflate the dinghy so we had to have a store cupboard tea and pray the wind died down over night! We retied the boat to the mooring and added an extra rope just to be safe, no mean feat in a gale. The weather didn’t deter the Friday night’s yacht race and we watched some of them leaning over at an angle I wouldn’t like to experience!

Sat 18th Falmouth

We got back into the Pontoons as the wind had eased and a lot of boats had seized the opportunity and left. Neil Kernow came down to do an initial fitting of the bimini, it is looking good just a few extra eyelets to be put on and it will be finished. We invited a Norwegian couple on their way back from the Caribbean over for a few beers at night. Erik & Tuva have sailed across the Atlantic in a twenty five foot boat which I consider to be extremely brave! Ali says it means we can easily get across in our boat……

Sun 19th Falmouth - Aber Wrac‘h?

We had been looking at forecasts and it seems as if we didn’t go on Sunday we wouldn’t be able to cross the Channel until at least next weekend. Although I didn’t fancy another week in Falmouth I put my foot down and said no to going at four when Ali wanted to as it was really windy and gusty. We resigned ourselves to staying and went for a walk to Pendennis Point where there is an old castle that has seen a siege between the parliamentarians and the royals the royals lead by Sir Fairfax only giving in after 5 months when the food ran out. We didn’t go in as it was almost closed and thought we would go back the next day. We went around the point and I felt fully vindicated at having not left port as we watched a yacht punching it’s way through the waves.

We went back for tea to find a French yacht tied up to us they said they were leaving at 2am. The wind began to die down and so we spoke to them again and we decided we would all leave at 10pm. It was a bit of a rush to get ready but we made it and set off into the dark. The French yacht seemed to veer off to the East and we thought they had decided to go to a port to the East of Aber Wrac’h because of the wind direction. We sailed as far into the wind (SW) as we could because the forecast was for it to go more Southerly as the night went on. I stayed up with Ali until we were past all the anchored tankers then went off to bed. Ali did the darkest bit again and said it had been very uneventful except for overtaking a tanker!

Monday 20th Aber Wrac’h!

I had a very quiet watch as even though I saw loads of shipping none came close enough to warrant changing course. Here are photos of a few that I saw.

The wind did change at a bout 9 am and so we put the engine on and started to punch our way in. Unfortunately the rain also started and the girls got sick and it was all a bit dreech! We couldn’t even see the coast until we were about 2 miles off! The channel into Aber Wrac’h is well marked, but quite narrow through drying rocky beaches at low tide. There were loads of yachts going into port at the same time as us as it is best to go in on the flood. It was a bit like the ‘wacky races’ as it became obvious the nearer we got to the marina that there were no spaces and it was just a case of going round in circles until the harbour guy in a little boat negotiated with the yachts already tied up to see all the new ones could go alongside. I managed to drop a fender into the sea which meant a rescue mission amongst the mayhem! Finally we ended up alongside a 50’ benetau with a French couple onboard.

It continued to rain for the rest of the day and so our first impressions of France were not the best!
We went for a small walk around town when it eased for a bit and it is a pleasant place, very busy with children’s sailing and diving schools. They begin teaching them at a very young age here. There are a few creperies, restaurants and bars near to the marina but it is a bit of a walk into town to the shop.

Tuesday 21st Aber Wrac’h

We woke up to heavy rain which continued until tea time! The girls and I just sat on the boat and Ali went for a walk into town to get supplies. He was surprised to meet the crew of the French yacht from Falmouth who had come to Aber Wrac’h afterall but had gone by a completely different route that had taken far longer than us. Thank Goodness we didn’t follow them! We decided to go out for tea as a celebration of getting across the channel. The lady owner of the restaurant couldn’t speak English so we got to try out our very limited French vocabulary. It was quite amusing but we managed to all get food that we liked in the end. Ali had the ‘plat du jour’ which was scallop salad with arduille followed by some kind of fish ( no idea what as my old French vocabulary book only goes as far as poisson!) and a stewed apple pudding. I had chicken with paprika and wild mushrooms. The girls had nugget de poulet et frites! They got ice cream for pudding and the lady had put paper peacock decorations in them which they were delighted at. We were thinking of leaving the next day for Camaret as we had read the next instalment of Rosie and Brians’ blog, they had made it there and said it was nice. The crew of the French boat were also in the restaurant and confirmed that Camaret was a nice port to go to next but to watch out for the Channel du Four as it is famous for all the wrong reasons……… We decided to go the next morning to catch the tide……

Wed 22nd Aber Wrac’h to Camaret.

We left at around eight thirty according to our calculations of the tide. I got the girls up and gave them sea sick pills then put them back to bed. Thankfully this made them sleep through the next part of the journey. It was quite rough as we left port as the tide was against the wind but it didn’t look too bad so we continued. It was hellish! The sea would be Ok one minute then HUGE the next and we were climbing up waves that we couldn’t see over at all. We couldn’t follow the course we had planned as it would have meant going side on to the waves which is a no no. We headed North to get to deeper water and thankfully after an hour of terror we made it to calmer seas! Ali said at the time it was all under control but I heard him on the phone later at night telling a sailing friend he had never been in sea like that before…. We plotted a new course down the Channel Du Four which took us quite close to the Chanel de la helle - I don’t know if it translates the same but it sounds pretty awful! The channel Du Four has lots of rocks and markers all over the place and is generally quite shallow the whole way through. We were sailing along quite well tacking down the channel with only about two miles to go when the tide turned. The next two miles took us two hours with all the sails up and the engine screaming. The one good thing about the tide turning was that the swell, wind and tide were all coming from the same direction making it a lot smoother it was just unfortunate that they were all against us!

As soon as we got around the point we got the tide again and were making 8 - 9 knots much better. Just as we were coming into Camaret bay we were hit by a squall the like of which I have never seen before. We were just in the process of letting the sails out to take them down when the boat lurched to a disgusting angle and the heavens opened. The shower only lasted the ten minutes it took to get the sails down but Ali and I were completely soaked through as we didn’t have our oilskins on. Thankfully tying up at the marina was less eventful although it was a bit breezy but there are usually lots of helpers around!

The main visitor marina in camaret is out at the end of the sea wall and although quite close to town as the crow flies it is a five minute walk (twenty with kids!) to get there by foot. We went into town and the waterfront is the main street and full of shops bars creperies restaurants etc. There was live music being set up at a couple of places too so Ali started getting very excited. We decided to eat out as I for one hadn’t eaten much all day and we thought we deserved another treat after the sailing trauma. We ate at a seafood restaurant which was owned by a man who had been working in Edinburgh as a chef for a few years. He was good fun and took the mickey out of our Scottish accents. The girls had the kids menu which when we saw what it was made us realise we were no longer in Britain - a grilled tuna steak between two small pancakes and saffron mashed potatoes with parsley! We both had fish dishes which were excellent. We got talking to a couple from Stavanger at the next table and they are also heading for the Med. The owner came over with his house speciality, a rum punch he hade made. It was quite nice so Ali felt compelled to buy a bottle and invite the Norwegians back for a dram. It was a good end to a long day!