ALL AT SEA | SEPTEMBER 2009 | www.allatsea.co.uk
Ten top activities
St Ives RNLI stands guard
To the west of the town is an excellent surfing beach. Go east and you come to Carbis Bay, a relatively well sheltered beach for families. Art and artists are ingrained into the very fabric of the town in the same way as fishing and surfing. The St Ives September Festival is one of the year’s main events but if you miss that, there is Tate St. Ives, part of the Tate Gallery in and the Barbara Hepworth Museum, a lasting memorial to the renowned sculptress who lived and worked here. The fortunes of St. Ives have always been tied to the harbour and while tin mining is at an end and the fishing fleet is much depleted, the harbour remains very much the focal point of the town. At low water it dries to expose a large area of sand, covered with dozing boats and weed-strewn lines crisscrossing the bed. It makes a great spot for a walk and a pleasantly sheltered suntrap for taking best advantage of the region’s subtropical warmth.
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Take a trip on the scenic coastal railway. Spend a night at the remote and marvellous Gurnard’s Head. Go seal and dolphin spotting. Try your hand at surfing. Visit the Eden project. Pop across to St Michael’s Mount off Penzance. Visit the extraordinary Minack open-air theatre. Grab a fish picnic on Carbis Bay. Take a trip out to the Isles of Scilly for a night or two. Do nothing - absolutely nothing - there’s a lot to be said for it.
From the sea there are no real difficulties either in the approach or entry but pay attention to the big tidal range, keep an eye on the weather, which can be volatile, and remember that this remains primarily a working harbour, in constant use both by fishing craft and pleasure vessels. The only noteworthy hazard is the bizarrely named ‘New Pier’ - an old wooden pier SW of Smeaton’s Pier, which is only revealed at low water. There do not seem to be many visitors’ moorings within the harbour itself but if you contact the Harbourmaster on 01736 795018 or on VHF Channel 16, he can usually find you something. Fuel can be bought from the local garage about half a mile away while water is available from one of the taps on Smeaton’s Pier. There are also showers and toilets on Smeaton’s Pier and a slipway on Wharf Road at the NW corner of the harbour.
To the southwest lies Lands End but, far more interesting if you have the time to take a look, is the Gurnard’s Head at Zennor. Not only is it a fine pub with fantastic local food, local beer and live local folk music, but it is accessible from St Ives via one of the most memorable clifftop walks you
21 will ever see. Round the corner by boat, or pretty much south as the crow flies, is Penzance. The town itself has none of that classic west-country quaintness you will find so fetching in St Ives but Mount’s Bay provides ideal conditions for sailing and watersports and the historic fortified island in the middle of the bay, St Michael’s Mount, is worth a couple of hours of anyone’s time. Penzance harbour consists of a wet dock with a drying harbour alongside. The dock gates are open from two hours before high water until one hour after high water - and the port maintains VHF watch on Channel 16 and 12 during these times and from 0900 to 1200 and 1300 to 1600 every weekday. Two vertical red lights on the signal mast indicate that the gate is open, while a red light over a green indicates that the gate is closed. The Isles of Scilly ferry goes from the South Pier of Penzance harbour but, when it is not at its berth, the pier is routinely used by boats waiting to enter the wet dock. There are around 50 berths for visiting vessels in the shelter of the wet dock, plus a fair-weather anchorage about 500 feet east-north-east of the end of the Albert Pier. Diesel is available on the south pier while petrol needs to be sourced from local garages. Water is available at all berths and showers and toilets can be accessed beneath the Harbour Office. There is a slipway next to the Sailing Club. Though rightly famous for its surf,
I found Newquay very disappointing to. It has developed a reputation as a party hub but if good surf is what you want, there are far quieter and more scenic places to get it - not least on the bays that flank St Ives. Padstow, further to the north is worth a quick look by boat but the reputation of its famous advocate, Rick Stein, sees it manically, and in most ways underservedly, overpopulated by faintly disillusioned tourists. St Ives is a long way to go for most of us and much of the coastline is as hostile to the boater as it is attractive to the surfer. But don’t be put off because St Ives could easily work as a base for a good week of boat related touring. I will certainly be going back.
Useful contacts TIC www.stives-cornwall.co.uk St Ives Harbour 01736 795018 or VHF channel 16 Penzance harbour 01736 366113 or VHF Channel 16 Tate St Ives 01736 796226 or www.tate.org.uk/stives The Gurnard’s Head 01736 796928 or www.gurnardshead.co.uk The Hub 01736 799099 or www.hub-stives.co.uk