A great day trip on the early Scillonian sailing (leaves Penzance at 6.30am with a 5pm return). Just enough time to scout photos for the cover of the new (9th) edition of our Isles of Scilly Map. This is Landing Beach on St Helen's looking over to the Pest House where passengers and crew of ships suspected of carrying disease contracted in the souqs of North Africa or the markets of the Mediterranean were ordered to quarantine. They may have already survived weeks at sea in ships infected with cholera, typhus or the plague but they remained here until they either died or recovered. Most of those who died were buried nearby. More info and photos in our in our Tresco Island by Island book.