The Scilly Islands (general)

Contacts
HM St Mary's VHF 16/14 tel no 01720 422766538
HM Tresco (for New & Old Grimsby) tel no 01720 423 mob 07778 601237

The Scilly Islands

The Scillies lie twenty five miles to the SSW of Lands End in a line with Exmoor, Dartmoor, Bodmin Moor and the Seven Stones rocks and are basically part of the same geological formation of granite rock. The archipelago consist of just under fifty small islands which include the main islands of St Mary's, St Martin's, Tresco, Bryher and St Agnes/Gugh.

Until Tudor times the island was little visited and the population relied on subsistence farming and fishing. In the late sixteenth Century the main island was garrisoned by the first Queen Elizabeth and since that time at varying intervals has been fortified against England's enemies and was royalist during the Civil War. After the Civil War the islands returned to obscurity and were only visited inadvertently by shipwrecked mariners; the line "When we take our soundings in the Channel of Old England……." bears much truth as the thirty five leagues between the Ushant and the Scillies was a very small target before the advent of chronometers which allowed one's Eastings or Westings to be measured fairly accurately.

Before that you got to forty nine and a halfish north and tiptoed eastwards, taking soundings all the way and if you were in a SW Gale you didn't even have that choice. There was a whole fleet wrecked here in 1707 and between the Battle of Culloden and the turn of the century there were 750 seamen lost in these waters. Mind you some were a bit luckier and missed the Scillies but a lot of those ran into Lundy in the Bristol Channel thinking they'd hit the Scillies!! It's something to be born in mind; in heavy weather water gets in everywhere and if you loose your wiggly amps then you lose your electronics and your radio and you become just like the Elizabethan sailor; lost. The moral is always keep a paper plot going because that's your last known position.

Enough of the "'Ere be Dragons"; if your boat is well founded and your nav up to scratch you should have no trouble covering the twenty odd miles to the Scillies but be careful of "push-on-itis"; if the weather is not very good, there really is no point in going because it won't be nice when you get there and could be even worse coming back. In weather above a force 6 there is no really good shelter, if you get caught here in bad weather then you just have to find the least dangerous bay, chuck down all the iron you have on board as an anchor and ride it out.

You will note from the charts that there is an awful lot of green stuff denoting areas you can cross at HW but not at LW, the charts are also liberally scattered with asterisks which you do not want to meet with! Most people just manage a visit to St Mary's, St Agnes, Tresco and maybe St Martin's but if this is your limit you are missing much of the pleasure to be found here. A skipper will enjoy testing his navigational skills around the islands and possibly learn new ones; it's all line of sight stuff using established clearing transits and lead in marks or looking for and using new lines you find for yourself - and the joy of it is that the water is so clear you can actually see the rocks - just in time to miss them if you've got it wrong (best have some one in the bows though!)

On the other hand you can just grab a visitors mooring in St Mary's and use the ferries to visit the other islands

Before setting out for the Scillies be aware that you are leaving "Marinaland" behind and will, most of the time, be totally dependant on the holding power of your anchors; it's a good idea to have a bit extra on board and make sure every link on your anchor cable is in good fettle. A decent sized kedge anchor would be a good idea as well because you will then have the ability to limit your swinging circle by anchoring to a yoke and thus be able to anchor closer in shore. This may not seem important but don't forget that these Islands live in the Atlantic swell which sometimes penetrates the outer boundaries of coves and inlets even in settled weather so the closer in you can get the more comfortable you will be. That swell will also have an effect on your choice of boat (if you have a choice) because there are many more options in a shallow draft boat with either a lifting keel or twin keel than in a fin keeler which cannot take the ground and in a fin keeler you will be at the outer end of any anchorage where you won't always be rocked to sleep, occasionally you'll be pitched out of your bunk!

Finally, having gotten here, slow down and chill out, there's always another tide in twelve hours.