After the wind dropped yesterday evening it gave up the ghost in the early hours and we had no option but to motor from 0430. Just before I put the engine on we came up to a group of fishing boats with one heading towards us on a reciprocal course. It was called Z18 Soetkin so presumably not from Newlyn. He turned a little to starboard and so we would pass port to port and that seemed fine. As he was passing he speeded up and came around directly to wards us. He was getting so close and at such speed I was wondering what was going on and at less than 100 metres I released the wheel, started the engine and prepared to steer sharply away when he slowed down and continued trawling right on our stern. A tad aggressive I thought - maybe he was having fun. Maybe we had sailed right over the shoal of fish he was trying to hoover up. A little farther on and within UK waters we passed FV Billy Rowney PZ532 and we knew we were home. 

Today started grey and cloudy but then the high pressure muscled in, the clouds evaporated and the wind filled in from the south east. It’s been a beautiful, sunny, breezy day and we romped around Lands End with wind to 20kts and up to 9kts speed over ground.

While in Antigua and then again in Horta, we met Chris (and son and girlfriend) owner and skipper of Salamander, a 60ft yacht he cruises in the UK in the summer and Caribbean in the winter, taking paying guests/crew on short cruises. His daughter is a charter skipper and three weeks ago was sailing the 20m yacht Mustique to Gibraltar. 10 miles off the coast of Spain they were attacked by a pod of killer whales that broke the rudder and holed the boat. The Spanish coastguard gave her a pump and towed her to port where there were several other disabled yachts that had also been attacked and towed in. I’ve heard of at least two other boats that have been sunk by these attacks. No one seems entirely clear why these attacks are taking place. One theory is that it is a male using the yachts to teach other Orcas how to attack whales. The attacks are now a regular occurrence but, other than the designation of exclusion zones, there seems little interest in solving the problem before someone drowns (or is eaten). The coastguard has given out most of its spare pumps to stricken yachts and is reluctant to part with any more! It’s an interesting moral dilemma. We are perfectly happy to fill the whales with toxins so that they can no longer breed (which is what we have done off the west coast of Great Britain), remove their food source by overfishing (all over the world) and yet wring our hands at the suggestion that one of these “protected species” be culled to prevent further attacks on yachts. This particular attack went on for hours and continued even after the Mustique was under tow. Now, when we set off on our travels I was keen to see Orcas and many yachts do. However, since these attacks have started off Spain and Portugal I have been less keen and particularly on the passages to and from the Azores. That is why I haven’t posted about this until now - in my determination not to tempt fate with what I write on the homeward passages. You can Google the incident for more information if interested.

Just to make the above less of a non sequitur to the current post I can report our own encounter with wildlife here at. A large black and yellow bumble bee came into the cockpit along the Cornish coast and was plaguing Annie. It was still with us at anchor. She tried to shoo it out but it kept returning so she took pity on it and produced a bottle top filled with sugar solution. She united the bottle top and the bee within a jug and it immediately unfurled a large proboscis and sucked up its fill over several minutes. It was amazing to see and a reminder of the level of cognition that must be going on at all levels within the animal kingdom.

We have decided to put into Padstow for a couple of nights, both to avoid the wind against tide scenario tomorrow night but also because our mindset has changed from world cruising to coastal cruising and we love Padstow. We are now anchored in Carbis Bay next to St Ives and will get a few hours sleep before rising early at 0400 to catch the morning tide into Padstow. A boat from Germany has also anchored here just to remind us that we haven’t quite finished our international cruising.

There was a fireworks display on the beach next to us just now which must have been a homecoming welcome. The Red Arrows displayed for us over Cardiff when we left Bristol so this was a fitting return welcome. Thank you Carbis Bay.

(I’m actually finishing this post on the way up to Padstow and after a wonderful sunrise. We’d forgotten that the UK is an hour ahead of UTC when setting the alarm for 0345 and it doesn’t get light until about 0500 so we are running an hour late).