Hello from the Isles of Scilly. We had a great passage from Ilse D'Ouessant to St. Mary's, Scilly Isles. We motored for two hours against a light headwind and then as predicted, winds clocked and built to a nice moderate NE to easterly and we had five or six great hours of sailing averaging 9 knots for two of the hours before the wind died. We motored the last 3 hours or so making water, charging batteries, etc. Nice sailing, fine weather.

Our landfall was the south facing harbour of Porth Cressa, 13 hours sailing port to port. Unfortunately, even though swells offshore were not large, a major roll was coming into Porth Cressa and the 8 boats anchored there had masts swinging like asymmetric metronomes. It did not look comfortable and as two boats were electing to weigh anchor and leave we also chose to go around to St. Mary's Pool on the north side where we anchored for the night.

St. Mary's harbour is busy with ferry's, passenger inter-island boats, fishing boats - all zooming by. The harbour-master gave a knock the next morning and offered us a mooring which we gratefully accepted as we were at their size limit. Our stern was also apparently edging to the channel so they were happy too.

We spent 2 1/2 days exploring St. Mary's. Great coastal walks around the island with bird song and wild flowers everywhere. And some history. The Cornish coast but especially Isles of Scilly are a traditional home of rowing gigs. Scilly is the seat of gig rowing and racing as traditionally gigs were used for island transport, ship rescue, and of course, bringing contraband from Brittany. There is racing here several times per week and the Rowing Gig world championships were recently held here. A Belfast (Maine) rowing team participated this year and our first day on the island included lunch out at Juliettes Farm, a restaurant recommended by a rower from the women's team We then did a long walk 3/4 of the way around St. Mary's, hiking past ancient village sites and burial resting places that dated back 6000 years to the Bronze age. We walked past Port Hellick where one of the greatest British naval disasters ever occurred; a captain of a British naval fleet ca. 1640 was sailing by and stopped to record "soundings". Much of the fleet was lost on the "western rocks" of Port Hellick and 1670 sailors perished. Times were different then...

More walking and exploring on our second day. We invited the local OCC Port Officer to join us for wine and appetizers and had a nice evening with him. He came aboard the next day (Saturday) for the short sail to Tresco, where we are right now.

I have posted some pictures from Ile D'Ouessant on our blog site: vofj.blogspot.com. Take a look! We will likely depart later today for the Republic of Ireland and will keep you posted.

Smooth sailing,

Bill and Johanna
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