We set off from home with the usual optimistic plan of arriving in Porthleven before the pubs filled up, but the satnav had other ideas and sent us down a single-track lane that narrowed with every hedgerow we brushed. By the time we reached Atlantic Watch 8, the light was fading and my pride was dented after reversing into a passing place twice. The cottage sat just above the harbour wall, its windows already glowing, and the first thing that struck me was how the sea sounded louder indoors than out, a constant low rumble that felt oddly comforting after the drive.

We dumped the bags and wandered out for fish and chips, intending to follow the main street towards the harbour, but a wrong turn past a row of whitewashed cottages took us uphill instead. The lane climbed steeply, then levelled into a grassy track that opened onto a small clifftop meadow I’d never noticed on any map. A wooden bench faced the water, half-hidden by gorse, and we sat there eating our chips from the paper while the last ferries from Penzance slid past the headland. It felt like we’d stumbled on someone’s private viewpoint rather than a tourist spot.

The next morning we tried again for the coastal path, this time deliberately avoiding the obvious steps down to the beach. Instead we followed a narrow alley behind the lifeboat station that wound between back gardens and eventually deposited us on a stretch of shingle tucked beneath the old pier. No one else was there except a man walking his spaniel, and the tide had left perfect rock pools full of tiny crabs. We spent an hour poking about, shoes off, trousers rolled, before the wind picked up and reminded us we weren’t dressed for lingering.

Getting properly lost became our accidental theme. One afternoon we meant to find the little gallery someone had mentioned near the square, but a side street curved away from the harbour and led us through allotments where people were tying up runner beans. Beyond the last shed the path dropped into a wooded dip with a stream running through it, and we followed it until it met the sea at a tiny cove we later learned locals call Dollar Cove. The sand was coarse and the cliffs steep, but the water was that impossible Cornish turquoise, and we had it entirely to ourselves for twenty minutes before a fishing boat chugged past.

By the end of the week I’d stopped checking the map altogether. Every time we set out intending to reach somewhere specific, we ended up somewhere better because we’d taken the wrong turning or followed a dog walker who seemed to know a shortcut. Atlantic Watch 8 became less a base and more a place we returned to only when the light started to go, feet sandy and slightly damp, laughing about how we’d managed to get lost again within half a mile of the front door.