An English Summer 57

 

The piercing peeping cries, of an oystercatcher, cleave the stillness of the beach. Silent, save for the scrunch, of the sea's gentle surge, on the silver sand.

A light, pleasantly cooling, breeze ruffles the clifftop grasses.

While a family of seals forages, amid the weed-blackened rocks, of the Rushy Bay reefs.

Tranquility has returned to the isles.

Along the sheltered sun trap footpaths, of Bryher, the trees have begun to fruit. Autumn, with its gales, is on the horizon.

The Hallberg-Rassy Rasmus Styria, on a mooring, astern of Stargazer, begins her homeward journey tomorrow. In the lull, between storm Evert and a force seven south westerly blow, forecast for the latter part of next week. Tonight I dine aboard, with Martyn and Hilly, to toast our Scilly summer idyll.

An English Summer 56

 

Storm Evert screams and shrieks. A herring gull, not normally a welcome visitor aboard, bedraggled and weary, takes refuge on the pushpit. Riding it, wings spread for balance, as Stargazer bucks and rears. Wind driven spray breaking over the decks. Swell rolling through the anchorage. The wind ever rising: thirty mph , thirty five, forty seven. Surely the storm has peaked? fifty, fifty eight, sixty two, seventy. Think, standing on a car roof, in the outside lane of the motorway, in a rainstorm; for my hourly deck walk, to check of the anchor rode . The bird provides a reassuring presence, a portent of hope, until darkness falls.

The night inches by. Each forecast update extends the peak of the storm, an hour or two more. Scilly is taking Evert's full force. The wind backs south, through west, to north and then veers back to northwest. 

I stand, in the shelter of the windscreen and hood, on the top step of the companionway, hatch open, washboards in, peering, meerkat like, into the dark. Checking that Stargazer's anchor is holding. Watching, helpless, as a Regina drags by, mooring ball still attached. As a rescue helicopter lights the anchorage, to airlift the crew of a drifting Rustler, from the foot of the cliffs. As a Jeanneau, mainsail escaped from its lashings, ballooning with wind, careers through the tethered boats, its anchor fouled with weed, unable to stop.

At last dawn breaks. With it comes a vibrant rainbow, in a black sky; and the realisation that we have survived this storm unscathed. 

Sixteen kilos of Delta anchor, twenty four metres of eight millimetre chain (high water depth seven point four metres), and great good fortune, have brought us through.

Others have not been so lucky. More so those on moorings. In particular those whose moorings were on the Tresco shore of the sound, which had the least lee from Bryher and were worst affected by swell, when the wind went fully north, for two hours at the peak of the storm.

The boats, all over forty feet, bodily dragged their moorings, downwind and downtide, toward the cliffs of Tresco. And were lucky not to be driven ashore. Today, the Harbour Master (far left) busily supervises the relaying of the affected buoys.

Including the lifting of their concrete sinkers (the weight which acts as an anchor for the mooring). 

As he toils, dinghies flit from boat to boat. Tales are told. Joy and relief scent the sun filled air. Twenty five and thirty knot gusts still roll down, from Bryher's hills, but today that feels like a balmy summer zephyr. 

An English Summer 55

 

"Severe gale nine, perhaps storm ten," intones the forecast.

These islands have a savage beauty.

An English Summer 54

 

Overnight the wind has gone more westerly; and strengthened. On the seaward shores of Bryher, the waves break high. Shattering into white plumes of wind blown spume.

A wind strong enough to lean against; as I drink in the spectacle before me: Half hard jutting land, half surging seething water.

A dragon's tooth, of granite, throws up a bow wave, fit for a tea clipper, as the hurrying tide scurries through the Inner Neck reef.

I clamber down, off the high cliff, among the moonscape of rock, in search of sunlit shelter, for a picnic lunch.

I find it, in the lee of Gweal Hill. As I eat, black rain squalls chase across the horizon, to the north. Dark shadows on the shimmering sea.

