As we neared the Western Approaches the chart plotter began to show more and more shipping - a veritable motorway of ships streamed in and out of the English Channel.  Despite the traffic very few of them came our way, and visibility was so poor due to fog that we didn’t see even those that came within 2 miles of us.  At one point a fleet of mini transat racing yachts crossed our path and one of them passed about a mile to our stern. We could see its track clearly on the chart plotter but despite peering into the murk for a good long while, we only saw the faintest ghostly outline of its sails as it passed us by.  Dolphins, on the other hand, surrounded us often and entertained us with their antics.  The final night was spectacular as the outline of dolphins racing through the water could still be seen in the pitch black darkness due to their phosphorescent trails.  As the dolphins pass through the water they disturb microscopic marine organisms which emit a bright, electric-blue light.  It’s a captivating light show and both Mike and Chris seemed reluctant to leave it when it was time for me to take over watch keeping, even though it was 2 o’clock in the morning!

We arrived in Falmouth around 9 am on 18th June and were fortunate to get a visitors’ berth in Port Pendennis Marina right in the centre of town.  Falmouth was our departure port from the UK when we left in 2021 so it was an emotional moment to tie up alongside and realise that we are finally back on home soil.  Time for more circumnavigation celebrations as we met up with Chris’s wife Janet and had Felix’s legendary rum and coke cocktails (he says the coke is “just for colour”!), followed by dinner ashore. 

I’d been contacted by Sally, a former colleague from Kingston Hospital, as she now lives close to Falmouth and wanted to see if we could meet up.  Coincidentally, another colleague has also moved down to Cornwall, and another was due to arrive for a holiday that weekend.  Sally put together a plan for a surprise get together and so it was that the four of us met for a lovely catch up.  So intense was the talking that I completely forgot to take a photo for posterity!  

John and I have found it a strange experience to be back in Falmouth.  On the one hand we know we have closed the circle on our circumnavigation from and to Falmouth, yet the surroundings are so familiar that it almost feels like the last five years never happened.  As one of our sailing friends said, it’s a good job we have thousands of photos to prove where we’ve been - in fact I have 24,036 at the last count and John has about the same!  As we wandered around Falmouth, doing a bit of shopping and generally chilling out, we kept wanting to say to people “we’ve just sailed around the world”.  That does feel extraordinary, but we’ve also become so accustomed to this being our way of life that it also feels like no big deal.  We put our World ARC banner up on Casamara to remind ourselves that, yes, we did that.

Chris very kindly got out of his cosy bed at 6 o’clock in the morning of 21st June to come say farewell and cast off our lines as we left Falmouth to make our way along the coast towards Southampton.  Afterwards, he went up to Pendennis Point to take some photos of Casamara heading East.  He was a bit surprised to find a crowd of people already there, with a band playing and a party in full swing.  Is Casamara more famous than we realised?  No, it was a Summer Solstice party and the crowd was more interested in the sunrise than watching Casamara slip away!