seagardensandglass

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Adventures

I will get to our completed visits later this evening. At the moment, a front is sweeping down England. It forced the cancellation of our boat back from the Scilly Islands, scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. We had to choose between leaving St. Mary's today by boat, or leaving in the teeth of the gale by plane tomorrow morning. Either way we would've missed the isle of Tresco, site of the Abbey Gardens and Valhalla, where a number of figureheads (from wrecks, of course) are on display.

However, we had taken a launch out today to Annet, St. Agnes, and Gugh. The journey was undertaken in hope of seeing puffins. They are not often seen when the boats go out, so it isn't like a whale watch. But we went out, and we did see puffins--more on that later!

Because we had so enjoyed the trip already made, we elected to return to the mainland today. Not certain we made the right choice. The front had already churned up the sea in a small way. Even being small, it made at least one shipmate quite ill. I was belching and trying to keep my eye on the horizon. Victor slept.

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Monday, April 2, 2012

No 'net at the inn, again

So I've been posting from the place where we had high tea and dinner... Once again, no Internet service where we're staying!

It'll be slow, but over time I'll get Mevagissey, etc., up here.

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Shipwreck 'artefacts' in Charlestown

I have to tell you, there was a helluva lot of material presented in that museum. There were displays of wreck artifacts at knee level, chest level, and eye level, at least 12 displays in every room--just countless rooms. What follows is a selection of just a handful of the displays.

They had amphorae, too, found in the Mediterranean.

One of a few manila collections:

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RNLI in the museum

There was a lot in the museum about the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, England's all-volunteer Coast Guard. The RNLI relies on donations and focuses wholly on rescue; no search and seizure.

Life rings from RNLI-rescued crews:

There's one of these (next) at Chicamacomico on the Outer Banks, too. It looks like an iron lung, but it was once used in rescue, to pull crewmen to shore.

This is a breeches buoy. It was fired out to ships, attached to a line that was anchored on shore. The line was tied off on-board, then crew were shuttled to shore in the seat.

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Museum in Charlestown

I found out all about clay in the museum (the mine building is now the museum), and what little the Gloucester Maritime History Museum's dive locker didn't teach me about diving history.