Back on the sheltered side of the island, one, briefly, catches me, as I row back to Stargazer. Making amends, moments later, with an innocently smiling rainbow.

A boiling, smoking, turbulent sunset ends a wild day of weather.

An English Summer 53

 

This morning, even the fishing fleet, snug behind Hangman's Rock, roll to the rhythm of the sea's scend. Thirty knots of north west breeze whistles overhead.

Aboard Stargazer, it is a 'hood up' breakfast. As I eat, boats run in for shelter. They anchor, wherever there is a sniff of swinging room to be found.

Owl (foreground, centre left), is one. She is owned by Peter Bruce. His, 'Inshore along the Dorset Coast,' guided Stargazer to many a spectacular anchorage, in her Poole years.

The craft, some on moorings, some on anchor; some power, some sail; some full keeled, some fin, dance and weave around one another. Each reacting differently to wind and tide. Circling warily. By afternoon, I judge most possible combinations of movement to have occurred, without incident. I row ashore, to stretch my legs. (Stargazer top centre- left)

A heavy surf is breaking on the Kettle Reef, so benign and placid only yesterday.

It breaks higher still on Shipman Head. The blue, of the sea, flecked with foaming white horses, as far as the eye can see.

The high hedgerows, of the lanes, still the breeze.

With no water, and in the lee of Timmy's Hill, Green Bay too is calm.

Hunkered down, between the rocks, lies Ken Endean's London Apprentice. Last met in the Vieux Port of La Rochelle, Ken is another pilotage author, beloved of craggy shores, whose work has shaped Stargazer's travels. We are in illustrious company, in our choice of cruising ground.

An English Summer 52

 

The sea drains away. Leaving Hangman's Rock and Cromwell's Castle to contemplate their reflections, in the still waters, far below their feet . For today's is the big spring tide.

I am walking north, along Bryher's cliffs. Toward Shipman's Head. The seaward tip of the island.

At this end of Bryher, the granite is clothed in soft fronds of bracken, and bright bursts of colourful heather. Both short in stem, and well nestled down, among the rocks, out of the wind. The spines and thorns, of Gweal and Samson hills, to the west and south, completely absent.

Below me, the fishing fleet, of pot boats, lies moored in the lee of Hangman's Rock. Protected from the swell, in heavy northerly weather.

Further out, a straight stemmed, heavy ketch moors between the rocks, revealed by the receding tide. They are heaped in long dark fronds of seaweed, which await the return of the nutrifying waters. The boat sports an intriguing rig, with a long bowsprit and an even longer bumpkin (stern bowsprit). The mizzen (aft sail), looks to be a lug sail, whilst the main appears to set from a gaff, with her foretriangle cutter rigged.

I have cleared the northern tip of Tresco now, looking out across the sound. Only the last rocky remnants of Kettle Point lie strewn across the waters, as the Kettle Reef. Round Island, with its lighthouse, stands high, against the horizon.

Off the sea shattered crags of Shipman's Head, a Shrimper, out for a gentle daysail, stands in close, to admire the view.

An English Summer 51

 

Full sized, 'can't-see-the-horizon-when-you-are-in-the-troughs,' ocean rollers hurl themselves into Wingletang Bay and shatter on the Little Hakestone. It is Friday evening. As Stargazer crossed St Mary's Road, the breeze filled in to twenty seven knots, but the ring of islands kept the sea state moderate.

As we sailed south of Peninnis Head, to clear the Spanish Ledges reef, we lost that lee. Feeling the full force, of the 'summer blow,' and the sea state it had whipped up. The Hakestone, on the western side of the entrance to The Cove, is bearing the full brunt. A scend is running down the St Agnes (western) side of the anchorage. But, in the north east corner, there is a triangle of calm water, in the lee of Gugh. 

Stargazer anchors, in that triangle of flat water, for the night. Alone save for two large, but wary seals, hunting among the outlying rocks, of The Hoe. Our breakwater. The wind is still more east than northeast. By tomorrow evening it will be round to the northwest. We will need to re-anchor, nearer to the centre of the bay, once that happens, to avoid being set down onto the rocks, which are currently protecting us. We have plenty of space to do so, once the swell dies down, in the mid part of the bay. I turn in and sleep well.

