Tuesday 26 July. New Grimsby sound to The cove, St Agnes, Scilly. 5 nm

A lovely day. The wind disappeared overnight. Such a relief to not have it bashing away in your ears and a gentle motion of the boat. We got up early as we wanted to go onshore before having visitors 🤗. We needed to pay our dues, offload rubbish, go to the shop And Have showers ! We’d only recently found there was a shower near the island office in New Grimsby. Also found out … too late…. that there’s a laundry service here.. in fact opposite the shower. They don’t advertise but they do it, dry and fold it for you. Too late as we’re off today. J had done the tidal curve so we reckoned we needed to leave at about 1400. Charlie and Don came for coffee and it was lovely to see them, chat about sailing and talk about mutual friends. They happen to be neighbours to some of our oldest friends, Debbie and Bruce. Small world. We slipped our mooring at about 1400 and set out across the flats. Knowing we’d done this exact course before, we were slightly alarmed that the depth gauge went down to 2.1 m😳. That means there was 20 cm under our keel. Just a little close for comfort! Once into deeper water, we relaxed and enjoyed the beautiful views now in sunshine. St Mary s to the left and St Agnes to the right…

Entering the anchorage we did quick recky of how many boats were already anchored. 19. Picked our spot and it turned out to be okay and good.. right in the centre of the bay, but it’s always a bit tricky anchoring in amongst numerous others, having to take in room for swinging as the tides and wind change. We then sat and observed another 10 boats come in trying to find a suitable spot. Good spectator sport ( once you’re okay yourself)! Most interesting is the boat from Dublin which attached itself to a fishing boat mooring ( which everyone had studiously avoided ) amongst the other 25 boats at anchor. More fool us… probably! We decided to go ashore and make for the Turks head ( pub) which apparently does fantastic fish and chips. Unfortunately it wasn’t doing food tonight, and due to staffing shortages, had closed early so couldn’t even get a beer!! Back to the boat. No signal. So no TV . Boat chilli made out of corned beef and an early night. Beautiful sunset though……

What I learned today….. we’re very restricted on water here so I found a new way to wash up pans . Tie the handle on to a line. Bowline of course and swill them about In the sea, before washing. Saves so much washing up water!