Carless in Cumbria

After dropping back the little hire car, it was time to utilise public transport again. Initially for the captain to travel to Hythe again for the latest appointment in the dental implant saga. The train was mildly amusing - in retrospect. Three legs, the first in an antique 2 carriage DMU with a guy who very loudly told the captain about how he suffers from ADHD and autism and then about how shaving in the shower was not a good move. Then he moved on to pronounce about anything he could think of so that he could keep talking, very loudly. After a while the inbuilt sympathetic reaction of the captain turned to a "please be quiet or sit somewhere else" sentiment. The Whitehaven to Carlisle train is very slow, unfortunately.

Leg 2 involved an elderly lady sitting in the seat that was reserved for the captain. The last leg needed a frantic dash between platforms in Wolverhampton thanks to a late running leg 2, only to find that the reserved window seat was free but there was no window, just a huge mullion to look at. Enough about the shortcomings of Northern / Virgin / Cross Country trains. They are well documented already.

The return provided similar fun, this time one train with a Spanish lady who wore a very short skirt but had the hairiest legs in existence outside the Zoo and another train with a train spotter who spent the trip prodding the captain with his camera tripod whilst looking at video of trains he had recorded earlier on. Riveting stuff.

We decided to have some light relief. A train run into Carlisle for a look around the castle was good. The castle has a fascinating history, being fought over between the Scots and the English for many years. The most besieged castle in England apparently:

Amazing there is anything left really. Inside the castle is the museum of the Border Regiment (look at museum website). There was a very moving special exhibition about their role in Afghanistan with a video interview of  some veterans. Go and see it if you have the opportunity before it closes.

We also took the train the other way, to the home of the BAE systems warship / submarine building empire in Barrow. A serious operation with build sheds that dominate the town skyline. Here is an idea of their scale:

The town is kind of what you would expect from a major dockyard operation but clearly wealthier than Whitehaven. To be fair, that is not difficult.  A cinema trip to see Rocketman rounded off the day nicely.

Keeping an eye on the forecasts we saw a gap in the relentless series of depressions heading across the Atlantic to ruffle the sea:

Might be time to leave the nice folks from Whitehaven marina and get on the move again before we have to pay council tax. 

Hire cars and getting about a bit

The nice Enterprise folks gave us what has to be the best Vauxhall offering that we've ever had. A new Astra with a little 1.4 litre petrol turbo engine in it. (Remember that to an old M3/ M5 / 645 addict, anything with under 6 cylinders and lots of BHP is little). Sad that GM sold Vauxhall / Opel just when they finally engineered an OK car that isn't light years behind the competition - one that might sell rather than being given away.

What did we do with the beast? Well, a trip south to the dentist for the Captain and a run up to Largs to look at Trisheen, a Nordhavn 55 that our friends Alex and Gisele are tempted to buy. The crew and Gisele looked quite at home in her cavernous saloon area:

whilst the men were grubbing around the oily bits. We had seen her at the Southampton Boat Show several years ago under her former name, underway in the Tobermory area and we were on the same pontoon in Bangor (Norn Iron) for a day. Never had a good look around to try and help a prospective buyer though! Together with Phil from Nordhavn Europe, we had an excellent dinner at the Inverkip hotel and plenty of Craic too. We even got some birthday cake courtesy of the 80 year old lady on a nearby table.

Exploring the lakes was high on the priority list. Mary and Ian who came to see us in Kinsale a couple of years ago as they were on holiday in Ireland, happened to be in the area with some friends of theirs. So, we enjoyed a most sociable day and a long walk along the cliffs to St Bees where we fell upon a very late lunch in the local cafe. The place itself was not promising:

but the homemade quiche was superb and we were all very hungry after walking 9 miles or so up and down hills in the sun.


Kendal and Grasmere were duly walked around and enjoyed (apart from the enormous slow moving queue for coffee and a toastie in Kendal when we both needed food rather urgently. The staff were slow enough to work in a Waitrose cafe.....

Cockermouth was explored and enjoyed too - lovely little riverside town and one of the places named as a UK "gem town" with wonderful old buildings and architecture. The only downside is the tendency of the place to flood thanks to the river which was in a very tranquil mood after many days with no real rain:

It is the birthplace of Wordsworth, the poet and his house is open to the public on every summer day bar Friday:

Guess which day we went to town? For fans of the Big Bang Theory on TV, John Dalton the Atomic Theory guy was born nearby. For the anarchists amongst you, it was the birthplace of Fletcher Christian, the guy who led the "Mutiny on the Bounty". For sports fans,  Ben Stokes grew up here and played for the local cricket team. For normal people, it is a lovely little town with local shops, friendly folks and a nice feel about it.

