Christmas at St Mawes

Here are some photos of our family Christmas at St Mawes.

It was such fun having Christmas with our first grandchild, Reuben.

We were joined by Esther and Andrew and his Mum, Jocelyn, Zoe and Matt and Mary.

Our present to one and all was a twinned toilet in Burundi!

You can twin yours too at CORD.

Birthdays

Ken's Mum visited in early December to celebrate their joint birthdays.

Zoe's Graduation

This year Zoe graduated from MarJon, Exeter University with a First Class Honours Degree in Community Practice with Outdoor Adventure. We had a wonderful day at Plymouth with Zoe and her boyfriend Matt who also graduated on the same day.

Reuben

Here are some more pictures of our Grandson, Reuben.

He is growing fast!

YouGo

In September I took a Serendipity Sailing team to the Channel Islands and France for a week. We used the Cornish Cruising Bavaria 36, "YouGo". There were six of us; Tim, Peter, Chris, David, Trevor and myself.

After a night up the Fal, and lunch in St Mawes, we set sail for St. Peter Port arriving the following day after a good overnight

passage. We had a great meal ashore in St Peter Port and left the following morning for Herm with a challenging bit of pilotage by Trevor through the rocks to a lovely anchorage where we experience a strange mix of glorious sunshine and fog!

We sailed in the fog, reckoning it was safer than staying in the very tidal anchorage over night

in fog and the dark. Sailing in fog around Sark was another challenging bit of navigation. The fog

only cleared as we headed off into open water to the east of Sark. We were heading to Carteret in Normandy, eventually arriving in the dark around midnight.

Carteret river and marina can only be entered at high tide. It was amazing to walk down to the beach later and see miles of foreshore high and dry. We had a great Normandy meal of Crepes

and cider at lunchtime.

We didn't stay long as we had to catch the next evening tide. We headed back across the channel to Dartmouth. The forecast had been easterlies of about force 4. In the end it was force 7 for most of the night and following day! This plus crossing very busy shipping lanes made it an eventful sail. We enjoyed arriving in Dartmouth in lovely sunshine.

After one night in Dartmouth we had a day sail back to St Mawes, arriving late on the Friday evening. We had arranged to hold onto YouGo for a few extra hours as I had been asked to open and bless the St Mawes Fish Festival on the Quay. It was great fun going ashore for some wonderful fresh fish and meeting up with family and friends. When we got back on board we had a grandstand view of the St Mawes Working Boat Harbour Race. The it was back to Falmouth to hand the boat back and home in time to hear news that our first grandchild Reuben had just

been born in Truro!

Falmouth Week

During Falmouth Week I took part in two races sailing on Helen Mary which was great fun. The races were really well run and the weather was just right for some exciting close matches.

The Red Arrows came to Falmouth as part of Falmouth Week and we

'hijacked' the Place Ferry for the evening and had a grandstand view just

off

Trefussis.

Anam Cara

In August we took the major step of purchasing our own Yacht! She is a Sadler 29 based in Mylor. Lois and I went for a sail with her owner, Bob, and we were very impressed. She has a glass fibre hull with a double skin, therefore supposedly unsinkable. More importantly she is very well insulated and soundproofed. She has a deep fine keel which means she will be good at sailing offshore and will make good headway to windward.

Our idea is to use her in three main ways. One as a family yacht for fun sailing with friends and family, secondly for Serendipity Sailing cruises and thirdly we shall charter her out with Cornish Cruising to help pay for annual running costs. Our daughter Mary has joint us a a joint owner to make this all possible so we are very grateful to her.

MeGo

In July/August we had two Serendipity Cruises with "MeGo", a Cornish CruisingBavaria 36, sailing in the Falmouth / Carrick Roads area. The weather was not ideal with a mixture of rain and sun with winds of force 6 and 7.

The first crew was a

family group - Mike, Sue, Holly and Alice. Mike used to be a Merchant Navy Engineer and he and Sue enjoy cruising on the big comfy cruise ships! Mike is also a keen amateur private pilot, as is Holly his daughter. Mike had sailed with us a couple of year previously but this was a totally new experience for the girls. The family are

wondering whether sailing might be for them and Mike is tempted to buy a boat.

For the first night we went up the Fal to Tregothnan and anchored for the night. I thought this would be a good option as it is so

peaceful there away from the bright lights of Falmouth. I hadn't realised what a 'serendipitous' experience it would be for the girls away from the comforts of shoreside showers, mains electricity and the ability to step ashore. I think they found it quite

claustrophobic! We also visited Mylor, much more civilised, and St Mawes.

The second crew included Lois and five other ladies - Sue, Kath, Cathy, Anthea and Diana! It was Cathy's first sailing experience but all the others had been before. It was quite cramped but they were all 'game' and we had great fun, in spite of the weather. We also did the round of Falmouth, Mylor and St Mawes with some lovely sailing between the rain showers.