Agnes is alongside, when I row ashore. A Scillonian Pilot Cutter. We first met her, seventy nautical miles west of here, in The Cove. The anchorage between St Agnes and Gugh, in the Isles of Scilly. Luke Powell built her, a faithful replica, in two thousand and three, up the Helford River, in his yard at Gweek.
Today, I stretch my legs, rather than my rowing muscles, and walk seaward, through the town.
And on out to Pendennis Castle. Shrouded in, the last of the mizzle, when Stargazer came round the headland, from Helford, on Monday. Now that I am out of the lane, which was shaded, by its canopy of branches, the midday sun beats down. I pause at an ice cream van, in the visitor car park.
Fast licking is required, to keep pace with the melt rate, of my cooling cornet . I eat, perched on a rock, at the tip of Pendennis Head. With a view to landward and to seaward. Inshore, the Fal stretches away, past Restronguet and on up to Truro. Falmouth Harbour is off to the left, out of sight. (Marked by the emerging motor launch, top centre).
To seaward, a yacht sails, oh so gently, across Falmouth Bay. On zephyrs of breeze , too light for passage making. As they have been throughout this week, whilst the wind slowly swings from the north, into the south. A change is afoot though, in both direction and strength. Building to a blow, as the wind swings through south to southwest to fully west, during the middle to end of next week.
In order to reacquaint Stargazer, with the anchorages of the Isles of Scilly, my task is to identify a twelve to eighteen hour window, in which the breeze remains in the south (west would be a head wind), but has risen to a passage making strength . I will be checking tomorrow's forecasts, with particular attention, passage plan at the ready.
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