Penzance

A short update today. We leave the Helford River at 6am, bound for Penzance. It’s an easy run and we get there at 11am. We go ashore and I spend a pleasant few hours enjoying the sub-tropical gardens of Penlee House and Morrab Gardens. Our anchor position for the night is next to St Michael’s Mount. Everyone seems to be having a nice time.

Beach Assault

The RIB is fixed! The scientists can do beach surveys again! It’s only raining quite a lot so I decide to go with them. We set off up the river Helford and look for a beach to survey. We soon spy a small beach to starboard and head for that. Marc the medic is piloting the boat and is keen to drop us quickly. He says this needs to be a rapid Normandy style beach assault. As the RIB touches the stones we leap out, endeavouring to avoid water in the wellies.

Normandy assault turns out to be apposite. The beach is Trebah beach, and in June 1944 around 7,500 American soldiers departed from this very beach for the invasion of Omaha beach on D-Day. You can view footage here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-cornwall-47525635

We complete two rainy beach surveys and head for the pub.

Later the RIB develops problems and the evening’s shore leave is cancelled. Never mind. It was raining anyway.

Engine Trouble

The plan for today is for scientists and divers to continue survey work. There’s just the small matter of not having a working RIB available to go ashore.

The weather is fine so there’s an opportunity for lots of people take to climb to the top of the mast. I may do this another day but today I concentrate on photographing the climbers.

Meanwhile members of the professional crew get to work on the RIB: they drain the fuel tank, inspect the spark plugs, and clean the fuel filters, then take it out on the water for a test run.

Lunch is just being served when we hear the results from the test run: great for the first minute, and then the electrics went.

People spend the early afternoon in the mess. The scientists are writing up observations, the sea cadets are brushing up on nautical knowledge. Meanwhile the hardy professional crew are out in the rain, working on the RIB. Anousch the second mate tells me this level problems is not normal.

Under Sail

I’m already awake when I called for 4am anchor watch. The time passes quickly and the sun rises behind the clouds and gradually brightens the sky. I get a bit of sleep before breakfast of marmalade on toast. The Mizzen crew are on watch as we leave for Cornwall at 8am.

Today’s excitement is that for the first time on this voyage the wind conditions are suitable and we can actually put some sails up. It takes many people on the ropes to put up three sails: the Stay Sail, the Fogaffe, and the Spanker. Or in non-nautical words, the ones at the front and the back.

It’s pretty windy offshore: it’s our third storm in a week. The official record is wind at force 7 to 8, with “sea state” up to 5 at times.

With the sails up the ship is more stable and rocks around less, but leans to port about 15 degrees. Sailing along like Theo’s is quite exciting. Surprisingly, there are no spillages of hot drinks, though a pepper mill heads for the floor a couple of times.

Putting the sails away a few hours later takes lots of people once again. I help with the ropes on the foredeck. Several waves break over the deck and my trousers get a drenching. But that’s not much compared to the two people out on the bowsprit who disappear briefly beneath the waves. This is why they have harnesses clipped on to the ship.

At 5:15pm we anchor in the mouth of the Helford river, where we’ll be for the next two nights.

It’s shore leave for half the ship and they head to the pub up river while those of us left on board tuck into some excellent chilli. After dinner some of us play Scrabble.

The first shore party returns after I’ve gone to bed. The RIB starts flashing warning lights just before reaching the Pelican: there’s water in the fuel. There’s a delay collecting the remaining shore party and they build a driftwood beach fire to keep warm while they wait. A temporary fix is used to get the RIB running: putting its fuel line directly into a container of clean fuel. The second party eventually get back around 12:30.

Sunday Rest

This morning the RIB dropped people at Cawsands. The scientists went to do their beach surveys but I went for a walk along to coastal path to Penlee. There used to be a gun battery on the hill here but there’s not much to see nowadays. I keep walking to the hamlet of Rame where there’s an interesting stone church. Then I walk back to the beach and join the others for a pub lunch.

There’s another storm coming this afternoon so we go back to the Pelican at 2pm. It’s a bit more splashy than usual getting back on board as the rain and the wind begin to pick up.

Sunday is laundry day for Cabin 7 so it’s important to get my clothes in the machine. There’s a regular washing machine and tumble drier tucked in a corner of the ship.

The crew decide we should have “Happy Hour” cleaning the ship and put on Sea Shanties to raise those of us who are napping.

I pass on dinner as I’m still full from my lunchtime halloumi burger.

We hear that we’re going to be leaving at 8am tomorrow. This is good news as it was going to be 4am and my watch crew would be on duty. Hooray! Half an hour later I hear that we’re going to have pairs of people on anchor watch for 2 hour slots overnight, and I’m on 4am to 6am. Oh well.

