Shelagh & I decamped from home on the Thursday before Easter and headed down to the boat, a longish couple of hours on the road arriving mid afternoon to find that Pleinair had been moved from her normal mooring by the marina staff. There’s a major dredging program in full swing at the moment and this involves moving all of the fingers on our side of the main pontoon. We located the boat and emptied a trolley load of stuff on board, I then reloaded the trolley with items I’d left in the cockpit for the disposal of, namely one radar reflector, removed from the mast a week earlier having definitely seen better days. The plastic casing was so degraded another section of it broke every time it was handled. Unfortunately I now have to replace this but I do have my eyes on a nice new Echomax Unit.
So far we’ve spent the weekend pottering about doing little jobs that needed doing, updating the nav software on my Nav laptop, reinstalled the whole of this blog on the server and am now eagerly awaiting the arrival of a package containing the new radar reflector and a couple of other items.
Sunday we both had a day out with Glen and Bruce (SV Pagan) and visited the museum of power near Heybridge. That was an interesting day as there was also a vintage transport rally on site, loads of old cars from years gone by, including a couple of cars that model of which I remember my father having.
Looks like a Routemaster to my untrained eye.
I also spotted an Austin 1300 Mk3, which brought back memories as my first ever car was the estate version of same.
Austin 1300 MK3
One of the big problems with an event like this is usually the huge queues either in the onsite tearooms/cafe or visiting catering units, well we took one look at the tearoom queue and took a unanimous decision to go back to the rally field (from the museum) where we joined the queue for coffee and burgers. There was also a queue at the van selling buffalo burgers and as three of us decided to try these I went and joined that queue on my own. Guess who got served first? [snigger].
Well that was Sunday, Monday involved a run home (2hr drive) as I had a doctors visit on Tuesday, then after a wasted trip for me to see a man about a job, we drove back down to Pleinair (another 2 hr drive).
So now we are on to Wednesday, earlier in the week I had placed the order for the new radar reflector and a couple of other items, which were to be delivered on next day delivery direct to the marina office, (because they’re really good like that), and, it never turned up. So effectively we wasted Wednesday. A phone call Thursday morning to the supplier and this problem was rectified, thus allowing us to go for a potter down the River Crouch.
Thursday
I’m not sure what time we left Fambridge in the afternoon but we ended up dropping the anchor at the Jubilee anchorage just inside the entrance to the River Roach, Where we were closely joined on Friday morning by around eight seals who hauled themselves out on the beach to enjoy the sunshine (distinct lack of it).
Hmm! Pod, Bob, Harem not sure, but there
were 8 here!
Friday,
Wasn’t a particularly early start, I’d gone outside at one point during the night to solve a tapping halyard problem but otherwise no mishaps to report. This was only the second time I’d dropped anchor on Pleinair so anything could have happened, fortunately it didn’t and a relatively peaceful night ensued. One minor panic Thursday night, was the lack of anchor light visible when I switched it on. It turned out that I just couldn’t see it as it was still a bit light outside. I had a play with the TopClimber and concluded that even though it would get me out of trouble if need, it involved just a little effort on my part, nope, rephrase that, just a heck of a lot of effort. To be fair the only halyard I had available had a little too much stretch in it and the instructables do specify a prestreched, braided rope. Otherwise I think it will do the job, surprisingly I felt quite comfortable having reached just below the spreaders. I’ll try it out properly when I have a suitable climbing rope.
Lunch was produced by Shelagh and after a discussion it was decided to head up the R. Roach for a short while then turn and head back to the River Crouch for a short sojourn towards Holliwell point.
Very little sailing done as the winds were just so wrong, and as Shelagh isn’t a fan of sailing at the moment, I’m trying to break her in gently. Mind you, when we do sail I have to spill wind like theres no tomorrow. She’ll get there! (I hope)!
So now we are back on the river pontoon at Fambridge after what I consider to be a pleasant couple of part days out, tomorrow, who knows!!!!!
ATB
Tony
