Hunkered Down in the Helford River

 I'm sitting in the sheltered area of Idril's cockpit, just forward of the companionway, tapping on my laptop, surrounded by bright sunshine (750 watts off the solar panels!), lots of other boats -- and a 35 knot breeze, gusting higher. Our expected two nights on the Helford River is about to turn into four, courtesy of some gale-force winds that are keeping us --- and clearly a number of other boats -- safely attached to our moorings. 

 

We got here on Saturday afternoon, having finally left Mylor Yacht Harbor, near Falmouth, with a completely functional electrical system. Now we can stay out of marinas and still be able to cook on our induction stove without being plugged into shore power, courtesy of our 48V battery bank, solar panels, Integrel generator and inverter. 

 

 

We followed another sailboat into the Helford River, and it turned out to be the Malo 40 sailed by Suzie and John, a couple we met while still in Mylor.  They took some pictures of Idril under sail, the first really good ones we have.

 

 

We sailed over with two reefs in the mainsail and using the staysail (the smaller of our two foresails), and the boat handled beautifully -- very little rudder pressure and not a lot of heeling.

Katy made a delicious dinner, which we ate in proper style in the cockpit before sunset.

 

On Sunday morning we inflated our collapsible, two-person kayak for the first time and paddled up Frenchman's Creek. 

I don't have any pictures, as I didn't bring my phone, but Katy took some, and once they are uploaded I will add a few to the album.

We then beached the kayak at Helford Point and took a long walk out to St. Anthony-in-Meneage, a small village near the tip of the western side of the Helford.

Upon return, the tide had gone out -- which really means something here. We had to schlep the kayak several hundred yards before we found water. While crossing a rocky area Katy was able to harvest a meal's worth of mussels, which we cooked and ate Sunday evening.

On Monday we kayaked to the eastern shore, beached the kayak and walked up to the rather stunningly gorgeous Trebah Garden. Our meandering route will give you some idea how much we enjoyed this place.

 

There's just no way to capture the beauty of this place, but I did try.

Trebah was one of many departure points for the D-Day invasion, and this modest  memorial commemorates that.

 

 

 

On the way back to the kayak we were amused by this car's license plate.

 

We returned to the boat, warmed up leftovers for dinner and settled in for an only slightly-planned third night.

The wind came up shortly after we got back to the boat, and it howled all night. Neither of us slept very well; we weren't entirely happy with how we had rigged our mooring lines, and there were some ominous creaking sounds that seemed to whisper, "You haven't set these lines very well, have you?"

In the morning we spend most of an hour rejiggering our lines, deploying our beefy anchor bridle to replace the dock lines we had originally used, and trying to decide if we had enough swing room to avoid the boat behind us. Katy looked at several weather forecasts, and we concluded that trying to leave today for Mylor was just not very wise. So - we'll stay another night.

More pictures here.