Fred. Olsen Balmoral review day six: St Mary's, Isles of Scilly

Here is what he got up to!

Our days at sea came to an end as we woke up on Thursday morning to find we had docked at the Scilly Isles.

The sixth day on the Fred. Olsen Balmoral cruise was to be spent at St. Mary's, one of a large collection of islands off the west coast of England.

This was one of the most remote places I had seen and was very excited to get off of the boat for a look around.

The tender to St Mary's. (Image: Newsquest) Due to the size of the St Mary's port, we had to remain far out at sea and get a tender service, provided by the residents, to and from the Balmoral.

Nicole and I had our breakfast early but narrowly missed the first tender boat to St Mary's and had to wait for the next one.

I'd hoped they'd be quite regular, but with passengers heading off on excursions early that morning, we had an hour and a half wait until there was space.

Despite the wait, St Mary's was very much worth it and we got to briefly explore a very quaint, small village and its streets.

On arrival to St Mary's. (Image: Newsquest)

As ever, my first order of business was to find the local paper and was very interested to see what the St Mary's/Scilly Isles paper would look like.

However, I was disappointed to learn that due to fog near Cornwall, the delivery plane hadn't managed to reach the islands, meaning no papers had been dropped off!

I did learn though that they don't have a local paper and that their news is put into Cornwall's publications - but they do have an annual publication with a collection of the births, deaths, marriages and events from the past year.

No local newspaper for me this time! (Image: Newsquest) Nicole and I had an excursion booked for an hour after we'd arrived, so we had a decision to make on whether we explored the garrison to the west of St Mary's or the old town in the east.

We picked the old town and made our way along rural roads, greeted by everyone we walked past, towards a small coffee shop near the harbour.

I walked out onto the edge of the rocks and found an abandoned watch tower-like building - sticking my head in, I was messing about with my phone torch before I saw something move near me - safe to say, I was out of there pretty quickly!

The view from the Old Town on St Mary's. (Image: Newsquest) The weather on St Mary's was quite humid, cloudy but very warm, and I picked up an iced coffee from the shop before walking back to get the tender to Balmoral.

The tender service went for lunch for a little while so we had to make sure we were back on the boat ahead of our excursion to St. Martin's, one of the smaller islands.

With some time to kill, we treated ourselves to lunch at the Thistle (where else!) and then back out onto the tender for our tour.

The St. Martin's Higher Town tour was a very small one - only 10 of us had signed up - but it was very enjoyable.

The boat to St Martin's. (Image: Newsquest) The weather helped shine a light on some beautiful backdrops as guide and St. Martin's resident Robin led us through the island and provided us with history.

It was good to hear from a local what life was like on the island - with many residents performing a specific role: one was the baker, another the barber, while Robin himself was the waterworks engineer.

Each resident was crucial to life on St. Martin's and combined to make the island tick - I asked Robin about expectant mothers and was told that they'd be flown to Cornwall before the due date to give birth.

The day mark on St Martin's. (Image: Newsquest) I also asked what it was like during the Covid pandemic on such a remote place with a small population - Robin told me it was mostly the same as everywhere else: rules, lockdown, isolation but a great sense of community too.

Our tour looped around the Day Mark, a traffic cone like structure at the highest point on St Martin's, while Robin also informed us of the hundreds of ship wrecks around the islands, while the remains still surrounded the land.

We cut it fine to make it back to our tender boat and had to cut through a cow field - but Robin assured us they were friendly!

Press host Georgina had booked us in for a meal at Colours and Tastes - the Asian Fusion restaurant on board the Balmoral.

Colours and Tastes. (Image: Newsquest) This provided us with a range of signature dishes from Japan, Thailand, China and the Philippines.

This was something special - I had the vegetable spring rolls for my starter and a crispy fried chilli beef with sweet, spicy and sour glaze and match vegetables for my main course.

Colours and Tastes ranked as one of the best meals I've had on board the Balmoral and is a must-visit for any passenger in the future.

Crispy fried chilli beef with rice. (Image: Newsquest) The only downside was we missed the Martini Experience happening next door - but we could hear the music drifting through and it sounded like all the participants had an excellent time making their drinks to Gangnam Style!

Refusing to be beaten, Nicole and I tried the quiz again and got seven out of 15 this time, an improvement on five from the night before.

Majority Rules. (Image: Newsquest) Despite getting less than half, I was pretty happy with my last-minute changing of our answer for 'what do you call a country that is fully within another country' from landlocked to enclave.

Our last visit of the evening was for the second gameshow night of the cruise - this time it was Majority Rules, with the objective being to write down the answers to the questions that we thought most teams would write down.

We did well, getting around five but were pipped to the bottle of Champagne by the Limpers team.

A long day out at the Eden Project beckoned for Nicole and I the next day, so we called it a night shortly after.