Beach Plastic

We’ve spent two days at anchor in Tor Bay while waiting for the Force 9 nine winds to pass. This morning the wind has dropped sufficiently for the divers and scientists to do survey work. I join the scientists again on the beach plastic survey, this time surveying Elberry Cove (rocky) and Broadsands Beach (Sandy). The method is to mark out a 100m line parallel to the shore and count all non natural items found up to 1m either side. The items we find include pieces of fishing line, cable ties, sweet wrappers. The scientists will record this data at each beach we visit, and separately identify factors that would affect how much plastic is found, such as whether visitors are encouraged to do a “2 minute beach clean”. The surveys don’t take long and we’re about to head to a local pub when the ship calls and says to be ready to go back in 20 minutes.

In the afternoon we head out to sea, travelling towards Plymouth. It’s good to be at sea once more after 2 1/2 days in the same place. The weather is sunny but the swell makes several people uncomfortable. I’m on the 8pm watch and I do port lookouts for half an hour, with sunglasses as we’re heading straight towards the sun. It’s surprisingly chilly once the sun sets. Some dolphins appear very briefly alongside the ship but I don’t see them. As we approach Plymouth there’s a warship on the horizon. We drop anchor in Cawsands Bay at 10:30pm and head down to bed.

A Choppy Time

The wind continues and we remain at anchor. It’s too windy either to go somewhere else or to send anyone ashore.

Today I’ve been on Galley duty. For lunch we prepared pasta and for dinner it was roast chicken. Most of my time was spent peeling these potatoes. At least I got a view through the porthole.

Darwin200 Science Blog

On board Pelican is a team of scientists studying plastics and marine life as we travel around the UK. They’ve set up a blog for the whole 13 week voyage here: https://darwin200blog.wordpress.com/

Sleeping in the Bath

It’s 10:30pm. Three quarters of the height of our cabin is below the water line. I have an upper bunk which means my head is also at the water line. As the ship rolls gradually backwards and forwards the water sloshes backwards and forwards and it sounds like being in the bath.

The weather forecast is “35 to 51 mph winds from the South West”

Good night!

ITV

Pelican of London’s departure from Folkestone was covered by ITV: https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2021-05-18/plastic-pollution-ship-sets-sail-to-uncover-the-damage-plastic-has-on-marine-life

Quiz Night

Tonight is Quiz Night, and my team “Sense of Porpoise” came in third place with 39 points.

After this we watch The Jungle Book.

A Storm is Coming

Day five, and the plan is to reach Dartmouth later this morning for safe shelter from a big storm that’s due soon. The forecast keeps changing but the latest is that it will arrive this afternoon with up to 70 knot winds, and we can’t be on the high seas in such strong winds.

The day begins with a gentle wake up from the morning watch crew for breakfast at 7:20am. The only breakfast option is cereal until Patrik the engineer locates the correct circuit breaker to reset the toasters.

I’m on watch at 8 as we continue the journey to Dartmouth. Light wind, not too cold. I ask about the instruments in the wheel house and see the radios, the radar, the old fashioned looking barometer. We take a reading. It’s dropped 2mbar in under an hour. The wind is picking up.

The storm has arrived early. The captain has been on the radio to Dartmouth discussing how we will moor in these winds. We need to be there before the wind grows strong enough for them to close the harbour.

10am. They’ve closed the harbour. Our only option now is to head for Tor Bay and anchor off shore. The wind is gusting up to 35 knots. We head to Tor Bay and anchor off shore.

Marooned

In the afternoon Pelican leaves Poole to head out to the bay for science and dive surveys. I’m on the helm as the captain directs a tight pirouette to turn the ship. The directions come seconds apart: Port 10. Starboard 10. Starboard 20. Starboard 40. It’s quite a workout for several minutes until we’re into the more open water.

We anchor in the Studland bay near Old Harry’s Rocks. I join the scientists in the Rib as we head to the beach to conduct a plastics survey. It will be a wet landing and I’m glad I followed the packing list and bought those wellies. However the water proves to a few cm too deep so it’s wellies off to wade to shore. We spend a few hours counting plastic on the beach. I find a lone blue nurdle: a pea sized piece of plastic that is the input material for plastic injection moulding.

The RIB is meant to pick us up after it comes back from supervising the divers but the engine develops a problem and can’t collect us just yet. We castaways venture into the wilds to fend for ourselves and survive until we can be rescued. A tough ten minute walk up a gentle road brings us to a local establishment where we barter for beer and chips.

We’re finishing our pints when the ship calls: Patrick the engineer has replaced the spark plug and the RIB will be back to collect us soon.

Ian has kept back portions of our proper dinner of pork stew which is just what I need as I join the first watch. We leave anchor at 10pm and sail off into the moonlight, the stars getting gradually brighter as we head for Dartmouth where we’re going to ride out a storm.