I started writing this on Sunday morning 14th August at a secluded anchorage between the small islands of Great Ganilly, Little Gannilly, Great Arthur and Little Arthur and finished the following day at another quiet and beautiful anchorage tucked in just to the south of the island of Tean, just to the west of Tean Sound - the channel between St Martin’s and Tean! There is virtually no wind and a near glassy sea with a very slight swell. There are a few other boats around at respectable distances and we’re surrounded by the above islands with St Martin and Tresco further off to the North West and St Mary’s to the South West. It’s idyllic.
I’m ‘entertaining’ David and Martin tonight (Sunday 14th August) and so later, when the tide starts to rise, I will make my way through the shallows between the intervening islands, to their anchorage south of the small island of Team, itself just west of St Martins.
After dropping Bast and Joe off at Porth Cressa to catch the Ferry from Hugh Town to Penzance on Wednesday afternoon I spent the next couple of days being lazy and doing odd jobs around the boat. On the Thursday after an extremely idle morning I finally roused myself to start on the list of jobs I had been compiling over the last few days.
First was to scrub as much as the bottom as I could reach from the dinghy. I was a bit disappointed that the expensive copper coat anti-fouling that I had applied in early June had not proved more effective in keeping the weed at bay. There was now a noticeable if not excessive growth on the bottom. I took some solace on hearing that my friend Howard who also keeps his boat on the Medway and had copper coat applied professionally a couple of years ago AND was using an electrical pulsating system had also experienced significant growth this year and had had to resort to scrubbing off last month. I had bought a second hand wetsuit when on St Agnes but had no mask and so did not venture out of the dinghy.
The wetsuit proved helpful nonetheless in keeping me warm despite the frequent soakings I gave myself! The task took a couple of hours and was quite tiring so that was as much as I got done!
The previous day I had heard from my new pal David (he who lavished his whisky on me on the Yealm a couple of weeks ago) on his Tradewind, that he was heading for Scilly and would arrive on Thursday evening.
I therefore cooked a big pot of stew but in the event they arrived too late for dinner and so after consuming a generous portion myself the rest went in the fridge to be eaten later.
On Friday I made a more determined effort on the jobs front…I made up and rigged the permanent main boom preventers that I should have done weeks ago and which would have prevented a couple of accidental jibes as we closed Scilly last week. I also investigated the Compass Light that had fused on the passage over last week. Before leaving the Medway I had dismantled the compass housing in an effort to refill the Compass with spirit that had leaked out. In doing so I thought I had tracked down and patched up the cause of the leak but alas it turns out that whilst I have stemmed it a little it still leaks and the cause of the blown fuse was a short circuit caused by the spirit leaking into the housing around the electrical connections. Another purchase to add to the list!
After that I patched the edge of the sprayhood where the main sheet rubs it when running when I forget to release its trailing edge. I also started in my attempt at fixing the deck light which at the start of the cruise I noticed was no longer working. I discovered the probable cause - someone had used standard two core domestic cable to run from the light down the mast AND then joined it to more domestic cable coming up from below with a standard cable block and left it completely unprotected from the elements. Unsurprisingly it was completely corroded through. I think there’s just enough life left in the cables to enable a new temporary connection to be made but in the longer term I’ll need to replace the wiring between the light and the fuse box - or at least to the domestic cable below decks.
Later that evening I rowed the short distance over to Amirra - David’s boat - for a delicious curry and of course another very enjoyable evening of story telling and banter. David’s crewmate, Martin, was a serious racing skipper and David had sailed with him frequently as crew. Together they had competed in numerous south coast and cross channel events with significant success. My own attempts at racing Zoetje and then Arctic Smoke certainly did not compare anywhere near favourably. In one race in which Martin was leading his forestay came unfastened and was flailing around. Fortunately they were sailing downwind with a spinnaker set which kept the mast up whilst he and his crew (not David) affected running repairs. They went on to complete the race and achieved a very good result. In another race which he was leading, he temporarily lost his long suffering wife, who was swept overboard by the boom during an accidental jibe and cracked her head on the hull. She was pulled from the water by another competitor before transferring back to her own boat when she insisted that they continue to finish the race!
The following morning (Friday 12th August) Daavid moved Amirra round to Mary’s Pool and that afternoon I set out on a short hop to an anchorage south of St Martin’s that had been recommended to me by Jamie who bought Arctic Smoke. There was a light headwind and it was only a few miles so I was motoring.
After 20 minutes or so I heard an alarm. It was the battery alarm. It took me a few minutes to figure out that it must be the fanbelt, which, on inspection turned out to be the case.
