Falmouth

23 July
Took Pippin for a long walk across the fields and along to the ferry crossing - she wasn't wildly enthusiastic about being on the lead the whole time, but there were lots of sheep about, and since she chases anything that moves, I wasn't about to let her loose!

We weren't in any particular rush as it's only another 20 miles or so to Falmouth and the tide wouldn't go with us until lunchtime. We called in at the short stay pontoon again to top up the water tanks and I nipped into town to grab some pasties and sticky buns for lunch on the move.

The passage was quite lumpy and we were quite grateful to finally round the headland and see the entrance to the harbour opening up in front of us. We arrived at low water and found an anchoring spot close in to the harbour wall in relatively shallow water in the hope that it would be somewhat protected from strong winds and lumpy swell. We hadn't counted on the fact that we are very close to every ferry, tourboat and fishing vessel with the area!

We will probably be here for a few days to rest and stock up before heading across to the Scillies. The weather doesn't look too good until the weekend and we don't fancy the crossing in rough seas and strong winds.

We headed into town to suss out supermarkets and laundry (doing smalls on the go is one thing, I am not about to tackle a kingsize quilt cover and bedsheet without significant mechanical assistance!) and on the way back, we saw Mike and Bobbie arrive on Hera! We popped around to say hello once they'd rafted onto another Mac, then left them to it.

Falmouth is a great mix of standard high street shops and lots of little boutique places so no doubt we'll have a proper wander around tomorrow when they're all open again. Pippin was fascinated by all the restaurants and spent most of her walk trying to dive into every takeaway and fish and chip shop along the main street!

24 July
Woke early but stayed on board until about 9:30 waiting for the harbour master to come around for his dues. Since he hadn't shown up by then, we headed ashore with the washing and staked out the marina laundrette for a couple of hours, taking it in turns to walk Pippin and wander round the shops.

When we got back, we set up the generator again and Mark fixed the fridge fan which had suddenly decided to stop working. Hopefully the fridge will be a bit more efficient now and we won't have to put the generator on quite so much. At least it's a quiet model - we can hardly hear it so we know we're not disturbing anyone else.

Lazy afternoon spent surfing the web and updating our blog - the connection is very slow so no pictures for now. We'll try to get them up soon!