Return to Fowey and Plymouth

We were thrilled to be able to sail, albeit briefly on the the way to Fowey. We managed an hour at the beginning of the journey and an hour and a bit at the end. It's lovely when the engine goes off and the only sound is the wind and the sail. There have stil been no dolphins this season. We thought there would be loads in the West Country.

Going into Fowey was as beautiful as the first time. As we were only staying one night we elected to stay on one of the mooring buoys in the lower harbour. We caught the buoy without too much problem. The boat hook we normal use for catching buoys broke the first night on the Orwell (plastic), we weren't going to spend £50 replacing it. After hunting in the locker we found another device for catching buoys and are using that.  The pilot books say there can be a lot of swell in the harbour. They weren't wrong, it was not the most comfortable night.



Looking at the weather we did have a brief discussion whether or not to stay put another day or push on to Plymouth. We've decided that in future if we have these discussions - stay put! Although the mainsail went up straight away, there was no real wind and it was virtually behind us, However a couple of hours into the journey we were able to turn the engine off and sail. We managed four miles, sadly for John as we changed watch the wind died and the engine went on. He was so looking forward to sailing into Plymouth Sound.

Although we had enjoyed our time at Sutton Harbour we decided this time we would go to Mayflower Marina. I had a half price voucher for one night that we got at the boatshow. Mayflower is bang opposite Royal William Yard so is a beautiful view. For some reason we didn't get pictures. Although it was quite calm when we were there, the resident boats all had tyres as snubbers, a bit off putting. ( For my non sailing friends a snubber stops the boats snatching in swells when on a mooring.) We rarely use our snubber and it is very slight, definitely not a tyre.

Although a pleasant marina I felt it was a bit far out of town. It said a 25 minute walk into town. I would suspect a lots longer (we are brisk walkers). Although we didn't walk into town we went to a Chinese restrauant, on the edge of the Hoe. we'd spied on our previous visit. The Wet Wok, did special lunch deals and John was saying we'd not had a Chinese since our meal with Ann-Marie and Mick in Ipswich. We had a window seat with beautiful views over Plymouth Sound.