I get up around 0800 (Monday 8/9/25), collect my dirty clothes and wash things together and go ashore to do my washing and have a shower. I pay a day's mooring - £50! Marina's have got so expensive that staying for any longer than a day is almost out of the question.
I get my washing going and then have the shower, my first since Nanortalik more than two weeks ago. Bonny does have a shower, but the combination of an almost complete absence of sunshine on the passage, which meant our batteries were rarely fully charged (which supply power to the small immersion heater), and the generally very uncomfortable, not to mention cold, conditions, made the prospect of getting naked and (voluntarily) wet and therefore cold, a particularly unattractive one.
This shower was therefore particularly welcome and I ignore the notice pleading with customers to keep their shower quick in the interests of preserving water. As far as I am aware there is no drought in Cornwall and I rather suspect the notice was motivated rather more by the desire to keep overheads down, than to ensure the population of Falmouth don't run out of water. Bugger that, I've just paid £50 for the privilege of mooring here and apart from the space on the pontoon, the shower is the only other thing included in the price. The washing machine and dryer have to be paid for separately.
After my shower I go in search of freshly baked bread for breakfast. In doing so I confirm a suspicion I have been harbouring for some time - there's a growing subterfuge taking place on trendy high streets and not just those in the UK, I noticed the same thing in St John's; increasingly, Bakeries are no longer places that bake bread! They bake all sorts of pastries and goodies (or at least display them on their counters) and don't get me wrong, I'm very partial to a sweet pastry, but it seems to me that if you've got a big sign over your real and virtual doorways, declaring yourself Cornwall's finest Bakery, the very least you should do to deserve the self anointed accolade, is to bake some bloody bread. Anyway, it meant I had to walk a little further than anticipated to find one that did, which was no great hardship because wandering around quaint Falmouth in the morning in search of breakfast is a rather nice way to spend the time. I actually started to feel like I was on holiday. Being clean and dry and only needing jeans and a T-shirt to wear, rather than god knows how many layers compressed beneath soggy oilskins certainly helped. Anyway I bought a freshly baked uncut white farmhouse loaf AND two croissants AND two pastries. Then on to the Tesco Express for bacon, mushrooms and tomatoes. Breakfast was going to be a serious fry-up!
On the way back I put my laundry in the dryer.
Back at the boat I get breakfast underway and once cooked we stuff ourselves royally. It's amazing how good wicked (but proper) white bread and butter tastes when you haven't had any for 4 weeks! Doorsteps with lashings of butter were used by both members of the crew to wipe their plates clean of bacon fat!!
After breakfast we tackle the few jobs, that need doing to prepare Bonny for the final leg of the circuit back to the Medway.
I unship the emergency forestay which shouldn't be needed any more and its absence will make tacking and gybing the boat single handed much easier. Then we refill the jerry cans with fuel. I decide it's pointless to refill the fuel tank given that one of the winter jobs will be to drain and clean the tank.
Next we fill the water tank which requires so much water it must have been very nearly empty.
Before stowing the jerry cans in their home under the cockpit sole, I lift the floor boards to check the stern gland and the bilge. The stern gland is dripping more than a healthy one should, but that's what I expect. What I didn't expect was that the deep part of the bilge had a fair amount of water in it. I thought we had pumped it all out earlier but clearly not.
Now that it looks almost certain that the stern gland is the main source of the leak, we reinstate the galley bilge pump and it takes me about 100 strokes to clear the bilge. Afterwards we stow the jerry cans.
With all the essential jobs done we walk into town - George looks at boats while I shop for provisions and then we go for a yummy cream tea.
We then return to the boat, collect George's bags and walk to the station where we say goodbye. It's been a memorable couple of months which, with the exception of the passage back, we have both really enjoyed. I don't think either of us will ever forget it, especially our short time in Greenland.
Around 1730 I cast off Bonny's mooring lines with the help of Hugh's young crew and head out of the harbour, destination, Hoo on the River Medway and a wedding anniversary on the 12th.
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