Armed with the best information I could get and seasoned with a pinch of guesswork and a large dose of optimism we finished our pasta and set off into the gathering dusk at 2125, nav lights on, and all set for a night's motoring with the objective of rounding Land's End without too much confused tidal race and the hope that we might make Padstow for the narrow tidal window for entering the locked harbour.  A slim crescent moon gave no illumination to the water as again we strained our eyes for lobster pot markers, and in fact it became yellower and fainter as a night mist descended over us.  Of course once it is properly dark, whether one hits a pot (or any other floater) is entirely in the lap of the gods, so all you can do is plough on into the unknown with the aforementioned optimism in your heart, so that's what we did. As the passage was going to be at least 10 hours, I proposed that I would take the dark hours as a long watch since Cate had not done a night sail, and I would hopefully wake her at first light and get a bit of rest before the potentially tricky pilotage into Padstow.  I did want us both to have rounded Land's End together. which we did at just before midnight, waving goodbye to the most westerly point of England, and Cate went below leaving Benj to the solitude of the wheelhouse, with only Otto (our faithful Autohelm) and spells of the BBC World Service for company.  I had the radar on all night and saw not a single blip, as we motored initially at 4.5k, gradually increasing by about 0300 to 6.5k as the tide turned with us.  First light was about 0430, with a misty view of the glassy water, so I woke Cate with a coffee to take her watch until 0600, and I caught a welcome nap.  The entrance into Padstow was far from clear, with a narrow channel down the Camel estuary and no clear indication of the harbour entrance.  We passed the dreaded Doom Bar, having managed to arrive the necessary 1-2 hours before local High Water, because as the attached picture shows, it's almost all sandbanks, and very little water at other times.  We weren't able to raise the harbour on VHF until we were amost at the entrance channel, and we got into the small pretty harbour as the mist burnt away into bright sun, and at 0745 we were rafted against two other yachts against the harbour wall.  The others left shortly after so we slipped into their place, which of course means constant vigilance and regular readjustment of our lines with the rising and falling tide and opening and closing of the gate. Anyway, here we were, after our longest passage of the trip so far, and our first (and Cate's Maiden) night passage.