Day Six & Seven : Falmouth to St. Mary's & New Grimsby Sound

After another consultation with the weather oracle over an espresso in 5 Degrees West, we decide to sail overnight towards the Isles of Scilly. This gives us more time to complete final preparations, last minute provisioning and have a final shower.

Lunch is a Nicoise style salad served in the sunshine with herb flat bread. Then it's onto preping the pork tenderloin and flageolet beans for tonight's dinner so that it's just an assembly job when we're underway.

We depart, as planned by 1800, and it's smooth sailing down to the Manacles. Once round the corner, the swell coming in from the Atlantic starts to build as we head towards the Lizard. Luckily, doing all the prep this afternoon for tonight's meal paid off but it was still a challenge to plate up without everything escaping from the bowls. By this time, the wind has backed and is firmly on the nose, so we have to motor sail towards St. Mary's.

On night watch, we discover that plain chocolate (70% cacoa) and Foxes ginger biscuits eaten together are a terrific combo, especially paired up with a steaming hot cup of coffee - guaranteed to keep you going.

The hours slip by and very soon, through the emerging daylight, we see the outline of the islands. We pick our way through the rocks and shallows to have a look in Port Cressa to see if there is anyone achored there that we know. 'Silver Tide' is anchored there but either they're still asleep or gone ashore as there are no signs of life.

Onwards then to St. Mary's and here most of the Little Ship Club yachts have spent the night. It's extremely crowded so we thread our way through the moorings and eventually find a free mooring buoy. After catching up on some sleep, we blow up the dinghy and head towards the quay.

Lunch is in the Bishop and Wolf which has enticed us in with the promise of fresh crab sandwiches as proclaimed on a blackboard outside. Alas, there is no crab today so we have to 'make do' with smoked salmon or Atlantic prawn sandwiches which turned out to be delicious.

Afterwards, I'm keen to see what can be foraged from the shoreline in Port Cressa, so walk up the road and onto the craggy beach. Here, there are limpets aplenty on the granite rocks. In Madeira, limpets are a traditional hors-d'oeuvre - the "lapas" are placed in sizzling garlic butter and become perfectly cooked in the time it takes to get from the kitchen to the table. As the ship's stores are well stocked at the moment, I don't fancy giving the limpets a try. Walking away from the shore I find a plentiful supply of wild fennel and sea chard by the embankment. This is definitely worth collecting for use over the next couple of days.

Reluctantly, it's time to stop beach combing and head back to the dinghy (there are no water taxis). While we've been ashore, the swell from the SW has really got going and we're rocking and rolling on the mooring. All agree that we're not going to put up with this all night, so after afternoon tea, we pick our way through the rocks and shallows towards New Grimsby Sound. Everyone else has had the same idea but we find a spot to anchor by 2000 and the fishing commences while dinner is being prepared.

The plan was to have a light supper of melted goats cheese on ciabatta with rocket but the arrival of a large pouting on board meant a quick change of plan. While the pouting was being gutted, celery and carrots were sliced into strips to be stir-fried with red onion. The fish was so fresh that, despite being now headless, it was still twitching and flapping about in the pan. Adding a little olive oil, lemon juice, chopped parsley and salt, the pouting was loosely wrapped in tin foil and bunged in the oven for 25 minutes. Filets were served with the stir-fried vegetables and were absolutely delicious. Followed by the goats cheese salad then plain chocolate with a dram of whisky on the side, supper turned out to be not so light after all.