With more time for sailing we had planned to sail to Salcombe on Friday 9th August but as l watched the forecast the weather looked poor for returning to the Falmouth area at the end of the week. There was also a SSOA rally planned for Wednesday evening in Sutton Marina followed with a sail to Fowey on Thursday and a sail to the Fal River on Friday which we were going to join in with some of it. But not Sutton Marina as back in 2018 they charged us £45 for one night!
By the weekend we had decided to stay local and join the rally on the Fal River Friday evening and Saturday, if the members managed to beat their way west to Falmouth. On Friday we sailed across Falmouth Bay, in past St Mawes and anchored at Place, just 5.5nm from Gillan for the strong southwest winds forecasted for Saturday. Here Elektra will dry out and l planned to scrub her bottom on Saturday. Later in the day l had a phone call from my doctor about my leg pain. The doctor explained the problem with my back causing nerve damage in my leg and the best they could do for now was to manage the pain. The doctor booked me an appointment to see the physio.
With the tide high in the morning, l got down the ladder in the afternoon to scrub Elektra’s bottom. The antifouling hadn’t done a very good job this season for some reason, normally one scrub off is enough but this was the second time. I hadn’t picked a very good spot, the ground was soft and it was quite a workout just walking around Elektra let alone scrubbing. By the time l was finished my leg was causing me a lot of pain and l was glad of the rest and the chance of taking pain killers.
We were sitting down below in the early evening and there was a bonk on Elektra, l looked out and found it was our friend Gary Hoyle who we first met back in 2009 after our first passage to Scilly. Gary had married an islander and lived there, worked the forklift on the dock. At the time Gary had just bought his Hurley 22 which was what we sailed at the time. We have met up a quite a few times over the years since and Gary had moved to the mainland about 5 years ago, now lived near Falmouth. Gary having sailed lots of different yachts over the years had returned to Hurley ownership having bought a motor boat built by Hurley. After a fairly long chat with Gary he left us and we had dinner.
The next morning it was thick fog, the forecast said strong east winds so we decided to move a mile up river to better shelter. Gary had already moved so after dropping anchor l rowed over to take a closer look. Back to Elektra for cooked breakfast and then washed-up. The fog lingering until after midday but the sun burnt though eventually to a hot sunny afternoon which was lovely.
The nice afternoon going into a nice eveing, we had cold cuts for dinner and moved into the cabin to play scrabble.
The next day we planned to sail back to Gillan as wet and windy weather was forecasted for Tuesday and I worked out we needed to leave by 1200hrs, it was a little after that when we were ready and I pulled up the anchor at 1220hrs and Vicki motored Elektra back down the Precuil River to St Mawes were I set just the genoa to cross Falmouth Bay. We picked up Elektra’s swing mooring in Gillan at 1350hrs having logged 6.5nm. With the tide dropping away fast, we only had an hour to get into St Anthony before there wouldnt be enough water for the outboard, so we worked fast and just made it in time.
Love Sailing 