A walk around Buttermere was well worth it too. Stunning setting, pretty lake and a great mid way stop at the Bridge hotel where we discovered that a small roast turkey from the menu is still enough for more than 1 hungry person. Walking around at more or less lake level was an easy 5.5 miles with a couple of detours for a missing bridge and closed paths. Typical Lakeland scenery:

Lovely lovely area.

On the social front, the ex Captain Rae, owner of the other Nordhavn 47 in Whitehaven (Albatross) joined us for dinner / gin / whatever. Naturally, as he has been featured in this blog several times before (and not always in a totally flattering light), he wanted to meet the other star, Patrick the penguin. They had an instant bond, of sorts. The image of their "coupling" still haunts us:

Somehow ex Capt Rae looked all too familiar. The question is, did he star in The Great Escape film a little earlier in his life:

 or is he really Ernst Stavro Blofeld:

who just happens to have swapped the cat for a small furry penguin?

If the latter, we apologise in advance to the UK secret services for providing food, gin and shelter to a sworn enemy of the country. GCHQ  - when you read this just look for the UK registered boat Albatross on Marinetraffic.

Enjoying Cumbria

Whitehaven itself is a sad town. Many beautiful buildings that are gently decaying, the usual raft of empty high street shops and a generally depressed air about it. However, the marina area is lovely, the coast walks have great views and the people are invariably very friendly. The town and area were very prosperous and powerful thanks to the port and the coal mining locally - have a read of local history

We had planned to explore the area and the nearby lakes a little. First trip out was by train to Carlisle. Having never seen the city properly before (Captain had visited for work briefly, many years ago, seeing the BMW dealer and the train station) we enjoyed a good wander around. The train trip along the coast was very pretty, even if in some places it has a 10 MPH speed limit! Arriving in Carlisle, there were two steam engines that were running excursion trips on the mainline:

Proper sounds and smells compared to the soulless electric things running from Glasgow down to London on the other platform.

The cathedral was beautiful (especially inside):

with a stunning ceiling and fascinating history being near the Scotland / England border and the various wars that have taken place over the years (not to mention the current SNP fun!) The city centre and general feel of the place were good, we have it on the list for a revisit.

Albatross, Mr Rae's Nordhavn 47 has been in the marina for a while, after a lift out for annual maintenance. Having 2 out of the tiny UK population of Nordhavn 47's here caused quite a stir locally. This picture generated around 100 Facebook likes:

Must have been a quiet time locally......

John, Irene and Archie the Lakeland Terrier came to see us and stayed for a couple of days. Naturally Archie was looking cute:

and soon took over on board with the crew having to find alternative spots to place their posteriors:

John and Irene kindly took us to Ennerdale (not Emmerdale for the benefit of UK TV soap addicts. Ennerdale is pretty, quiet and well worth spending time admiring the great views. Emmerdale on the other hand....)

A very pleasant walk around the lake ensued, spoilt only by meeting a couple who had serious verbal diarrhoea.  The verdict on them from Geordie Irene was "Mackems - they come from the other side of the Tyne". All a bit lost on us initially but read newspaper article for some background. They could not spoil the views though:

In the marina, we enjoyed watching a small but keen group of yachts head out for their race. Only it turned into a drift as the wind dropped. Some older chaps on a slightly battered red hulled yacht berthed near us probably didn't mind as most of their conversation centred on red wine anyway. Of more interest was a very special motorboat berthed here:

Polar bound is an apt name for her. You must read this account of her voyage and this account of David Scott Cowper's boating history . Quite an amazing man and quite an amazing boat.


Maintenance news:

As the boat was originally built for a Danish man, she had the continental two round pin 240v power outlets. We swapped most of them over to the UK three oblong pin versions but as there are just so many sockets, only wired up one of each pair. Well, how time changes. With the proliferation of devices that need charging now (tablets, phones, laptop, MiFi device, Fitbit for the addicted crew etc) we find that we need more outlets! So, a few hours were happily spent adding some wire to do just that to the pilothouse and saloon sockets:

note the mix of old and new wiring standards!

Neyland to Whitehaven (via Dale)

A trip up to the Cumbrian coast was going to take around 32 hours and to make the planning fun, we needed to arrive with sufficient tide height as Whitehaven has an entrance that dries out. The trip has two areas where there are strong tides that would be way better going in our favour too - around St David's head (south Wales) and around Anglesey (north Wales).

