Following a pleasant cruise in the Isles of Scilly during August 1995 I thought I would write to let others know what an excellent area this is for dinghy cruising.

According to a note on the Ordnance Survey map, the Isles of Scilly lie 28 land miles west‑south‑west of Land’s End. However, it is hardly possible to start the passage from Land’s End itself since this headland is bounded by jagged granite cliffs on which the Atlantic swell is almost always breaking.

Penzance is the obvious setting off point and is the harbour used by the ferry Scillonian which sails to the Isles of Scilly every day of the year. Starting from Penzance adds about ten miles to the distance from Land’s End but there is really no alternative.

Newquay is a mile or so to the west of Penzance but it is a busy commercial harbour and dinghies would probably be unwelcome. Mousehole is a tiny harbour about 3 miles west of Penzance and we paused here for a rest on both our outward and return journeys. However, Mousehole is so near to Penzance that it does not really shorten the passage significantly and it is far inferior to Penzance for boat launching and car parking. When entering the narrow entrance to Mousehole, watch out for anglers on the pier heads and if you have a strong following wind shorten sail to reduce speed since there is not much room for stopping or turning inside the harbour.

I do not think there are any harbours west of Mousehole but I do not know the area well. There are a few coves where one might be able to rest or get ashore in an emergency but this could be unpleasant in anything other than very favourable weather.

Penzance offers an excellent broad concrete slipway into the harbour and this is free of charge. The slipway could be used by most dinghies at any state of tide although the concrete just runs out at very low tide. There is car parking either in the large car parks adjacent to the slipway or elsewhere in the town. Attractions of the town include the National Lighthouse Museum.

Although the Isles of Scilly are visible from Land’s end on a clear day it is said that visibility is often poor in this area and so there is a good chance that the passage will be made out of sight of land for some or most of the way. It is certainly necessary to have a dependable compass or alternative navigation system — I include the last clause since, sadly perhaps, really inexpensive GPS may not be long coming and could change the way we think about navigation. From Penzance we sailed a few miles along the coast then headed out to the Wolf Rock lighthouse then turned west to cross the shipping lanes and arrive at the Isles of Scilly. This route gives one a definite position at Wolf Rock from which to set a course for the islands. It also avoids an area which is marked on the charts with the warning that seas break heavily in gales and it ensures that the shipping lanes are crossed at right angles. On the way back from the islands we took a more direct route and enjoyed the spectacular scenery as we passed close to the south of Land’s End.

The distance from Penzance to the Isles of Scilly will be a good day sail for most dinghies in most conditions but at least the passage is likely to be completed in summer daylight hours if one makes an early start. If making the trip in the dark there are several lighthouses which could be very useful but care would be needed in making the final approach in darkness without local knowledge.

Approaching the Isles of Scilly from the east one may well enter the archipelago via Crow sound between St Mary’s to port and St Martin’s to starboard. St Mary’s is recognisable by tall radio masts and St Martin’s by a prominent day mark on the top of a hill. After entering Crow Sound we spent our first night at anchor off the beach on Little Arthur Island to the north of the sound.

The Isles of Scilly are really one of the very best dinghy cruising areas I have visited, once you manage to get there. As the tourist brochures are keen to emphasise, the weather is usually more pleasant than on the mainland, the sea is more blue since it contains less plankton and there are numerous beaches of clean white sand.

There are about 50 islands in the Scillies group, if you include the tiny uninhabited ones. The largest island is St Mary’s which is about two and a half miles across. This is significantly larger than any of the other islands giving it a rather different character. There is a range of shops at Hugh Town on St Mary’s and some of the roads are as wide and busy as you might find in rural mainland Cornwall.

Apart from St Mary’s, there are four other inhabited islands: St Agnes, Bryher, Tresco and St Martin’s. Gugh is also inhabited but is really an appendix to St Agnes being a separate island only at high tide. These four islands are typically a mile or so across. Each of the four has one post office cum general store, one pub, one tiny school with perhaps four or five pupils, one camp site and one or two teashops or restaurants. There is also a single good class hotel on each of these islands, except I think St Agnes. The locals of even the small islands mostly use cars but the roads are tiny lanes and quiet enough to be pleasant to use as footpaths.

Going down a size from the smaller inhabited islands there are several islands such as Samson which are just a few hundred yards across but which used to be inhabited when the farming population was larger. Many of these uninhabited islands have beaches allowing easy landing and they are ideal for a quiet anchorage overnight or a half day exploration ashore. Annet is one which should not be landed on without permission since it is a nature reserve.

The distance between any of the islands is only a few miles so once you have reached the islands you do not need to do very much sailing until it is time to go home.

The islands are generally fairly hilly. They are partly cultivated with small fields, often growing flowers and bulbs and with high hedges to keep the wind off. There is also plenty of open non cultivated land, especially around the coastlines, and small patches of woodland are found where there is shelter from the wind. The mild winter weather encourages a varied fauna with garden flowers growing wild.

The special Ordnance Survey 1:25000 tourist map of the islands is useful both ashore and afloat.

Fresh water is in limited supply and there are no public taps with drinking water. We got our drinking water by visiting the Tourist Information Office in Hugh Town which allowed us to fill containers in their kitchenette.

There is relatively little in the way of man-made tourist attractions. For example, there are no amusement arcades at all. St Mary’s has a visitors centre which we never did get to see and Tresco has sub-tropical gardens which are worth a visit. There are plays, concerts and lectures several times a week in Hugh Town and details of these are posted around the town and in the Tourist Information Office. There are also the gig races on Wednesday evening for the ladies teams and Friday evenings for the men’s teams. These are races for long narrow clinker built rowing boats over courses of a couple of miles or so, often starting from Hugh Town harbour. We watched the start and finish of a gig race from our boat in the harbour but to see the whole race it would be best to board one of the spectator launches; it would take a fast dinghy and good wind to keep up with the race.

Surprisingly for such rocky islands, many of the beaches are reasonably clear of boulders and so are suitable for allowing a boat to take the ground. There are enough beaches that whatever the wind direction it should be possible to find a beach with some shelter from a windward shore. A dinghy has an advantage over a deep keeled boat in this area since much of the water between the islands is quite shallow and the deep water anchorages can be subject to the swell of the surrounding ocean. There are no marina facilities so an anchor(s) is needed each night. Camping is forbidden anywhere other than the official camp sites. Only one of these camp sites (that on St Agnes) is really close to a good landing place and so it is more convenient to sleep on board and probably not worthwhile to take a land tent in a cruising dinghy.

It is forbidden to sleep on the beach at Hugh Town and sleeping in a boat which has touched the bottom at low tide counts as sleeping on the beach. The locals spotted our boat aground, the harbourmaster promptly received complaints and we were ‘moved on’. I assume that this rule only applies to Hugh Town but preferred not to enquire further.

Before we arrived at the Isles of Scilly I had wondered whether we would find enough to do during a planned stay of at least a week. The islands look so small on a map that you might think that there is little scope for exploration ashore. However we soon realised that this is not the case. There are plenty of footpaths which twist and turn around tiny fields and the coastline is highly indented so it takes longer than you might think to walk round the edge of any of the islands. We spent a couple of days walking on St Mary’s and a day on each of the other four inhabited islands but we still left something for another time.