Bosahan – tide by tide

After four holidays in or near Helford and many visits on past cruises over the last 40 years, it was a nostalgic return to the river. Here are some pictures of a two day mini-break there before we went on to Plymouth.

We inflated the dinghy, quite hard work with the bigger, tougher one we bought specially for Scotland, and went ashore first on the Helford village side of the river. There’s a visitor pontoon, not cheap at £5 a day for a dinghy.

*Helford Passage, across the river from Helford. There’s a thousand-year-old ferry service between them.*

*The Helford River Sailing Club has an excellent dining room, bar and terrace with a view to Helford Passage. They welcome visiting yacht crews, so we had drinks and dinner there.*

*Tony in Bosahan Cove, where I had a delightful swim in water that the boat’s instruments said was 22 degrees. The Cove is on the recently finished King Charles National Coast Path*

*The path up to Bosahan starts by the boathouse*

*A good use for a redundant chapel – now a café*

*We followed the coast path round Dennis Head to St Anthony-in-Meneage, in Gillan Harbour, then walked back to Helford by another route for dinner.*

*Spring Fever is the third boat out, photographed next day as we walked the coast path on the other shore to the National Trust gardens at Durgan*. *The weather looks perfect but there were Force 6 gusts. So we took the water taxi – also the ferry, which picks up from boats – to avoid being soaked in dinghy spray.*

*The Durgan gardens are in a steep wooded valley which gives them a sub-tropical climate*

*The maze, one of the biggest and most complicated in England, full of lost children having a good time*

*The beach hamlet of Durgan, with a shop selling ice creams.*

Helford Passage, where we stopped at the pub for pints of cold Guinness Zero.

There was one old treat missing: the famous oyster fishery on Porth Navas Creek has closed. We used to go up the creek in the dinghy to buy oysters and mussels.

The ferryman said there was an attempt to rescue it which failed, but not before they had introduced Pacific oysters to replace the precious native variety. Pacifics are now growing wild up and down the river.

The ferryman said scathingly that the fishery had been restarted by a Londoner, which he made very clear he thought explained the whole failure. I felt compelled to confess to being one!

Tag: Bosahan

Homeward bound – Helford