Seal's Return

The seal was back again today and Pete managed to get a little closer to take the attached pictures.

From others who work on the harbour it appears this seal is a regular in Salcombe and spends a lot of his time either basking on the crab boxes of fishing on the falling tide.


The fuel barge goes back to "on-call" for the winter months on Monday and Pete was pleased to have seen the seal before his half-term stint came to an end.

First Seal

Today Pete saw and photographed his first seal in Salcombe Harbour - he had fleetingly glimpsed a head.bobbing in the estuary earlier in the year, but not had a good sighting.  The seal was sunning itself on the crab boxes at Ditch End.

Oh what a beautiful morning...

Pete turned up for work this morning and had to take this picture from the barge.

Celebrity Boat(s)?

 It would appear that the boat(s) in the picture may be used in a new Johnny Depp/Brad Pitt film.  The film is allegedly of the vampire genre and part of it is being shot at Lannacombe.

The attached pictures were taken on the 13th September when the guys were attempting to get the sailing boat into the landing craft.  After a short struggle the objective was achieved, after which the landing craft took off along the harbour fairway out of Salcombe.


I guess it's a wait-and-see now until they do or don't appear in the film...

Turkey Holiday

We have just come back from holiday in Turkey staying at a villa in Calis, a coastal resort near the harbour of Fethiye.  The weather was, as expected, great - very hot (high 90s) and no rain or wind.  We had a great time spent with Pete's brothers, their wives and friends.  Six of us stayed in a villa in a complex of about 25 villas, whilst Pete's elder brother and wife stayed at their own apartment with their two friends.


Fethiye is the nearest large town and can be reached by dolmus (Turkish small bus) or by boat.  The dolmus is no more than a van converted with seats and some standing room and the drivers take great pains to ensure they run as full as possible.  The boats can be similarly crowded.


Like Salcombe it relies on tourism and there must be significant parallels with the pressures Salcombe endures around getting people into the town and spending money.  The harbour has plenty of charter boats available and the quays are always busy - if only Salcombe had been as busy this summer. There were plenty of gulets available and a short charter is something we might try on another visit.


Since our move to Salcombe it seems we have more of an affinity with the sea(side) and TV seems constantly to contain references to the sea and quite specifically to Salcombe.  The brain will filter in things of interest, so perhaps it's that, although their certainly seems to be more and more on TV looking towards the coast and seas.

It was so hot in Turkey that it would be difficult to do anything too physical (for us), but at the nearby resort of Oludeniz they have a sedate activity that the street hawkers are constantly pushing.  It's fine, as an activity if you don't mind throwing yourself of a cliff edge attached to a guy and his para-glider.  Pete feigns interest and suggests he could do it, but is yet to sign-up.  One of our company was brave enough to attempt it, however, Pete's camera battery failed just as Steve made his approach so the photo opportunity was lost.  Having launched yourself off the mountain you glide through  the skies above the resort before landing on the beach promenade - all very leisurely until those last few frantic moments.  Most f the pilots are pretty good, but occasionally they don't get it quite right. 


There are and have been some impressive craft in Salcombe, however, the yacht we saw off Calis beach was in a different class.  It was Steven Spielberg's $200m yacht Seven Seas (see photo) that was allegedly carrying Mr Speilberg and Tom Hanks. The boat was reportedly in Marmaris and Bodrum the previous week and all the restraunteurs were happy to tell you the story.

Salcombe Town Regatta Fireworks

The annual Salcombe Town Regatta is punctuated with a firework display on the Thursday evening. This year was no exception and we decided to try and get to view the fireworks from a different perspective and Pete managed to capture the attached images.

We left it a bit late to get to the

National Trust car park at Snapes Point and were naively surprised to find it full. However, we managed to squeeze into the last space available and took our place among the small gathering of people on the edge of the car park.

As ever the fireworks were impressive and our different viewpoint added something to them too.