The time had come to move on to the French coast where we were hoping to leave Away over winter. But our time at anchor had allowed our annual end of season rethink (we always end up changing our winter location). Visas, dogs, family and accommodation costs meant it would be more sensible to return to Falmouth.

A solid north easter ruled out a trip to Alderney which has little protection from that direction. But it did promise a fast sail across the channel. A local mentioned that once we past the overfalls it should be reasonably comfortable. Sorry, what overfalls? We couldn’t find mention of any overfalls north of Guernsey in any of our guide books and no rough water markers on the chart. We even read an article by a local saying they had never encountered overfalls in this area.

Leaving St Peters Port at that time of day
Is that a line of breakers I can see?

The 20-30 knots of north easterly wind met 4 knots of spring tide flushing us out of the Little Russel channel. We soon spotted a line of breaking waves. For the following half hour we tried to set the speed fast enough that we could control the boat and not turn side on the the waves, but slow enough as to spend as much time in contact with the water as possible.

A few waves to get the day started.
Once clear of the overfalls we were trucking towards the English coast
Bernie recovered from his traumatic morning
And our friends came to visit us

We were making good progress and decided to head for the Dart. We found a visitors pontoon which was mostly empty this time of year. Apart from the naval college on the hill and associated maritime comings and goings there was a steam train chuffing in and out of the station across the river. It even accepted dogs possessing the appropriate ticket.

Changing to the other end of the train for the return journey
There is an observation car at the front of the train from which you can enjoy the scenery across to Kingswear
He may not have enjoyed the view, but any morsels of digestive biscuits carelessly dropped under the seats were duly cleaned up.

We enjoyed an explore up river on the local ferry and went for a walk.

A ferry up the Dart took us to the village of Dittisham where this guy was resting on the pontoon.

However, soon it was time to begin the trip west towards Falmouth. A quick passage to Plymouth was in order as we had never been there and the weather wasn’t looking too great.

On the way to Plymouth, we dropped in to the familiar Salcombe. On arrival we were dodging heavy rain showers and were quite surprised to find surfers on the bar as we passed. Perhaps a chunky swell, outgoing tide and shallow water were not ideal conditions to enter.
Up the river from Plymouth past the busy naval docks the river becomes altogether more relaxed
From our anchorage we dinghyed up to St German. Here the 32 arches of the St Germans viaduct built in 1908 carry the Plymouth to Falmouth railway across the river. We later became familiar with the train which we used to get to London on several occasions.
Time to leave the tranquility and head further along the coast.

Leaving Plymouth for Fowey was a beautiful day. Except we did manage to pick up some weed in the thruhull for the engine cooling. Our fancy new exhaust temperature sensor alerted us and Adrian went for a quick swim, in a wetsuit, and cleared the weed before we have a repeat of this years shenanigans.

Leaving Plymouth we had red sail conditions for the trip along the coast to Fowey.
We had visited the town of Fowey before so this time chose a walk along the coast north of the river.

After our beautiful walk in Fowey, it was time. Time to accept the season was over and we’d had an unlucky year. Time to accept that we didn’t get to France. No matter, there are other ways. Off we trot to Falmouth and our winter berth.

Back in Cornwall the locals have a timeless charm. We raced kept this boat company along the coast most of the way to Falmouth.
With time to spare we spent a few nights at St Mawes on the northern headland of the Fal so Bernie could sniff some fresh countryside smells
Back in our winter berth. Its quite shallow here for some hours of the day

Next time we make up for not getting to France by boat by going to France by boat…