Tuesday 5 July. Day in Exmouth.

No lie in as we had to be ready for 0800 and the HM Steve, to open the bridge. We’d been to have a look at the marina which is packed with motor boats and we were a little worried about where there was for us to go! The pontoon where we overnighted is strictly forbidden during the day as the tripper ferries to and fro from there. So we were ready! At least we only had to go 100 meters! The very friendly Steve arrived at 0800 and said he’d just got to move a boat so we could go onto the hammer head. Perfect! So as soon as Steve had opened the lifting bridge we slipped our lines and made our way to the pontoon. We were the only yacht in the harbour! But Steve was brilliant, he couldn’t have been more welcoming. They never charged us for the night we spent on the ferry pontoon. We hooked up to the electricity and then spent the morning doing jobs, writing etc and generally catching up. Exmouth harbour is obviously an old rectangular fishing harbour. Nowadays it is mostly leisure boats but there were a few small fishing boats presumably landing pots as there was a board saying “ live crab and lobster “ on the quayside. It is otherwise surrounded by purpose built apartments…. but tasteful ones. The ground floors given to shops and trendy restaurants and cafes. Giving the whole place a nice up market vibe, and obviously attracting the cafe culture crowds. In the afternoon we ventured along the front with its grand Victorian architecture. A beautiful crescent of perfect sand with lots of people enjoying themselves. We headed inland at the pointy monument towards the town. There was a lovely leafy square a bit reminiscent of a European city in the middle. With people doing the cafe culture thing. Round the edges however, it suffers from the same seediness that many of the other places we’ve visited, suffer from too. We found a coop to do our shopping, but unfortunately it was the “wrong “ sort of coop to get the “over 60’s 10% discount “! 😐 . Back on the boat we then watched Wimbledon.. well I did… very exciting that Cameron Norrie won and is in the semifinals against Novac Jokovic. In the evening our great friends the Turners had booked a table for a fish supper at the Rockfish restaurant overlooking the estuary. It was great to see Lynnie and Richard…. thank you for making the effort to come and see us! Many thanks!

What I learned today…… although the harbour claims to have been dredged to 2m …. given our draught is 1.9 m. The depth actually went to 1.5 .. so we were must have been half a metre in the mud. 😳. We are a lot more relaxed about it than we used to be.!

Sue x