In fact, I have a lie in. When I come on deck, at ten hundred, on Saturday morning, I find twenty or more boats shoe-horned into the anchorage, with us. Packed like sardines. There will be fun and games at high water, when the sand bar connecting Gugh and St Agnes covers, and a swirling eddy sets in for a couple of hours. The closely packed boats will not swing at the same time. Collisions and tangled anchor chains are bound to ensue. Additionally, there is now no space for Stargazer to re-anchor more centrally, to accommodate the forecast change in wind direction. We need to hunt down a new anchorage, for tonight.

We sail over to Porth Cressa. That too is full.

I take Stargazer for an afternoon sail in St Mary's Road, the sheltered central lagoon, whilst I think through our options. All those boats, in The Cove and Porth Cressa, must have come from Isle of Scilly anchorages - and left spaces. No one would have crossed from the mainland in the overnight sea state. Looking at AIS tracks, many boats have simply switched from St Mary's harbour to Porth Cressa, as the wind went round. Most of those in The Cove seem to have come down over Tresco flats, from New Grimsby.

I calculate how much water Stargazer will require, to get over the flats, using notes from our earlier transit. By fifteen hundred we are safely over and in New Grimsby Sound. Much emptied of boats. With millpond still water.

We anchor for the night, with a good margin of depth, for Monday morning's very low tide, close to the centre of anchorage, to allow for a shift in the wind direction. A tick against all objectives. I celebrate with a substantial curry.

By Sunday morning, the heads (sea toilet) is mended (don't ask!), the laundry is drying in the rigging, water tanks are refilled . . . . and all is well in the world, once more.

An English Summer 50

 

A peculiarity, of the Scilly tidal flows, has been Stargazer's saving grace overnight. The waters of the Celtic Sea, English Channel and Atlantic Ocean mingle, amid the Isles. Causing the currents, in the inter-island sounds, to change direction midway through the local tidal cycle. Not at high and low waters, as they do elsewhere.

Yesterday, we re-anchored (see post 49) off Church Quay (far left of picture). With the deeper water already occupied, by other boats, I had to improvise. If we were to swing inshore at low water, we would ground. Thanks to the quirk of the currents, we got through last night's and this morning's low waters, without doing so.

However, a strong east wind could pin us back, against the tide, holding Stargazer in among the shoals. In which case we would ground at low water. So far we have been fortunate. The forecast forty knot easterly blow has been more of a stiff force six, gusting seven, within the shelter of the sound. Stargazer has therefore lain to the current, rather than the wind, at low water. However, it is clear that we will need to find deeper water, before the full spring tides, on Sunday and Monday (with their reduced low water depths).

Church Quay is the high water landing, for Bryher. The only landing, until Anneka's Quay was built. Time is tight, access to it is limited, by the height of the tide. Guests, from the Hell Bay hotel, gather, their baggage piled alongside them, as Firethorn arrives to carry them home. Tractors stand, at the ready on the sand, waiting for the throng to board.

No sooner has the Firethorn left, than Lyonesse Lady, the island supply vessel, arrives; laden with all manner of essentials.

Swiftly, her cargo is unloaded. . . .

. . . .and the eager tractors back in, to collect it..

A fishing boat, hovering unnoticed, seizes the opportunity of an empty quay. She alights, in a flurry, like a swooping seagull.

Nets and gear are hastily manhandled aboard.

Then she is gone. Whilst she still has the tide.

Stargazer too is watching for her tide. Once the Tresco flats have covered, this evening, we will sail south, to seek a more secure anchorage. By then the wind is forecast to be from the north or north east. Giving us a downwind course, which will reduce the apparent wind speed. That change, in wind direction, also creates fresh options, for sheltered anchorages to explore.

PS: All pictures from more clement days.