Getting Married In Cornwall

Marsden grew up in Somerset, but learnt to sail as a child at his grandfather’s house on the Fal Estuary in Cornwall. Two decades ago, he moved into the house itself, living a “solipsistic sea life” there until getting married in 1999. He knows this area intimately, and knows how much rain it gets, so unlike me he isn’t wearing a cardigan. Taking a glass-is-half-empty view of the situation, you could say that I’m depressingly soaked by the time we have negotiated our up and down, zig-zagging route from Coverack to the inland village of Manaccan, with its church that plays host to the bell from the Bay of Panama, a cargo vessel that sank not far from here on its way from Calcutta to Dundee during a blizzard (many of the crew froze to the rigging, after taking refuge up the masts). On the upside, for the last few miles I have reached a kind of rain tipping point: the God of Coastal Wet could spit his worst at me, and I doubt I’d notice it, or be more visibly bedraggled. It makes me think about a passage in Marsden’s book: “The sea cares nothing for us. Try to impose your will upon it and it will destroy you.”

When he’s not writing books or travelling, Marsden sometimes sails on an oyster dredger in Falmouth: the only oyster fleet in Britain that still operates by sail. He talks of a familiar, recurring character from these parts with “all sorts of problems in their personal lives, but who seem oddly comfortable when on the sea.” The former part, however, clearly doesn’t apply to Marsden himself. He’s an eloquent, attentive companion who constantly seems deep in thought. He’s a youthful, happy 50: possibly a result of an outdoorsy life that has included walking 600 miles in two months across Ethiopia and, more recently, a long meander through the hidden ancient byways of Cornwall to examine its antiquities and unknown treasures.