Salcombe day 22


South Sands Salcombe

Hullo again dear readers,  I had heard that Salcombe is a lovely place and it hasn't let us down. It is a very pretty little village coming right down to the waters edge, with little alleyways and narrow streets. As I mentioned yesterday there is no river running into this sea inlet, know as a ria. It was formed after the Ice Age when sea levels rose . The area is a Marine Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Marine Nature Reserve. It is home to some rare plants and animals including seahorses, fan mussels that grow to over a  foot in diameter and  a sea slug thought to be unique to this area!! So Salcombe has its very own sea slug, luckily we haven't come across any of those yet.

It also has a lifeboat station here and we saw them coming in from an exercise last night, a large lifeboat and several ribs, one of which neatly stows in the bottom of the large lifeboat. 

Salcombe also has it's own class of boat, the Salcombe Yawl, still being built today.

    

Yesterday evening we had a delightful supper in a local pub, the Fortescue Inn, where we met up with Celia's friends. We had delicious food and sampled the Salcombe Gin, very smooth, we liked it! We dare not drink too much as we had to negotiate the water taxi and climbing back onto Lunar Sea on the way back!

Perhaps we should try paddle boarding, the black Labrador seems to be enjoying it!


Lunar Sea from the yacht club


This morning we decided to spend the day off the boat, so we got a water taxi to take us to the town quay, and we ambled up to the yacht club and had a very pleasant view while having our morning coffee. We looked down on Lunar Sea moored right outside, and posed on the terrace for a photo.

Posing on the Salcombe Yacht Club terrace.

After a delicious pasty lunch Josh decided to stay in town and visit the tiny Maritime Museum and the local cemetery, to try to find out more about the Lidstones and other ancestors, that all originally came from the Salcombe area. 

Clelia and I decided to take the South Sands ferry to a sandy bay at the entrance to the ria, and we had a very different sort of ferry ride. I will explain. The ferry can't go up onto the beach as it is too shallow and there is no landing pontoon, so it stops near to the beach and a sea tractor drives out from the beach to transfer the passengers from the ferry to the sands. 



Bolt Head, Celia's walk

I had a very refreshing swim and Celia walked to Bolt Head, the cliffs at the entrance to the ria. A nice cup of tea and an ice cream was a very welcome refreshment , before we hopped onto the sea tractor to take us out to the waiting ferry. A very different experience and great fun!



Sea tractor and ferry coming together South Sands

When we got back to Salcombe we met up with Josh for a drink before getting the water taxi back to the boat, and supper on board. It was a glorious evening, very warm and still. There is nothing like sitting on deck and watching the sun go down and the stillness of the evening taking over. 

South Sands beach

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day one and two of the Caledonian Canal - the adventure continues

Image
The Lunatic crew for the Caledonian Canal   We entered the  Clachnaharry sea lock at Inverness for the 1.30 lock and were met by a very helpful, calm lock keeper who talked us through. There was a large sign saying Ireland this way! Clachnaharry Sea Lock, the entrance to the Caledonian Canal, The Great Glen, Loch Ness and Ireland! The lock was timed so that you could then sail through the railway swing bridge, then on to the Muirhead flight of four locks. We had relaxed once we got on to the canal, thinking things could only get better and there is much less to worry about in a canal as opposed to being out at sea, no tides to think about for example. How wrong we were, we were forgetting this is the Lunacy cruise. At the second lock Mick fell in! We heard a plop and a splash and Mick had fallen into the lock between the lock wall and the boat. Josh's quick thinking saved the day as he put the long swim ladder over the edge and Mick managed to climb up befor...
Read more

Day 48 and the return to our home port of Ramsgate.

Image
Lunar Sea and her crew back in Ramsgate  Dear Readers, we finally arrived back in Ramsgate five years after setting off on 1 May 2017. The weather then had been atrocious, but it couldn't have been more different for our return. It was promised to be the hottest day of the year, so we had plenty of sunshine and not very much wind. lt did pick up to about 12 knots as we approached Ramsgate, so we managed to get the sails up and the flags flying for our entrance to Ramsgate.  Leaving Dover, heading for the Eastern entrance,  on our way home now. It had been an uneventful 4 hour trip from Dover to Ramsgate, but for some reason the unusually hot weather had created an optical illusion and we had a really clear view of France as we passed Deal. Perhaps it is the high pressure, not sure why?  France, shall we go there instead? We had Josh's daughter Jo on board and Owen and Jordan, two of Josh's grandchildren, joined us in Dover for the day sail. When we got to the approac...
Read more
Image
  Hello again from Lunar Sea in Portishead. The boat has been here for two years now and we are continuing our adventure from tomorrow, the 31st May, by locking out of Portishead Marina (near Bristol in case you wondered) and we will be heading for Penarth Marina (near Cardiff) for our first stop. Then on to Padstow via Watchet for a night's stay and then probably an anchorage for one night off Clovelly, to break up the 18 hour trip from Watchet to Padstow.  We have been so lucky to have found this charming marina which has been Lunar Sea's home for two years, we will be sad to leave, but excited to be on the homeward stretch of our marathon around the UK sailing trip. It was supposed to take 2 years, but due to bad weather in year 1 and a mutinous crew, plus the pandemic in the third and fourth year, it will have taken 5 years (assuming we get back to Ramsgate this year, watch this space!) Wish us luck, calm seas and a good wind. I will try and do a daily blog, sailing condit...
Read more