Day Five : Fowey to Falmouth

A relatively short hop today from Fowey to Falmouth and again there is high pressure and sunshine. We drop our mooring line at 0730 and hop the headlands to St. Anthony's Head and the approach to Falmouth. It seems very busy here, with yachts - classic and modern - streaming out of the harbour, after a few days on quiet moorings but this is an important stop as it's the last chance we have to stock up on provisions before setting sail towards the Isles of Scilly.

After the recent instrument refit, the depth sounder clearly needs calibration as we steer towards the Town Quay with the depth reading - 0.6 metres, which is somewhat disconcerting! As the larger yacht in front of us didn't go aground, we figured we were ok to keep going.

For lunch, we had a quick round of ham and cheese sandwiches before dividing up tasks and heading into town for food, a replacement gas canister and internet access to get the latest weather so we could decide if tomorrow was going to be a good window for heading towards the Isles of Scilly. Falmouth is an ideal pit-stop for provisioning: as well as a large supermarket, there are bakeries, fishmongers and one of the best hardware stores in the country - Trago Mills.

After supplies of food and boaty bits are on board, it was time to welcome a new crew member and get ready for dinner at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall. Here, we met up with other yachts from The Little Ship Club for a pre-dinner contest with the model yachts powered by fans in each corner of the indoor pool. Then it was up to the second floor with a stunning view of the harbour as the sun went down and a dinner of tapas, fillet of Cornish beef with dauphinoise potatoes and Mediterranean vegetables followed by fruit salad. The tapas selection included scallops wrapped in parma ham, which were absolutely devine. Next, the beef was fantastic - tender and succulent - but the fruit salad was disappointing.

On our way back to the Town Quay, we noticed that Rick Stein had opened a fish restaurant since we had last visited the museum. Here, mackerel were being sold for £8.50, so at this price we reckoned that we'd caught £85 worth so far. Better keep those fishing rods going!