The Cruel Sea

The 1808 Grylls Act - or Burial of Drowned Persons Act - enshrined in law that all dead bodies recovered from the sea or found on shore should be decently buried in consecrated ground. Prior to this it was the custom to bury drowned mariners without a shroud or coffin in the most convenient place along the coast. The simple cross in my photo is a memorial to all the sailors who had perished in these treacherous waters and had been casually buried hereabouts.

I finally reached Falmouth. It's a wonderful place - much bigger than I thought it would be - with an impressive harbour and some lovely old streets. When I woke the next morning the rain was bucketing down. I didn't need much persuading from my B&B host to stay another night in her immaculate, bijou terraced cottage. All day it rained. The drains overloaded. The roads were flooded. The locals tut-tutted, shook their heads, and talked enigmatically about ebbs and neaps and tidal surges. A few sandbags came out. But, the next day, the deluge was over, and I took a ferry across the estuary of the river Fal to a place called Place (I'm not joking) on the delectable Roseland Peninsula.

In Portscatho an air ambulance had landed on the beach, and an injured holidaymaker was being stretchered off. I wonder what had happened? The rocks don't seem that dangerous here for serious accidents. Perhaps a heart attack? Who knows...

I left the scene - with the sound of rotor blades ringing in my ears - and pressed on to Portloe, one of the prettiest villages in Cornwall according to Sir John Betjeman. There were over fifty fishing boats active here at the beginning of the twentieth century. Now there are only three. You must admit - it's in an enviably sheltered position. It has a lurid history of smuggling and ship-wrecking, like many of these Cornish coves, and has been used many times as a film location...