Falmouth
World famous shipping trading harbour with many ships back in the day of sailing ship trade told to sail to Falmouth and await orders. A great sail on a clear calm bright day. A slow motor into the bay for the final leg amongst lots of traffic with many yachts and lots of anchored ships, this allowed us to put the line out the back and haul on board the first catch on Red Roo, when I say haul I mean haul it was bigger than a sardine – just! A tiny weeny mackerel was our first catch but first none the less, we tossed it back to allow it to mature.
We were in the bay on a mooring buoy so again using the dingy to get to shore, and today to increase the challenge we also took the bikes to shore with us in the dingy – talk about a load we must have looked very amusing as the bikes are bigger than the dingy and overhang quite a bit.
The effort was worth it however and we did a huge ride, from Falmouth we headed north to Perranwell and indulged in a beer to wash down our packed lunch of ham sandwiches then headed further inland along the estuary to Feok then up some challenging hills to Trelissick which is a national trust property (we were able to use our memberships for the first time).
Trelissick house is a very large estate the grounds extending all the way down to the river, the house itself is very large and imposing with huge roman columns along the front and it is hard to believe that up until 2.5 years ago it was still a private residence and lived in. We then crossed the river on the King Harry ferry and rode back to the river entrance catching the last ferry (just) from St Mawes back to Falmouth.
We knew the weather was set to turn for the next day or so with a storm forecast and the ferry team confirmed that no ferries are running for the next two days due to storms. Also they normally tie up of a night on moorings buoys near us but we noticed that night that they all went up the river well out of sight to what we suspect was more sheltered and secure moorings for them…therefore we knew it must be quite rough the stuff coming our way. And rough it was, woken around 3am with the sound of howling wind, rain and constant rolling of the boat, having to brace arms and legs against the side of the bunk to stop rolling in bed. Not a lot of sleep to be had and it continued all through the next day with us boat bound as it wasn’t safe to launch the dingy. We filled the day in playing cards, listening to the radio and doing not much else other than checking our mooring lines every half hour. Phil saw some large logs and trees float past being washed down the river which could be nasty if they hit but we were fine. The highest we saw the wind on our instruments was 65 miles per hour (Force 12 which is winds around 120 kmp/h).
Video taken after things had eased at around 5pm the following day and was only blowing about 35 mph but that is when the fork lightening started which is scary when you are sitting in a metal boat with a 15 m high mast sticking up into the clouds!! We turned all our power sources off and waited it out, in two minds; one being in ore of the display lighting up the sky then secondly being our vulnerability. By 8pm is was dark and eerily silent, spooky, it’s amazing how it can be so very wild and uncontrolled and then over like it never happened.
Our final night in Falmouth we went across the bay onto anchor (our very first night at anchor!) at a place called “St Just in Roseland” as the church in this bay was highly recommended by our new friend Roger (from Dartmouth) as a must see, and boy was he correct. We were both a little speechless as we approached as the scene looked fairy tale like (unfortunately our photos do not do it justice). The gardens are just amazing, beautiful, old, and perfect without being formal, with the flowers giving off the most beautiful perfume.
We strolled the grounds reading the intricate gravestones and found one dating back to 1757, we also found one for a gentleman born 100 years to the day earlier than Phil with the same profession of engineering – spooky!
The church itself was peaceful and welcoming, not huge like some we have seen but a good size for the small community it serves and modest architecture. It felt very welcoming and much loved. Very glad we visited.
Red Roo 
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