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COMMODORE FAILS TO MOUNT BISHOP....
Sitting here in front of my fire, waiting for the next Sou Wester to batter against the windows as it passes through, my mind turned to very different weather last summer.....
It was one of those windless summer days when all hope of sailing had gone but the shimmering horizon beckons, that we decided to motor my companion’s Island Pilot out to the Bishop Light - the most westerly tip of England. We had decided - like a couple of schoolboys, I confess - to see if we couldn’t get alongside in the flat calm conditions and stand on the famous rock that marks the finish of the Blue Riband of the Atlantic. We packed our lunch - honey ham carved from the bone, fresh crusty bread from the St Martin’s baker, hard-boiled eggs, apples, bananas and a chilled Chablis - and motored out from Old Grimsby. Around Shipman’s Head on Bryher, and then weaving through those wicked rocks that have claimed so many lives over the years.... Mincarlo, Castle Bryher, Scilly Rock, Merrick and past White Island. So brave were we in this flat calm, that as we passed Hell Bay we promised that one year we’d motor through the gap in Scilly Rock (have any of my readers done this?). Annet slipped past to port, and the Bishop Lighthouse began to rise above us as we drew near. Eventually, we were there - 8 miles in 3 hours..
It was about mid tide, and the rock glistened as the ‘flat calm’ - waves lazily heaving up about twelve feet then falling back as tons of water cascaded down. We circled the lighthouse, but nowhere was there a place to get ashore. A black and white sign sternly said ‘Keep Off’. “I think” said my companion “ that if we had an inflatable, perhaps we ....” But in the end we agreed - there was no way that either of we two ageing schoolboys could get onto the rock without breaking a leg, and if we did manage it, then the only way off would be to call in the lifeboat or a rescue helicopter. We left the lighthouse to its solitary guard duty, the rungs of its steps leading 50 feet up to the bolted steel door.
Ho hum, another idea that had proved more fun to talk about than to do....
Motoring across to the islet of Rosevear in the Western Rocks, we found a tiny natural harbour and got ashore to eat our lunch. We soon found we weren’t alone. A Breton family had got there ahead of us, their yacht anchored in the next cove. They had found a baby seal on a rock. Deciding it was stranded they tried to carry it to the sea. We helped them, but the seal - protesting loudly - at once left the water and returned to its warm rock. The Frenchman shrugged “He knows best” he said. We talked for a while, before they returned to their yacht, and we started the outboard to go home. As we left, they were pulling up the anchor for the trip back across the Channel. We waved them goodbye, as the sun started to sink lower in the west.
With best wishes
THE COMMODORE
Read about the Special Forces in WW2, and some terrible shipwrecks over the centuries....... |
