Mousehole Sea, Salts & Sail 2010

Sea, Salts and Sail was one of the first festivals I attended here in Cornwall, back in 2008, and living in the village at the time it was real treat for me even if the racing was cancelled that year as we got to still sail on the Veracity. This year the weather played along and it was absolutely fantastic, a brilliant weekend of sailing, friends, music and rum.For the folks not from Mousehole and surrounds, here is the into from the official press release…

If you are someone who likes to be able to look into the past, but still experience the here and now, then Mousehole is the place to visit during the weekend of 9 – 11 July, when the village will be holding their seventh biennial Maritime Festival, entitled Sea Salts & Sail.

The organisers are expecting over 35 Traditional boats ranging from an overall length of 16 to 72ft, to visit this small fishing harbour that was once filled with fishing vessels in various sizes. Is was once said that back in the early 1900’s a person could walk from one end of the harbour to the other, over the boats without getting their feet wet.

The highlight of the festival (weather permitting) is that on both Saturday and Sunday these majestic traditional sailing vessels will be sailing around the bay, showing off their colourful sails, bringing a poetic insight into what the bay looked like back in the real days of sail, when all fishing boats relied on the power of the wind to get them out to their fishing grounds.

I spent most of the weekend in Mousehole starting on Friday night.

To say Friday was a big night, may be an understatement. The boat mysteriously ended up outside the harbour and we did loose one the crew… There was rum, there was dancing, there was more rum, there was music, there was more rum, there where friends and more rum… you get the picture.

The boats had been arriving for the past 24 hours with Marcus and the Veracity arriving on Thursday already. More arrived throughout the day on Friday and it promised to be a good turn out for the weekend!

The “crew” started to gather around 7ish and we where the first in the queue for some “Tattyella”, apparently the Spanish nicked this recipe when they invaded in 15 something or the other and called it paella! Well, all I know is it was very good! Fish, mussels, roasted garlic, red peppers, potatoes and spice. Great dish!

We ate this and drank a few beers on the beach overlooking the boats all moored up, a stunning sight to see and just a glimpse of what it must have been like a hundred year or more ago when the biggest fishing fleet in Mount’s Bay was tied up here.

Then it was the turn of Jonah’s Lift. A fantastic folk band which got everyone, young and old up off their feet. We danced and danced till we could dance no more. Drank some rum then went back for a another go! It was fantastic.

Once the band let us drop to the floor in exhaustion, we crawled off to the beach again and settled in for a few more rums. This then migrated to the Veracity where a couple members of Jonah’s Lift joined the festivities.

We settled in for the night.

Marcus brought out a rather devilish concoction of honey rum…. well that was the end of that so to say. It was a slippery slope and if you had any sense you left then… well I stayed a little longer… but decided about half way through said bottle that I best be finding my bed….there was serious sailing to be done in the next day and the Springboks where playing at 8.30am afterall… and the tide was coming in…

Well when I arrived the next morning the Veracity was not in the harbour…

It turns out that things carried on till well after sunrise!

All pics added now. See below. To download any or see larger version click thought to the actual album.

Useful links:

See larger versions and download pictures: Picasa web

Official site: www.seasalts.co.uk