Helford River - anchoring

I think once you start, if you have nothing better to do, you will easily lose two weeks poking about, I know it well and can still do that, something interesting up every creek and gully.

All the woods to ransack,
All the wave explore,
Moon on Calamansack,
Ripple on the shore.
 
fisherman said:
I think once you start, if you have nothing better to do, you will easily lose two weeks poking about, I know it well and can still do that, something interesting up every creek and gully.

All the woods to ransack,
All the wave explore,
Moon on Calamansack,
Ripple on the shore.
Click to expand...

Quiller-couch, A. T.
Subject(s): Helford River, England


HELFORD RIVER, Helford River,
Blessed may ye be!
We sailed up Helford River
By Durgan from the sea.

O to hear the hawser chain
Rattle by the ferry there!
Dear, and shall we come again
By Bosahan,
By wood and water fair?

All the wood to ransack,
All the wave explore—
Moon on Calamansack,
Ripple on the shore.

—Laid asleep and dreaming
On our cabin beds;
Helford River streaming
By two happy heads;

—Helford River, streaming
By Durgan to the sea,
Much have we been dreaming
Since we dreamed by thee.

Dear, and shall we dream again
The one dream there?
All may go if that remain
By Bosahan,
And the old face wear!


I have until the 14th May when myself and two other MOBs will be heading off towards Plockton. However, I still have some time there yet so I hope to see some of it

I am aiming to be back to film Falmouth week in about 2020 or there-abouts - then I hope to spend a whole year in the area

D
 
If anchoring in Frenchman's Creek, take Daphne's book with you (by the same name) and whizz through it one night.
Always wanted to visit Frenchman's Creek after reading her book.
 
Well I have to add...
Chapter I
WHEN THE EAST WIND blows up Helford river the shining waters become troubled and disturbed, and the little waves beat angrily upon the sandy shores. The short seas break above the bar at ebb-tide, and the waders fly inland to the mud-flats, their wings skimming the surface, and calling to one another as they go. Only the gulls remain, wheeling and crying above the foam, diving now and again in search of food, their grey feathers glistening with the salt spray.
The long rollers of the channel, travelling from beyond Lizard point, follow hard upon the steep seas at the river mouth, and mingling with the surge and wash of deep sea water comes the brown tide, swollen with the last rains and brackish from the mud, bearing upon its face dead twigs and straws, and strange forgotten things, leaves too early fallen, young birds, and the buds of flowers.
The open roadstead is deserted, for an east wind makes uneasy anchorage, and but for the few houses scattered here and there above Helford passage, and the group of bungalows about Port Navas, the river would be the same as it was in a century now forgotten, in a time that has left few memories.

Frenchman's Creek opening lines. :)
 
Yes, alright Winter, go to the back of the class and write out 100 times 'I must not know more poetry than teacher'.
Actually, the thought of a few nights at Tremayne, or Cockle Point, or the beach just west of Frenchman's makes me quite envious. We used to load the punt in the truck, all the camping gear, 3 kids and the dog, really leggy black lab, in the punt, and drive the eight miles to Helford through the back lanes, kids yelling and singing. By the phone box in Helford we would chuck the gear out on the road, chuck the punt in, chuck the gear in the punt and head off for ten days or so, the folk in the holiday cottages found it quite amusing: "Oh, look, Tarquin, they've got a dog and everything!"

The 'gear' was a tarpaulin plus two small bivvies. We cooked on the fire, washed in the nearest stream. The dog was delighted : "Look, there's a swan, d'you want it? I'll get it for you! Splash..."
By night, sat round the fire the darkness hisses. There is no indication that civilisation is anywhere nearby, just the splosh of mullet, foxes at it, maybe a passing heron, an owl. One of the best outings was the 'trip to Gweek when there's not quite enough water' ever optimistic we would end up wading the last few hundred yards to get to the shop, got the impression we were less than welcome, might be the smell of woodsmoke, and the pub, pints and crisps, then sail back with a tarp rigged on an oar for a mast. I tested my long held theory that you could 'swim' over mud that was too soft to walk on, I was right, but the dog tried to rescue me and we both got a bit grubby. Mussels, cockles, fish from the boats as they came in. Magic!

Funnily enough, when we ask the kids, now in their thirties, if they would rather have gone abroad or somesuch they say they rather enjoyed it, and have since taken it up themselves...
 
foeu said:
Well I have to add...
Chapter I
WHEN THE EAST WIND blows up Helford river the shining waters become troubled and disturbed.....
The long rollers of the channel, travelling from beyond Lizard point, follow hard upon the steep seas at the river mouth, and...

Frenchman's Creek opening lines. :)
Click to expand...

Last time I read this I couldn't reconcile these bits. Wouldn't the rollers be coming from the Dodman direction in an easterly?
 
dylanwinter said:
I did notice a big yacht peacefully at anchor

the signage is awful

however, if it is all unenforced and no-one cares then I will just drop the hook in the nicest places and risk being told off by a man in a skiff

D
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Cowper again....
"The anchorage above the second bar, between it and Frenchman's Pill, is not approved of by the oyster bailiff, who tried to hustle me out of it many years ago ---1892. He said I should kill millions of oysters and let myself in for damages which would entirely ruin me. As I was already ruined I didn't mind. A vagabond occasionally enjoys advantages of which the man with a banking account is ignorant."

I'm loving reading Cowper, every yachtsman should read him.
 
dylanwinter said:
I did notice a big yacht peacefully at anchor

the signage is awful

however, if it is all unenforced and no-one cares then I will just drop the hook in the nicest places and risk being told off by a man in a skiff

D
Click to expand...

If you mess up someone's living from the oyster beds it might be a vigorous telling off. There is a harbour launch as well and he does patrol or at least he did when I had a mooring there a couple of years ago.
 
If you read the regulations it says "Please do not anchor on the Oyster Beds..." so I asked the harbour master if there were any Oyster beds in that 7m hole on the chartlet (Above). Because is says do not anchor in the Oyster beds but if there are no oyster beds in that hole anchoring should be permitted. His reply was that he did not know. Interestingly the last time I was in the telford there was a boat anchored above Frenchman's Creek on the South side.
 
We were there a few times last year and there was more than one boat anchored in the 7m pool most, if not all the time we were there. Indeed we would have anchored there ourselves if there had been sufficient room.
 
I don't think there are oysters anywhere past the Groyne (mouth of Polwheveral). They certainly used to be every where between there and Port Navas on the N side, and outside Frenchman's on the S.
 
After four pages......

I am still confused

I am going to print them out and put them in the boat folder

if a man in a skiff comes up and demands money or that I move my boat I will do both but will also offer him the print out from here

D
 
dylanwinter said:
After four pages......

I am still confused
....

if a man in a skiff comes up and demands money.....

D
Click to expand...

he will not ask for money, unless you are hanging on to someone else's buoy. He might tell you to anchor elsewhere. But I am sure you care parts, that others cannot... just like Heineken, or is it Carlsberg... ??? ... So, don't worry. Just let us know what you find!
 
6 April at 10:17
If it's not one thing it's another. What is Charles hiding from us? i 6th April 2016 So having won his appeal, Prince Charles does not seem to have to provide information about his cultivation of non - native Pacific oysters in the Lower Falmouth and Helford conservation areas (i 5th April). Nothing to hide, then. RICHARD BOOTH, CHESTERFIELD, DERBYSHIRE

Watch for the non-native Pacific Oysters! You may incur Royal disapproval.
 
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