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Thursday 30th June. Lovely at 6.30 a.m., and warm enough for me to leave the doors open as I get back into bed.

Sweet!

Uh-oh! He’s back.

Hey!

Enough is enough! Shoo!

Time anyway for me to get up. But I’ll just go out on to the patio, lean on the rail for a bit, and see what’s going on.

Oystercatcher
The swan still consorting with the shelduck

He’s back again. But seems settled. (I should have noticed which way he was looking though.)

I return to the Oystercatcher.

And notice that the Herring gull is no longer on the rail, so turn round, just in case.

Hey!!! Off you go!!!

To my left, the train I’m planning to catch a bit later. I was intending to spend the day in St Ives, and going by car would not be a sensible thing to do, because of parking problems. All I needed to do was walk the 15 minutes to St Erth station to catch that train, which shuttled between the two stations every half hour. And I’m promised a great scenic ride…

I buy my day return for £2.60 (inc. senior railcard) and settle into a nearly empty train, enjoying the views along the coast for the 10 minutes it takes to get to St Ives, with just one stop, at Carbis Bay.

Very changeable weather

I had allowed plenty of time before my only actual ‘appointment’ of the day, 10.30. The evening before, fancying a boat trip, I had booked a trip to ‘Seal Island’, but was concerned about the weather forecast. I needed, not even having one at home, a light rainproof jacket. It took me a while to find one, but having done so I made my way to the rendezvous point, by the lifeboat station. A great fan of the TV programme, ‘Saving Lives at Sea’, I had to take a photo of the impressive craft.

Seeing a man with a clipboard, I asked him was he Derek. He replied in the affirmative and asked if I was Venetia. Were there so few bookings that he could be so sure, I asked him. “Only four, but don’t worry. [I wasn’t; in fact I thought it would be rather good to share the boat with so few.] I’ll have many more by the time the boat sails.” And went on to say that business had been very bad the previous two days, since they’d not been able to go out because of the bad weather. Which made me feel rather guilty at my selfish thought.

He pointed me to the other side of the harbour,

and asked me to be at the jetty by 11.05. Which I was, along with many other people waiting for several other boats. We had to wait for quite a while. There was quite a swell beyond the harbour apparently, and the sea was not playing ball to let people get from the jetty onto the tenders that were to take us to the boats, in my case ‘The Little Mermaid.’ And yes, Derek had indeed rustled up eight more people to make up the full complement of 12 passengers allowed on board.

There was nervousness for some about moving from tender to boat, but no accident.

Once out of the harbour, The Little Mermaid was indeed bounced around quite a bit, but I – even though inclined to sea sickness – was OK, and thoroughly enjoyed the ride.

I was glad of my new rain jacket, which served as a good windcheater. Fortunately, none of the threatened showers actually happened.

After about 20 minutes we arrived at one of the correctly named ‘Carracks‘, (from the Cornish for ‘rocks’) nicknamed ‘Seal Island’, where we stayed and observed these Atlantic grey seals, some of whom seemed interested in us,

but most of whom just lazed around in the sun.

It was time to return along the choppy sea.

Porthmeor Beach

The next passengers await. But first the tender must take us back to the jetty.

It was only shortly past midday by now, and I had several more hours to spend in the resort.