Tranquillity is closer than you think. Earlier this year I spent a week in the Scilly Isles, well I tell a lie, I spent a week amongst the Scilly Isles on 36 feet of Yacht.
Anyone who’s ever travelled by boat, especially a small one will tell you there is something special about arriving somewhere by water. Forget the hassle of airports, the smell of train stations and the queue for Big Macs at the motorway services; you just cruise in, drop anchor, stick a bottle of wine in a bucket of seawater to chill, drop the tender (dingy, with an outboard engine (if you’re lucky)) in the water and head for the key side pub. And where better to do this than the Isles of Scilly.
We arrived in St Marys (the largest of the Islands) on a calm May evening. We’d had to motor from Penzance due to a complete lack on wind (making the sails useless), but made good time completing the trip in 11 hours. We’d been lucky with the weather as the previous day we had been fog bound on the mainland, and the day before that we’d been battling some evil waves on a 6 hour sail from Falmouth further along the south coast.
Sailing in the Scillys, takes a certain amount of nerve, even in good conditions. They are notorious for taking many hundreds of ships on their rocky shore lines and shallow channels that separate the islands. At some states of the tide many of the islands become connected. Picking a good spot to moor was important!
After some careful manoeuvring in St Marys modest harbour. We headed for shore to watch the sunset from the old Garrison. If you’re there at sunset this is a must, and with travel times of about 10 minutes by foot from any part of Island, you try and come up with an excuse not to.
On St Marys, the pubs are busy and every 2 or 3 hours a car comes by. I think it’s the same one. It’s a nice little place, but just a little to much like Weston super mare for my liking (To tell the truth, it couldn’t be anything like Weston if it tried, but it’s not the ‘real’ Scillies).
For a really relaxing time, head for Tresco. A private island about 20 minutes by water taxi away. Of course we took our own boat, a point to remember for this crossing is that the tides are crucial and if you’re in any kind of boat with a keel then watch out. We only drew 2 meters (the amount of boat under the water), but were still dragging on the bottom at times, and moving a meter to port or starboard (left or right) would have put a hole in the bottom thanks to more rock that a Blackpool post office just inches below the surface.
On to Tresco…..
We spent 3 days moored at Tresco, I could have spent 3 months. The Island itself takes about 45 minutes to walk around. To the west is New York and to the north, Ireland. Tresco is by all accounts a civilised place, with no cars, one pub, a hotel, a helipad and a lot of flowers. Proclaiming it self Englands Island of Flowers, it really lives up to the name. In the past this was the Islands main and only income, now the tourist pays the upkeep involved in keep such an amazing place.
So what do you do here, as little as possible is my answer. The crowds are minimal especially after the last taxi of the day sets sail as everyone stays on St Marys, Tresco isn’t cheap! Of course if you are looking for adventure there is a small cave on the west coast, in there is a deep pond for want of a better word, whom my ship mate (we volunteered him to swim across it) tells us there is a short passageway the other side of, but not much else. Swimming in the pool at the pub is much more recommended, but not the sea. It’s freezing, despite looking as blue and inviting as any beach in Thailand.
Supplies on the Island are limited. I don’t know about the hotel food (because I didn’t eat there), but the shop stocks beef burgers, beef chops, oh and beef sausages (and a good range of curry sauces, strange considering the lack of chicken around). Mainly because all the meet is local, and they only have cows. But what tasty cows they are. Having a 2 ring stove, we either cooked our beef on the boat, or made a barbecue on a neighbouring beach, you can self cater on Tresco, but I didn’t see a campsite, so if you do visit you’ll probably be eating in the hotel or pub. Which incidentally seemed to fill with young female gig (big seafaring rowing boats, the gig that is) racers every night, where they came from I don’t know as I didn’t see them any other time of day. Thought I would have noticed them? After the pub closes it’s back to the boat. Warning, the water gets rougher at night, and our little outboard was quite amusing when navigating with head touches.
Our last day was on Samson. A small uninhabited island with beautiful rough shorelines with some interested rocks to climb on, plus an old washed up fishing boat rusting happily outside the now abandoned houses.
We left the Scillies at sunset from Samson. A 16 hour night sale back to Falmouth awaited us. Conditions were perfect and the sun setting over the islands was even more spectacular than the view from the garrison. Unfortunately for us, once again the weather wasn’t to last and by midnight we were 16 miles off the south coast of England in a storm that wasn’t predicted (otherwise we would still be on Samson, waiting for it pass). 9 hours later we arrived in Falmouth, after having to change sails in the middle of the English channel. That took us 2 hours, of which a good hour of that I spent harnessed to the mast and bow, along way from the relative safety of the cockpit (where you sail the boat from) pulling down one set of sails and rigging another, a process that normally take 5 – 10 minutes on a bad day.
When we did make it back (we had to be towed the last half mile when we lost the steering, it had been damaged during the night!), a well earned sleep was taken by all, before an average Chinese in Falmouth that evening.
If you’re not travelling by yacht to the Scillies then the ferry is the next best thing from Penzance, followed by the helicopter, which despite being good fun has to be one of the most annoying things in Penzance(after the summer traffic), I’m just glad I don’t have to live with the constant noise of rotor blades.
Many people don’t enjoy the islands as much as they should. Admittedly if you do travel with several hundred others by ferry or aircraft, you may not get to enjoy the lack of people and sheer remoteness of where you are. This in turn leads to the disappointment many get when the islands don’t live up to expectations. My advice, stay on the more remote islands if you can afford it, or go in winter, no doubt it will be cold, windy and wet, but stunningly beautiful.
Anyone interested in sailing there can do it between May and October. You will probably have to crew yourself as I don’t know anyone who takes passengers on this crossing as such. So make sure you have a competent Skipper. Our skipper has been sailing for 35 years and we’ve crewed together several times in the last couple.
Boat charter (did you really think I owned one?) is less than people think, starting at about £800 for a week, not bad when that covers transport and accommodation for up to 6 people. Mooring costs are around £10 - £20 a night.
I was lucky to see these islands in such a magical way, but even if you take the ferry, enjoy the Scilly Isles. There’s a lot of magic there.
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