It really was the most idyllic wakening. Stillness and sunshine. Just the sounds of seabirds. I looked out at the oily surface of the water, almost unrecognisable! You could see right down to the bottom…… thankfully there’s a lot of sand where we are which means good holding! All around the boat, in the clear water you could see hoards of little tiny eels about 10 cm long , all swimming against the tide. We knew we had to leave a couple of hours before high tide, to make it over the flats to St Marys. So we had until about 4 pm to explore. It was a morning for rowing for a change, so we took a picnic and rowed over to St Helens…. an uninhabited Island that used to be used as a quarantine island for sailors with infectious diseases ☹️. We decided to land the dinghy in the area which had obviously been cleared back in history, to land the poor sailors. Unfortunately it was really low water and very sludgy and smelly. There was an obvious path, once over the rocky beach. The path led straight up to the ruined building. There was a rather battered plaque explaining about the what happened here all those years ago. We then made our way up to the summit of the little island which only took about 30 minutes, and looked around at amazing views of the whole of the Scilly Isles. The sun was shining, the sea and sky blue, the heather purple and the lighthouse on Round island standing out white against the backdrop of the ocean to the north. We would be heading out across there to Ireland in a few days time. It was interesting to look down at st Helens gap at low water, and see where we’d come through. We decided to row from St Helens to Tean….. and have our picnic there rather than in the smelly seaweed. Tean is just a very little island but is grassy and apparently a breeding ground for ringed Plovers. Because of this you are discouraged from traipsing around, but we just sat on a rock and ate our sandwiches looking out across the white sand and azure sea. On our way back to the boat we noticed a dinghy floating free and realised a lad on a nearby yacht was gesticulating at us! We rescued it and returned it to the neighbouring boat, met by a very grateful young man. Funny as we’d noticed the family on the beach at Tean , and the young lads mum being protective and worried , despite him assuring her he’d be fine and stop fussing! Hope she didn’t give him too hard a time!
It was very tempting to stay in such an idyllic place, but we knew the wind was coming and we wanted to be sure of getting a mooring in St Marys before the weekend. It was a good decision as we had no problem, but by Saturday mid morning there were none left. We had a lovely evening, peaceful and quiet.
What I learned today…… that in 1764 the quarantine station was established on St Helens. Plague ridden ships were ordered to land crew here in Scilly. The building in the pictures was called “the pest house”. Those poor people would have come ashore in the exact slipway that We did. The round structure 30 m west was a well, which presumably was a source of fresh water. All a bit grim.☹️
Sue x
The water below us 
Eilean enjoying a moment 
Airing duvets 
Battered history board 
The pest house 
The slipway 
The well 
Looking down on the anchorage 
St Helens gap 
Round island 
Angelique 