July 3, 2006
Leaving the gloomy (but romantic! Well, maybe not) Gunwalloe Cove, I ended up next near some semblance of civilization called the Poldhu Hotel (located, appropriately, near Poldhu Cove). In the car park a man was staring out to sea with some king-sized binoculars; he pointed out some basking sharks out there on the water. (Weirdly, until this day I'd never heard of a basking shark, which apparently eats plankton and has no taste for meat, including human meat, but not long after I got home apparently they were showing up around swimmers at American beaches, too.) Anyway, it was cause for much excitement, though with my binoculars I could only barely make out some dark fins. We chatted a few minutes (I believe they were there to clean the hotel windows; he was there with a woman), and I moved on up a hill towards a retirement home. Directly next to the home sits the Marconi museum. As it turns out, Marconi (again, from the guidebook) had a Poldhu station from 1900-1933, and the first Trans-Atlantic message was sent from the locale you see above (now simply ruins, and not well protected at all). The message was not "a large pepperoni with olives," I believe it was just the letter "S." The gray building at left is supposed to be the museum. I walked right in, but it was clearly not really functioning -- everything was darkish and no one was behind the counter. But I thought it was nice that they left the door open to the randomly curious, until I stumbled across a Cranky Old Man (TM) who was sitting in a small room with headphones on, playing with the wireless. When I excused myself for interrupting, he shooed me out like I was a puppy who'd pissed on his shoes. 

It made me wonder if the retirement home is really for cranky oldsters who just miss the wireless.
The Marconi monument, just over the fence outside that field above. And, it was starting to rain again, so after having an apple I moved along.