Position: 50:09:91N 05:05:02W

We’ve made it!  We’ve just come alongside the fuel pontoon at Falmouth marina.  We’re going to fill up (well actually, having seen the prices, I think I will need a mortgage).  We have both got really bad sea-legs!  The Fal river is totally still and silent, and we arrived within minutes of sunset at 2100, and the only noise was the bird song, with a faint smell of cow manure.  What a lovely place!  I’m looking forward to exploring round here with the family one day.

We then motored round to the town quay and rafted against an old wooden boat (there are lots of “proper” looking boats in Falmouth – Nutmeg looks at home) and went ashore.  Two pints of bitter and a kebab later, we were fully-refueled and ready for the journey down-channel!  It feels very surreal to be stood in a pub, ordering pints of bitter, especially knowing that you’ve got to go straight back aboard.

David bought the first round after losing a long-standing argument over what the time was.  Since leaving Horta, he has insisted on having Ships Time an hour behind where it should be – so we moved our clocks back an hour, then advanced them an hour every 15 degrees, then when we got to the UK, had to advance them 2 hours to compensate.  He only admitted he’d got it wrong when we arrived in Falmouth!

However, at midnight local time we cast off once more, and headed back out down the river and eastwards towards Start Point.  There is no wind and we are motoring on an oily sea.  Sarah has come up with a cunning plan, which involves dropping David off in Portsmouth, and Sarah and the girls meeting us there after school on Friday, then us sailing as a family back to Shoreham on Saturday. Sounds like a great idea.

That’s all for now.