Planning was "interesting" in the very English sense of the word. Cheating by using the Time Zero software and also an older Euronav software package that we have gave conflicting advice. A manual calculation is amusing owing to the time and distance (nearly 220 nautical miles / 30 odd hours). Eventually a decision was arrived at which was not a nice one.

So, we left the happy spot in Neyland after washing off all the salt from storm Hannah so we could see though the pilothouse screens again. We needed enough depth to sneak past the other boats moored on hammerheads hence a 4pm or so departure. Patrick and Kylie seemed most interested in the moored tankers:

or perhaps they were just amazed at the size of the things. We were experimenting with the FLIR and this commercial guy:

produced this strange FLIR image:

The black strip on the hull isn't a major failure of the infra-red detector - they were pumping water over the side and you can clearly see how much colder it was than the surrounding hull area!

We were far too early to carry on towards Whitehaven so we went down to Dale and anchored off there. Finding a suitable spot was amusing thanks to lots of local moorings and lots of pot markers. We mentally noted what might be a safe course out again in the dark. A 1:30am alarm was not welcome but necessary. Then we said many thanks to the FLIR as we picked our way out between the pot markers and headed out to sea - something that we would never have attempted without it.

Here is part 1 of the route:

The favourable tide helped us make fast progress around St David's Head and up the Irish sea. No firing was taking place in the Aberporth range area so no need for any diversions to the west either. It was eerily quiet as the AIS confirmed:

We very rarely have an empty target list! In fact we did check that it was still working OK. Finally we saw a little fishing boat off the coast near Bardsey Island. It felt reassuring, we had wondered if we had missed a Tsunami warning or similar when we were the only boat out there despite the rather nice conditions.

Roaring past Anglesey with more favourable tide help during the evening, we had to dodge our first commercial ship which was coming out of the traffic scheme and heading to Liverpool:

It felt a little annoying to be bothered by one after so many quiet hours at sea. A stunning sunset made up for it nicely and started the night time watches off well:

Between the Isle of Man and the English coast there are plenty of wind farms and some production platforms too. At night they looked quite menacing on the radar, a bit like an old style warship flotilla in multiple line astern formation heading towards us:

Plenty of Megawatts coming from that lot!

We pulled a little power off for the final part of the run north so that we arrived around the planned 8:30am time when there should be enough water in the approach channel to the lock at Whitehaven.  That went a little bit wrong as a fresh NW'ly breeze had picked up and that was pushing some reasonable waves into the harbour area. Wanting a bit more tide height to feel comfortable about entering, we just headed a little further north, giving the wing engine something to do, before turning to the harbour. This confused several stalkers on AIS who thought that we had overshot or that our Furuno kit was trying to save us from the deprivation of Whitehaven town:

No pictures of the approach or lock as the captain was busy with the wheel countering the effect of the waves on the stern and the crew was rather occupied with lines and fenders. Here is the entrance as a chart sees it:

and a pic from the internet of the lock:

Just picture a Nordhavn 47 in exactly the spot that fishing boat is in and you get the idea.

We were told to go onto the fuel berth, two of the dockmasters helped with our lines then we were given a choice of berths! VIP service indeed. To be fair, knowing the Finance Director of the group that operates the marina might have helped but in reality we've witnessed great service for everyone that comes in / has a berth here. The tough decision was - a berth close to the facilities tucked along the walkway or one in a more remote area but on a hammerhead. We opted for the hammerhead so we could turn the boat around and clean the port side of the hull (and maybe even polish it too).

Numbers etc:

The trip is around 220 nautical miles and it took us around 31 hours. Nothing to report from the regular engine room checks bar the temperature in there getting up to about 40 C as the factory fit fans are pretty feeble and the wind was from the wrong direction to encourage more air circulation. 40C is fever time for a human, not a disaster in the engine room but warmer than we would like it to be. Must get around to adding some more fans to improve the circulation in there. Other owners have experimented with various set-ups and we can use their experience.

We had one very strange blip from the Furuno kit that we are investigating - one instance  (screen) decided to reboot itself. After that, rock solid again, as was the PC system. It was a good opportunity to play with the new radar too - sorry to say but the old technology magnetron radar with the enormous scanner still is the favourite for clarity. Must learn more about the digital one and see if we can set it up a little more impressively - with a 4 foot scanner and sexy electronics it ought to do better we feel.