Falmouth!

Timeless
Sat 14 Jul 2012 13:06

Position:    50:08:44N       05:01:567W
Falmouth

The sail to Falmouth from Goran Haven went w/o hitch.
Sails went IN and sails came OUT. All was perfect in our world.
Even the rain held off for us!
 

What a great sight as we entered Falmouth Bay! 
Five Classic “J”s racing in the “Pendannis Cup”.
Photos just don’t cut it!
To actually see these classics gracefully cutting up the ocean and leaving everything in their wave is just unbelievable! To have them racing around you close up is almost religious! Time seemed to stand still for the next 20 minutes whilst the visual feast all around us demanded more and more photos!  .. SNAP! SNAP! Oh! SNAP, SNAP! Oh, look at that! SNAP!
If ever you get the chance to see these “J”s – anywhere. DO!
Thinking back on that time I can’t help but think that I’ve ever before seen such an enthusiastic crew on WATCH duty!

 

The few deep draught moorings in the harbor had been taken and so we had the anchor out. This is not an issue.
But in this instance it took us 4 attempts to get the anchor to hold firmly! What is the phrase used in the London Blitz! “Keep Calm and Carry On”. We were told later that Falmouth Harbour is prone to very active kelp and so it can be difficult to get traction in the deeper anchorages.

Before we managed to get our anchor to hold we managed to pick up another boat’s anchor chain! Grrrrr! This is not meant to happen!  While I was scratching my head and trying to figure out what to do I saw a blue and red flash out of the corner of my eye.  Woooooooosh!
Enter Chain Man!
Bob donned a blue tee shirt, pants and boots. Put his red shorts and cape on top and wham! In no time we were sorted.  
Luckily, Bob had had a lot of experience recently with crossed chains in Greek harbours and so we were able to free ourselves relatively easily thanks to his efforts! We reckon that the other boat’s anchor chain was at least 8x high water depth (sorry to be a bit yachty there) – basically, we think he’d have needed a pair of binoculars to see his boat from his anchor!
…phew! This was soo stressfull – nothing else for it but to pop a bottle of bubbly!

No account of anchoring in Falmouth harbor would be complete without at least mentioning Nick and Tony. There! I’ve mentioned them! Nuff said.
Suffice to say, none of the Timeless crew were ever really happy being out of sight of the boat whilst it was at anchor. Bob and I particularly, were both darting around every corner to get a latest look.

I’m not sure what it will take to make us feel at ease having our pride and joy at anchor in a busy harbor – we’ll see. Pure trauma.

Bob and Cathy had a great idea to rent a car for the day to see the surrounding countryside, do some grocery shopping, visit the fishing village of Mevagissey and see the world famous Eden Project. I’m learning that you really do have to invest in a car hire at least for a day if you really want to explore more than a small area around the boat. Buses are fun but they only follow a few set routes.

If you ever get the chance to visit the Eden Project, DO!  There is nothing else like it in the world. From a huge disused quarry using only the local resources available on site to them and four huge glass biodomes they have created four distinct world landscapes on a grand scale. You come away in the knowledge that no matter how stupid man can be with his environment, nature and the dedicated skill environmental scientists can sort it – sort of!

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