The cruising season starts with some planning and re-planning of course

The winter berthing finishes on April 1st and our plan was to head straight for Falmouth - 30 odd hours at sea. However the forecast for the 1st had 3 metre waves on top of the swell around Land's End and was not tempting. Here is how Passageweather.com saw things:

4 metre high waves? Er. no. No need to get bashed around like that when time is more or less our own.

The forecast for a Sunday morning departure was way better. Here is the picture for late Sunday evening, roughly when we would arrive off Cape Cornwall:

As this looked much nicer, the departure decision was an easy one. Another Atlantic low arriving on Monday messed up leaving any later.

Of course, you go to bed, wake up and the forecast has changed rather a lot. Here is the wind forecast for the time we would be going around Land's End, with the tide behind us:

Blue is good, reddish hues much less so! The thought of Lands End with gusts of 30 knots of wind blowing against the tide was not tempting unless we had to. Time to delay our departure further as we didn't fancy a bumpy first trip of the year.

We added these images in for the non boating folks so you get why our timings are always a "bit variable" unless you are happy to plough through the rougher weather. Although the boat would be fine, the crew is less keen and as we don't have to, we choose not to!

It did mean a few other opportunities popped up though. Steve the waterbus man / cartoonist extraordinaire and dad to Bronwen the spaniel called in a small panic - he had no waterbus crew. So, the captain spent a day pottering to and fro across the bay in Princess Royal acting as barely competent crew:

It was surreal in a way. The boat was built in Wroxham on the Norfolk Broads around 1955 and used to be operated there as a trip boat. For a little information, see Broadlandmemories website. As a kid, it was the most exciting treat each summer to go there by bus and then have a short boat ride. The skippers always had a white shirt and wore a tie. The crew wore pinafore dresses and served tea. We were not quite so well attired, served no refreshments and there was no cross dressing either before you ask.......

Of course, one treat whilst crewing the waterbus is that you get plenty of Bronwen cwtch time:

Not a bad day really.