Today was a tender port day, there is not a large dock at Falmouth to tie up to, so we had to ride a tender into a dock in the harbor, which took about 25 minutes.
We had decided to spend the day mostly in and around the city, with the exception of taking a 20 minute ferry boat ride across the inlet to the town of St. Mawes. It is the end of a peninsula, but only feasible to reach by ferry from Falmouth.
We had about 45 minutes to wait before the next St. Mawes ferry left from the City Pier in Falmouth, so we spent that time walking around the town. It was a sunny day, but windy, and a little cool.
Right before we got on the ferry, a fog bank blew in off of the ocean, and made for a cool and windy ride over to St. Mawes.
On either side, there are twin forts built by Henry VIII, one is called Pendennis Castle, which is on the Falmouth side, and the other is called St. Mawes Castle.
We opted to visit the one in St. Mawes since we were going over there. Both require a hike of about a mile up the hill from their respective cities, but once we got there, we found that it was a very nicely maintained attraction, and a very good spot for photos.
We spent about 2 hours getting there, walking around the castle, and walking back down the hill to the ferry boat dock. we made it just in time to load that hours ferry back to Falmouth.
It is interesting that the tidal range is about 12 feet, so the handrail along the stone steps we used when we got off the ferry earlier was now completely submerged under about four feet of water
The ride back to Falmouth on the Ferry was much warmer, the fog had lifted, and the wind was at our backs. St. Mawes was quite a beautiful seaside town, and we were glad that we had chosen to visit.
Once back in Falmouth, we had a Pasty, which is flaky baked dough filled with various meats and veggies. They were very good. Then we walked back to the tender area, along a street filled with shops and bakeries. Then we waited in line to get on a tender, and spent about 35 minutes riding in rough seas back to the ship.
As the ship got ready to depart, the sea fog rolled in and visibility was reduced to about a mile. It was the first time we had been on a ship in that much fog, and we were surprised that they actually blew the ship’s horn about every 2 minutes.
I guess that was for smaller vessels that might not have radar, or show up on the ship’s radar. While we were getting underway, we had some time to start packing our luggage for tomorrow’s Disembarkation in Le Havre, France.
We got dressed and went to share our last bottle of Spumanti with Ruthe and Brian before we went our last dinner on the ship with our dining staff, Nicoletta and Rommell. They were sad to see us go, as were some of the other staff we had met at the serving station next to ours.
We went to the Explorer’s Lounge to have a final drink with our friends, Ruthe and Brian, and said goodbye to some of the other people we had met. Then it was off to finish packing and retire early, we have to get up at 5:00 am to be off the ship in time for our train into Paris.