An English Summer 32

 

Cromwell's Castle dominates the seaward approaches, to New Grimsby Sound. Perched on a rocky promontory, jutting from the cliff, on its eastern shore.

A little further into the rocky cleft, Hangman's Island lies just off the western shore, joined to it by a reef. Together, they perform the same, natural-breakwater function, for the New Grimsby anchorage, as Golden Brow and the Little Kittern do, for Old Grimsby.

It is only a half mile stroll, from the Ruin Beach slipway, off which Stargazer is anchored, between the two Grimsby Sounds. Old and New.

Along a lane, shaded by an overhead thatch of interwoven tree branches, which winds from the beach to the church.

As it crests the backbone, of Tresco island, dry stone walls, vivid with wildflowers, begin rise to either side. Comfortable cottages, instead of woodland, crowd down to the roadside. Palm trees peer over garden walls, fronds rustling in the breeze. On the horizon, silver sand and cobalt seas glint enticingly.

I scramble up, onto a bracken draped path, stepping carefully over wandering blackberry brambles and exuberant nettles, in my shorts and sandals. Paralleling New Grimsby Sound, now. Part on the upper rock, of the eastern cliff, and part on the verdant heath, of the domed clifftop. Making for Cromwell's Castle. 

 Until I am arrested, by the sight of Martyn and Hilly's Hallberg-Rassy Rasmus, Styria . Roger the (plastic decoy) duck, in tow astern, as ever (to port of the transom). We first met, in a craggy rock cleft anchorage, very similar to the two Grimsby's, but in Belle Isle, in Southern Brittany. And went on to explore, from the Vilaine River to Loctudy, in company, over the carefree summer of two thousand and twelve.

An exchange of texts later, and we are ensconced together, at a table, in the walled garden of The New Inn. Catching up on cruises made. Places visited. Checking onward plans, in this new world, of post-Brexit and covid-constrained, cruising summers. Talk soon turns to the storm, forecast for tonight, and the expected two day gale, in its wake. 

Winds will box the compass. Starting in the south or south east, before veering north or north west, and then backing westerly. No anchorage offers three hundred and sixty degree shelter. Both the Grimsby's are open to the south . Styria and Stargazer will have to take the first few hours, of thirty five to fifty knot gusts (select your forecast and take your pick) literally, on the nose. We should then both gain respite, courtesy of the cliffs of Tresco, for forty eight hours, of twenty five to thirty five knot winds, which are forecast to blow predominantly out of the west. Shore leave is cancelled, until further notice!