I pondered on what to do for a couple of minutes and decided to press on. I had a spare and could replace it when at our next anchorage. The constant alarm was a bloody nuisance so I turned the battery isolator off to disconnect the battery. Then after about 15 minutes it occured to me that was not a particularly clever idea because if anything else went awry I would not hear other alarms and the various gauges on the engine panel would be dead. So turned the battey back on and was immediately greeted by an over heating alarm and then a low oil pressure alarm. Bugger, bugger!
Off went the engine and I unfurled the genoa and headed slowly back to Porth Cressa to investigate. About an hour and a half later I dropped the hook under sail in what was now, thankfully, a relatively uncrowded anchorage.
Talk about things coming in 3s… The engine water intake was completely clogged with weed, the impeller in the water pump had started to crack ..
.. and of course the fan belt was broken.
Luckilly they were all easy fixes and I had them sorted within the hour. My one remaining concern was whether any damage had been done to the engine. The heat exchanger was still full of coolant which was a good sign and on checking the oil it was as pristine as the day I changed it and the level was the same. I breathed a sigh of relief - all was well.
So at 1330 or thereabouts I left Porth Cressa for the second time that day and headed out towards the ‘Arthur Knuckle’ anchorage recommended by Jamie.
The wind had increased a bit but was still on the nose and so given the delay I motored once more. On arrival at Arthur Knuckle I was not that taken with it. I would have had to anchor very close to some viscous looking rocks and I therefore went round the corner to the anchorage between Great Arthur and Great Ganilly.
There were a few other boats there but it was a lovely spot and so I anchored with plenty of room around me. The water was crystal clear and in 5+ metres of water the bottom was perfectly visible. As soon as I had the boat settled I jumped in for a swim. The water was still on the cool side but I think it had warmed up some since the early swimming days with Bast and Joe.
After my swim it was a late lunch in the cockpit and then I went off in the dinghy to explore ‘Little Arthur’ the small island nearest to me.
It couldn’t have been any bigger than half a football pitch but away from the shoreline it was covered in very long reed-like grass on a very spongy base which made moving around very difficult.
The dinghy is too heavy to drag up and down a beach on one’s own (and in any case there was no sandy beach within sight) and so I had taken the dinghy anchor, a long length of line and a heavy weight with me. These enabled me to ‘anchor’ the dinghy off the shoreline with the weight and with a continuous loop of line between the dinghy, the weight and the anchor, which I had taken above the high tide line, I was then able to retrieve the dinghy by pulling it towards the shore with the continuous loop of line.
The following day, Sunday I spent the morning writing the early parts of this post and then at low water, I got the anchor up and motored round the south side of ‘Great Arthur’ and headed west towards the ‘Hats’ Cardinal at northern tip of St Mary’s.
I reached ‘Hats’ just after low water and whilst I knew there was every chance of running out of water (under the boat) at some point I would rather do that early with plenty of rise left in the tide than late and so I proceeded at dead slow, which with the tide pushing us along meant at about two knots.
Sure enough, at around 1400, just abreast of the wonderfully named “East Graggyellis” rocks we ground to a gentle halt on the sandy bottom.
I was getting hungry and there was nothing I could do except wait and so I put the anchor down and had lunch. About an hour later we were floating freely with the depth having increased by half a metre and so we got under way once again. We we were soon in slightly deeper water and the risk of further grounding was over.
Around 1600 I put the anchor down just ahead of Amirra just to the west of little “Crump” island.
The names of places and features in these islands are just wonderful!
David rowed over for a chat and then I got on with cooking Dinner. Yet another enjoyable evening passed during which I discovered that Martin, an ex civil engineer was something of an outdoor polymath, with skiing, motor cycling, motor rallying, mountain biking, climbing, walking and motor home touring to out of the way places, all activities he continues to undertake. I felt rather one dimensional in comparison!
David’s an ex toolmaker who ran his own business for many years, is on to his second Tradewind, having also owned a succession of other boats, mainly Sadlers. His current Tradewind is for sale so that he can devote more time to his new boat project, the restoration of a Sadler 26, moored like the Tradewind, in Pool Harbour. It sounds like it will be very smart by the time he has finished.
David needed his beauty sleep after dinner but Martin was still going strong and so stayed on board for more story telling. Afterwards I rowed him 'home' to Amirra. As I rowed back to Bonny, he called out, pointing towards St Mary's, "Are those 'your' red lights?" Sure enough, there on the northern point of the island were two very bright, very high red lights! Further study of the chart, showed them marked as "TV Tower, red lights".😖
On Monday morning, David moved Amirra round the corner to “Old Grimsby Sound” from where they plan to explore Tresco. Once they left, I repositioned Bonny into a slightly different spot with a little more water and further away from Hedge Rock, towards which a strong north wind is forecast to blow on Tuesday night. I’m not quite sure whether I will still be here then but with “Tean” directly to the north of our current position, we will have good protection should we stay put. Once I’ve posted this, I plan to take the dinghy ashore to Lower Town, St Martin’s and explore the island.
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