We walked part of the Southwest Coastal Trail - over 175 miles long - along the cliffs looking down on the English Channel and the local bay and the city of Plymouth; great views where we could see a Tanbark sailing vessel and other day sailors, military ships moored, the ferry from Roscoff, and local boat races. The overgrowth along the trail formed tunnels and reminded us of the rain forest in the Northwestern US. Staghorn ferns grew wild along the trail. We stopped and had lunch at the Jennyhill fast food restaurant and Arthur had an omelet which i ate part of. The Brits were eating lunch and playing with their children - people were throwing frizbees for their dogs on the great grassy hillside where rabbits had dug small holes. We then returned to the harbor and noticed the large 6 man team rowing boats in stiff competitions. The RAF was one of the teams. At that spot where supporters and team members were gathered in tents, there was information about T. E. Lawrence. After WWI he had changed his name to T. E. Shaw and worked HERE at the RAF flying boat works as an enlisted man. Research on flying aircraft was done here and the first seaplane to fly across the Atlantic from the US to England landed here. Two streets are named for him - one is Lawrence St and one is Shaw Ave. (He was Lawrence of Arabia). We watched a mouth sailing vessel - a new kind of racing sailboat with a huge long keel which allows the entire boat to come out of the water! It is extremely fast. In another section of the bay sea kayaks owners were learning to recover from capsizing by doing a complete roll. No one seemed to be able to complete the roll without the assistance of the instructor. Arthur is working to get in contact with various men who are skilled at improving our boat...doing work like reefing from the cockpit; repacking the life raft, cutting down a stretched main sail, resewing our bimminee, and looking over our Bukh engine.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Jul 2013 15:36:49 +0000
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