It rained, and rained!

As part of my research for Penlee, I Drove to Penzance Tuesday morning for a meeting with Mike Sagar-Fenton author of Penlee: The Loss Of A Lifeboat ISBN 0948158727. Mike kindly offered to show me where the ill fated freighter Union Star and Penlee Lifeboat went a ground.

It was not a suitable day for a photographic reconnaissance, but whatever the weather – tied to the mast or blown on the cliff top the painter just has to work! But today was nothing like the conditions on December 19th 1981. That day the wind blew in gusts of 100miles per hour. The wave’s from trought to crest was 40 – 60 feet high.

Mike Sagar-Fenton, Jakk Fitton and Jude Butcher

My companions were: Jakk Fitton (project assistant) and Jude Butcher (documentary film maker).

I was surprised by the cliff's topography, in the wet weather we slipped and slithered down the coastal track. For a townie like me it was a nearly in accessible place. It was remote, quiet, hardly any swell on the sea, and not much evidence of wildlife. The colours of the cliff top even on this damp day were beautiful; dark browns, russets and greens.