THE SEA SALTS AND SAIL 2024 BIENNIAL FESTIVAL IN MOUSEHOLE SHOULD BE BOTH BEAUTIFUL AND EXCITING. IT TAKES PLACE BETWEEN FRIDAY 5 AND SUNDAY 7 JULY 2024. GET READY FOR HISTORIC BOATS IN A HISTORIC SETTING…
When scores of historic boats fill a historic harbour, you know you’re in for a historic maritime treat. Cornwall’s Sea Salts and Sail festival, held in the idyllic harbour of Mousehole, just a few miles south of Penzance, is indeed such a historic maritime treat. Indeed, traditionally it’s a treat for all the senses.
Organised by the local community, the festival, which has been going since 1996, is ‘aimed at preserving our Cornish maritime history’ and attracting visitors to the gorgeous south coast village of Mousehole. The sights, smells and flavours that the fest throws are meant to remind visitors and locals about this once-important vibrant fishing port.
A moody day out on the Mousehole waters for the Sea Salts and Sail festival. Image courtesy of the SSS team
The festival is biennial but its July 2020 edition was cancelled due to COVID-19, so there were many landlubbers who were looking forward to its return after four long years at the start of July 2022. And they were not disappointed. Scores of beautiful classic sailing boats were out around the 500-year-old granite harbour entrance including a raft of traditional wooden vessels. Some of these crafts even went out on parade and many of them were ‘the last in a handful of authentic examples of their kind’.
Then there were the stalls along the quay in Mousehole that served up all sorts of local treasures, foods and gifts at the 2022 event. Expect more of the same in July 2024 at this unique event which takes place between Friday 5 and Sunday 7 July 2024.
Expect children’s activities like ‘corker racing’ – which is racing small yachts out on the harbour’s waters – and also expect bands that ‘play everything from shanties to rock’ to entertain visitors.
It should all be free to attend (well, traditionally it has been) so surely Sea Salts and Sail should be the show for you swashbucklin’ sailors and sentimental seamen in the summer of ’24. And your families, of course.