Helford River

We spent nine days at Port Pendennis Marina, Falmouth. Provisioning a boat for a long voyage, from scratch, without a car, is a daunting task and we weren't looking forward to it. It's a lot of planning, list-making, hauling and the continuing worry of whether you have enough, or, have forgotten a crucial ingredient or two. We don't have refrigeration on Gjoa, so, menu planning was a little more difficult to keep interesting as well. Once you've gotten it all back to the boat via, in our case, train, bus, taxi and foot power, the logistics of where to put it all, in some logical order, so that you'll be able to find it again come into play. We stuffed it all in somehow and we even have room to spare, amazing. Hopefully, our planning will prove adequate in the months to come, I'm sure we won't starve.

Even though there was always something interesting to look at in the marina, like the two boats below, it seemed a shame to leave Falmouth without seeing more of it than the inside of Tesco and Sainsburys.

A 53m! American yacht fresh from a refit. Dozens of staff buzzed around on deck for days.

Falmouth Hotel

Combined with a visit to their large Marks and Spencer store, we did get to see Truro, a prosperous-looking market town with a lovely cathedral as well.

We also made the effort to get out our new bikes and ride along the Falmouth waterfront. One of the reasons we wanted a larger boat was so that we'd have room to carry bicycles and dive gear. I'd been lusting after a Brompton folding bicycle since arriving in the U.K., but, we never had the room.

Folded

Now that we were leaving and maybe not coming back, I was determined to get one as a souvenir of our visit. The Brompton is a unique British product with a bit of a cult following. It's the smallest folding bike you can get and is well-engineered.

Unfolded

On the watefront.

Those Victorians must have had too much time on their hands to make a seashell grotto like this one.

The marina bill was getting very expensive, so, we did a last-minute fresh food shop, laundry etc. and departed. It was blowing a F7 on the nose and we knew there was no way we'd make it around the Lizard without a lot of work, so, rather than beat ourselves up, we headed for the Helford River, a good anchorage recommended to us and set out again the next day, bound for Ireland.

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Helford River 10/6/2014 12:00 50°05.7'N 005°06.6'W