Turn Right

 As quietly as possible we left our Fowey pontoon, tightly packed with visiting yachts, right before the dawn. We motored out onto yet another smooth sea surface. We wanted to be at Lizard Point at 1pm, give or take half an hour, in order to sail round the headland at slack water. Lizard Point, better known simply as The Lizard is supposedly the last significant headland of the south coast of England, actually there is still Gwennap Head to get around, which is basically the south west corner of Land’s End headland. It is exciting for us to pass The Lizard because it feels like a significant point in our journey round the UK. Newlyn, next door to Penzance, is the last stop before Land’s End. However, we hope to extend our journey westwards to reach the Isles of Scilly and spend a couple of days there before heading north towards the Irish Sea. In effect we will have 'done' one side of the UK and are ready to turn right. It is 2nd June 2021.

It is difficult to pre-judge your progress over a 30-mile passage with wind and tidal flow combining to undermine even the best laid plans. In the event we made good progress and were approaching the Lizard too soon, so we turned into the delightful bay of Coverack and anchored close into the beach below the village. We did first check the harbour for a possible berth, but it was packed with small fishing boats and anyway had a sign discouraging visitors. We sat at anchor for a couple of hours and enjoyed some lunch in the sunshine whilst keeping an eye on our navigator tablet to check were not dragging the anchor and getting too close to other boats or to rocks. After a fairly relaxing lunch we set off again with some good sailing conditions as the easterly wind picked up.

We had been slightly surprised not to see other yachts, it is slightly reassuring to note that others have broadly agreed with your passage planning. Now four other yachts arrived and passed round the Lizard with us. The wind was now brisk and from the north-east so we had some of the best sailing so far speeding across Mounts Bay and in to Newlyn.

Newlyn is an important fishing harbour that kindly puts up with the visiting yachts who want to benefit from the pretty much all states of the tide harbour. We had arrived in time for the last day of easterlies that would help us to reach the Isles of Scilly. Unfortunately, the forecast also included a weather warning from the Met Office about thunderstorms exactly across our intended route. Pete perhaps unwisely spend an hour reading about the dangers of lightning but also of sudden squalls sufficient to cause a knock down. Most of these reports were from tropical areas rather than the relatively mild south-west coast of England. At 3am we awoke, re-checked the forecast, and decided to go back to bed. At least one other yacht set off in the early dawn rain for the Isles. We slept well but awoke to a fine day with the satellite showing the thunderstorms clearing to the north, we regretted our decision and spent the day reading and exploring  Newlyn    town. A proper rest day at last