Saturday 15th June
After a busy week at work the weather looked good for a weekend away but they were giving strong southwest wind for Sunday. We decided to go Saturday and come back Monday.
The tide would be out until 1300hrs so we had a lazy morning getting ready to go and when we arrived down at St Anthony the tide hadn’t yet come in enough to get out so we readied the punt, had an ice-cream, while we sat waiting for the tide. Once in far enough to launch the punt we headed out to Elektra.
Stowing the gear and getting ready to leave took another hour and it was 1415hrs when we dropped the mooring after setting a reefed main, on exiting Gillan I unrolled all the genoa and we were soon logging over 5kts. Vicki was on the helm to start with but the angle of sail was stopping the genoa filling so I suggested goose winging, Vicki hates this so I took over the helm at this point and headed for St Anthony Lighthouse, now logging between 5-6kts. I kept this up for a while until Elektra jibed herself back onto a port tack, we then turned and headed for Pendennis Point and Vicki took over the helm again while I adjusted the sails. On entering the Carrick Roads past Pendennis Point the log was reading between 6-7kts SOG. Now heading for Turnaware she seemed to have slowed down but still she was logging 5kts, gusty now in the Carrick Roads her speed varied but we reached Turnaware Point in good time at 1545hrs having logged 8nm.
From there I rolled and stowing the sails and we motored up to Smugglers Cottage on the Fal River to anchor. After anchoring we decided the shelter didn’t seem that good so we picked up the anchor again and motored back down the Fal River out into Carrick Roads, this time motoring to charge batteries with fridge on we made our way southwest to Restronguet Creek entrance (we had used this anchorage in the past with our other yacht) where we found a much more sheltered anchorage. Finally dropping anchor at 1715hrs having logged 13nm. Elektra having bilge keels we could have gone into the creek and dried her out but I didn’t know where would be good for that.
On Sunday I pumped up the roll-up to take a look at Restronguet Creek at low water to find a good place to anchor another time. That done back aboard to do the washing up and then in with Vicki to the Pandora Inn for a late lunch at 1500hrs. Back aboard in the late afternoon I had some boat jobs to do before sitting and enjoying the view from the cockpit.
Love Sailing 