9th July
We set off to Fowey at about midday once the rain had stopped. The wind was south west F3-4 so it was not going to take us too long to get there. We were enjoying a good sail with Carole on the helm pushing us through the water at 6 – 7 knots, when she spotted a dolphin off the port bow. I grabbed our camera and set it to video mode to try and record it. Within a few seconds more dolphins had joined us swimming around us and just under the bow taking it in turns following each other. It was difficult to count but we thought at least 12 were swimming with us. Some of the dolphins were jumping out of the water performing. We had their company for about 30 minutes then just before our approach to Fowey they turned to starboard and headed back out to sea.
Once in the River Fowey we radioed the harbour master for a pontoon berth hopefully at Mixtow Pill but this was already full so we opted for a pontoon opposite the RNLI station. We were met by the Harbour Master who kindly took our lines and collected his fee. This appeared a very quiet peaceful berth being sheltered by the trees from the wind.
Earlier in the day we had had a discussion about whether or not the black tank was emptying properly. Chris took a photo through the top of the tank and discovered, much to our dismay, that the level was still at three quarters, despite our believing that we had emptied it earlier out at sea. Investigations proved that we had a blockage in one of the pipes and we proceeded over the next few hours to empty the tank and unblock the pipe. We found that the blockage was caused by calcium deposits and luckily we had a bottle of vinegar in stock which we poured into the offending pipe. It was lucky that we caught this problem when we did, as we had heard of a boat whose tank exploded and the result was extremely unpleasant. Once the task was completed and everything put back together again, we thoroughly cleaned and disinfected everything.
Dinner ended up as marmite and peanut butter sandwiches and a cup of tea just after 10 p.m. and then we settled down for the night. Soon after midnight the boat started to get a bit bouncy which kept Carole wide awake. I managed to sleep until about 4am when I was woken by being thrown from one side of the bed to the other. I got up to see what the problem was and saw that our pontoon was being tossed about in a swell coming into the river. The pontoon and the boats were rising and falling by at least 4 feet. There was nothing we could do about this so we just had to sit it out and wait until the morning.
