Over the long Easter weekend we had a mileage builder from our base in Fowey to beautiful St Agnes in Scilly. Spring is a stunning time to visit the islands and St Agnes in particular was blanketed with flowers – check out some of the photos in the gallery below.

We left Fowey on Good Friday in the morning and sailed for Falmouth, arriving early afternoon. Next morning we left at 5AM to make sure we had sufficient time to arrive in daylight – Scilly is a potentially challenging place to sail into and we wanted to have the advantage of light! In the event we had good winds and made the 65NM passage in nine and a half hours at an average speed of almost 7 knots.

The anchorage between St Agnes and Gugh is stunning – we took the approach from the South as it was more sheltered from the Northerly that was blowing, and we saw plenty of boats we recognised, including a beautiful pilot cutter from Falmouth we’d berthed alongside at Maggoty Bank up the Fal during my dayskipper course, and two yachts from Fowey.

The islands of St Agnes (population circa 70) and Gugh are linked by a sandbar that covers over at high tide, and this also separates the two anchorages. The island’s pub, the Turks Head, overlooks the northern anchorage and has a slipway and most of the resident moorings for RIBs and dinghys.

We went ashore and a farmer ploughing his field on an ancient little tractor gave us directions to the shop. The tiny lanes are charming and apart from the tractor everyone gets about in minature gators or golf buggy type vehicles. Apart from the supplies we needed from the shop we also picked up 3 large Mullet from a fisherman that had a little cardboard sign outside his cottage reading ‘Fresh Fish available’. We cooked these on the beach wrapped in foil with ginger, chilli, wild garlic leaves and some samphire we found on the edge of the beach – delicious!

The forecast from the weatherfax system predicted the wind shifting to the north east late Sunday and all Monday – which would be on the nose the whole way back – so we decided to leave earlier than planned the next morning. We had a stunning sail back to Fowey in a long single tack, making the 76NM passage in exactly 11 hours with an average speed just shy of 7 knots and a maximum of 10.64knots – by me riding a little roller just before we got to the Lizard!

We sailed into Fowey shortly after sunset and spent the night on the pontoon – we even made last orders! A fantastic trip and a tantalising taste of Scilly – we all agreed we’d have to head back soon for further explorations!