Day 22, Sunday 17th June 2018, weather bound in Newlyn, Cornwall…. waiting for the red line to lift….

Sunday… what a miserable, gloomy, grey, wet, drizzly morning to wake up to. After breakfast in the saloon, Mike went off to the showers in the Gym Attic and bought his usual Sunday Times. Funny at home… I would spend a good afternoon reading that paper from cover to cover…. took most interest in the Sports section though! Now that I have been at sea for three weeks have not read it once!! I went to the attic Gym later… just in case anybody thinks I don’t shower.

The red line for todays inshore waters forecast has not been lifted…. there is still a strong wind warning out for our area here at Lands End. So three sailing days now lost to bad weather. Now three days behind schedule…. but hey ho this is not a race. We will make that up in the days to come. It was to be expected. This is Britain folks.

Went to late lunch, after jobs… one of which was helping two guys who had gone out on a green and black jet ski… and were swimming back into the harbour… towing it on a very thin piece of cord. The jet ski had been holed somewhere and was taking on water… so they had to get off and pull it in as they swam. We helped them bring it to the pontoon where they climbed out of the sea by way of an emergency ladder.They borrowed our heath robinson plastic milk containers cum bailers to get the water out of the inside of the jet ski. So good deed of the day.

Lunch was taken in the Newlyn Sea Food Bar at the other end of the town… photos below. Excellent food and excellent service…. to be highly recommended.

We both had very tasty fresh Newlyn hake and chips. My dessert above… the Italian version of an expresso coffee and ice cream.

On return to the boat…. well laying on our fronts on the pontoon and getting all the Tresco weed off from around the two rudders. We had carried this nasty stuff all the way from the Scilly Isles back to Newlyn. I had occasion to wonder about the steering… it had not felt as responsive as it usually was. On a previous trip to the Scilly Isles… to New Grimsby Sound… that same weed had got into the engine via the sea water intake and had wrecked the impeller blocking the entire engine cooling system. Josep ( getting married in August ) and Rob ( already married ) plus Margaret and Lyn were all aboard when the white smoke ( which was steam ) came out the engine exhaust back in 2014!

All weed removed, bagged up now and deposited in a fisherman’s wheelie bin looks like an old oil drum ( a fisherman told Christine, who at the time was looking for somewhere ashore to put the boat rubbish …. ‘we’re not posh here dear” indicating the blue old oil drum!

Anyway the day is coming to an end now. I have been rollocked for calling David … Brian… many apologies to a senior RNLI gentleman and good friend…. and have completed the passage plan to Padstow for tomorrow. The red line has been lifted… we sail at 9.30am Monday morning. Padstow here we come. The plan is set out above! We do the bit that sticks out…. it’s called Lands End.