We spent a few days in Fowey, Cornwall during a recent holiday. Fowey is situated on one side of the harbour formed where the river Fowey reaches the sea. Polruan sits on the opposite side of the harbour. The harbour is quite deep and accommodates both passenger and freight traffic. The local china clay business loads shipments just up the river. Cruise ships also make an appearance and, when we arrived, there was a moderately sized ship moored up.

Called Le Laperouse, it was dominating the harbour when I was walking back from the car park and I grabbed a few photos. What I didn’t realise was that it was due to head out shortly. We headed down to the deck area at the back of our hotel for a drink and, before too long, it was clear that the ship was heading out. They were running water through the anchor chain and had cast of from the rear moorings. A tug had also shown up which, although it wasn’t attached, was presumably to provide support in the narrow harbour if anything didn’t go to plan.

A pilot boat showed up as well. In that case, my assumption is that they would take the pilot off after the ship had safely navigated its way out to the open sea. There was nothing speedy about the process which, when manoeuvring a large vessel like this in confined space seems reasonable. I was surprised how few passengers were up on deck. I would be out watching everything but maybe there was plenty of food and drink inside that was keeping the rest occupied. We watched them head out while relaxing with our beverages before diverting our attention to dinner plans!