By Jeremy Gates
For an old girl in sight of her 60th birthday, the Cornish Belle chugged into Falmouth Harbour at such a lively pace that squawking seagulls overhead wisely kept their distance. "This is the largest natural bay in the world after Sydney," boomed the commentary above the engine roar, moments after we passed one of Henry VIII's defensive forts, standing proudly on the hills above St Mawes. A giant car ferry, in mid-refit, towered high above us.
A £7 return ticket took us on the voyage from the waterside pub at Tolverne - still a place of pilgrimage for Americans because thousands of US troops set sail from the River Fal here for the Normandy landings in 1944 - and down the drizzly estuary of the Carrick Roads. Each inlet, including the celebrated Mylor Creek, was crammed with yachts at their moorings as we chugged towards the open sea.
The pubs on Falmouth's seafront, I imagine, have changed little since the brave Yanks sailed by. We explored narrow streets around the National Maritime Museum, including Willow & Stone in Arwenack Street, stuffed with brass Victoriana, fingerplates, earthenware jars from France and brass fish doorknockers at £70 apiece.
Then it was back on board for our return to Tolverne - and possibly a cream tea at the Smugglers Cottage, a 15th century inn, with rosettes from both Les Routiers and Egon Ronay, if we felt peckish at the end of the voyage.
Quite often, Cornish days can take you back to the 1950s. But just as you're settling down to watch Eamonn Andrews on 'Crackerjack', you get torpedoed abruptly into the 21st century. The next day, for instance, we were at The Hotel and Extreme Academy in Watergate Bay, on the north coast near Newquay - where managing director Will Ashworth is splashing a million or two turning an elderly family-owned hotel into "the ultimate beach chic indulgence".
Thirty rooms already resemble a city centre boutique hotel – plasma screen TVs, solid oak floors, funky modern table lamps among minimalist furnishings. Mid-season overnight B&B for two starts at £145 per night.
Directly beneath the hotel, on a surfers' paradise of a sandy beach is Fifteen Cornwall, the Jamie Oliver-inspired restaurant created as a charitable enterprise to turn keen young locals into top chefs.
Try to book at lunchtime, when the beach is packed with rubber-clad surfers on huge boards, and dazzling light is reflected upwards from the sand. My soaring spirits weren't even squashed by a bill of £258 for six.