The Owl and The Pussy Cat

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea In a beautiful 'red and white'(!) boat, They took some honey, and plenty of money, Wrapped up in a five pound note. The Owl looked up to the stars above, And sang to a small guitar, 'O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love, What a beautiful Pussy you are, You are, You are!What a beautiful Pussy you are!'


Edward Lear











Tuesday 26 June 2012

New improved 'sailing pics'

We're home from our 'big trip', so I can fill in some more pictures and text.
First there was a bit of engine maintenance
 Then off we set for Fowey
 It went well to start with, then as we approached Fowey Vince wanted to calibrate the log (thing that tells us how fast we are going) using some transit lines (sorry if this is a bit technical, I can explain if you want, but sometimes life's too short). We got to the start line and there was some mutterings and consulting of instruction books and pressing of buttons while I sailed the boat to and fro, and then we set off, in a straight line from A to B. I was under the impression we needed to do A to B, then B to A then A to B again. Following so far? We did A to B, turned around, did B to A then somebody (not me) pressed a wrong button and we had to start again. I was becoming mrs grumpy by now, and then it turned out we needed to do A to B FOUR more times, ho hum. We did it, and our log is now more accurate than it was, which we will be glad of if we are lost at sea one day. And it was a good day for sailing. Click on this picture for a video... (sorry about the offending fenders Peter!)
Click on this picture for video

The following day, moored a little upriver from Fowey was glorious sunshine, so mrs grumpy was restored to mrs happy!

 I get to do the rowing because I love rowing. We rowed/drifted upriver a bit further and had a lovely walk along the riverbank in Golant, upriver from Fowey


Then, refreshed and restored we set of for Falmouth. The winds were very light and coming from behind the boat, so we had the two sails out, one on each side, which is called a goosewing. One of my favourite, and one of the few self explanatory, nautical terms I know. 
Below is a very similar video with me at the helm, smiling! (and note the calibrated log at the end showing 6 knots)



The wind gradually picked up and we had a great sail, particularly because it's about the first time I haven't felt at all sea sick or stressed. Here's St Antony's Head lighthouse at the entrance to Falmouth.

We then spent a week in wet and windy Falmouth. We went ashore a few times (more rowing opportunities for me), walked here and there, ate lunch in cafes, visited the maritime museum, admired the J class yachts and met up with two lots of friends who also happened to be down there.
Some days we stayed on the boat and read books, watched boats going in and out and did jobs such as rope splicing
 and sewing leather onto the oars to prevent them from wearing out in the rowlocks.


Oh yes, and we did a bit of sailing (not much) and took some friends on a trip upriver, part motoring, part sailing. It would be nice to think we did a lot of this..(home made elderflower champagne of course)
But unfortunately there weren't many evenings it was warm enough to sit outside, it's only June after all!
We had a few lovely sunsets

A very foggy last day. (this is the same view as the sunset one)
 And finally a very lovely sail home, with a foggy start but sunshine later. We sailed all the way back to Plymouth from Falmouth. We were pretty tired, but I wasn't at all sea sick again, Hooray, there's hope (!) for me yet..
This is us setting off, taken by friends from the shore
The owl and the Pussy cat finally set to sea.

3 comments:

  1. Sounds and look like a great trip. You are having fun!

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  2. You're getting the hang of it, great! Adventures that way ahoy (ahem, sorry about the pirate speak)
    Your goosewing link is broken by the way That sounds like a really nautical term doesn't it? "broken goosewing link".

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  3. Attempted to fix broken goosewing link with an imbedded youtubelink.....captn'

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