Still Dartmouthing

Wandering around Dartmouth you see so many lovely old buildings:

with plenty of character and the odd leaning wall... At this time of year you also get plenty of coach tour people. They certainly have character but it is way less appealing than the buildings. Somehow the "Saga coach tours" lot believe that they own the pavements, can walk in the roads, don't have to queue and expect everyone else to get out of their way. The best bit is that they all get taken away around lunchtime back to their hotels (perhaps for a little sleep?) and the town becomes much nicer again. Yes, before you remind us we are indeed old enough to go on a Saga holiday, however we have not developed the necessary behaviours yet.

John and Irene arrived in town with their motorhome and set up camp in Stoke Fleming, the one remaining site this side of the river. They walked into town and joined us on board for lunch and dinner. Archie the Lakeland terrier was suitably tired and so a makeshift dog bed was assembled on board for him. Cue one happy snoozy dog:

The rather busy social activities continued when Millie, the yacht that you have met in this blog before, pitched up returning from a good break in the Scilly islands. They joined us for dinner on board, as did June's old boss Bernie and his friend Paul a day later. Yup, lots of cooking. We escaped from that when the Millie crew invited us to join them up at the anchor stone for a pizza dinner. Millie looked good anchored just downstream from Dittisham:

and Richard looked good and perhaps a tad smug in his new T shirt from Quba. Spot the slight error:

We took the RIB to the Ferry Boat Inn and ordered four of their rather lovely pizzas to take back to the yacht and eat in the aft cockpit. Whilst waiting a beer was needed - it was a beautiful sunny day after all. The view as the sun was dropping , the pizza and beer made all of us rather contented:

Maintenance news:

The Captain got a bit busy and setup the "hot spare" autopilot computer with the same configuration that had been working well in the primary one. Then we swapped over to use the second computer and pump for a change just to check it was all working OK.

We also did a few bits to help Simon and Amanda who own the day boat hire business here. After their nasty Quad bike accident, Simon is in recovery mode at home so we tried to get a genset going for the guy who pumps out the boats and checked one of them for water in the fuel. Luckily, there was none despite the filler cap being left off. If you are boatless and in Dartmouth, have a look at their website, book a boat and go and enjoy the beautiful river.

Dartmouthing

After some time wandering around and enjoying / getting reacquainted with Dartmouth, we had a lovely day promised:

So it was chores time. Washing machine and tumble dryer busy (thank you again 32A shorepower) and the captain decided to have a go at fixing the drips from the backup bilge pump(s) pipework. The story goes something like this. The boat had one main bilge pump, a Jabsco belt driven job and a huge manual pump in the main aft bilge. It also had a backup pump in the bilge forward of the main engine mounted slightly higher with an alarm to warn of higher than normal bilge water levels. 

We never totally trusted the Jabsco pump and as it was getting elderly, we had a second high capacity pump fitted into the main engine bilge with a nice stainless steel non return valve that was plumbed into the outlet for the manual pump. This involves a T piece with an elbow fitted into it as well. The captain found that all three joints were dripping when he did his regular test of the backup pump. Lovely, especially as it is close to the fresh water system immersion heater connections.

Taking the annoying plastic junction thing out was tricky as all three pipes connected to it are wire reinforced, big, well clipped into place and unwieldy. None of them wanted to move. It made unscrewing the hose adapters so so simple especially as reaching it involves kneeling, leaning forward and twisting. Oh, it was fun. The weight of the pipes on the plastic threads seemed to have caused the little bit of thread sealant that had been applied by the M and G guys to fail so everything was cleaned up and some Leak Lock liberally applied more in hope than anything else:

The blue mess on the fitting is where the captain got some of the excess on his hand which then got smeared everywhere whilst trying to "coax" the pipes back onto the fittings. It was such fun, especially when testing it the next day, one of the fittings still dripped. Suitably annoying. The plan is to get a proper stainless steel custom fitting made up during the winter which will tolerate pressure at strange angles from the stiff and unyielding pipes way better.

Luckily the following day the sun came out again and we could walk and enjoy the harbour area:

This rather nice view of the harbour and up to the naval college is across a building site where some folks we know are busy having a new house built:

We have been invited for coffee once it is done!

A RIB trip up to Dittisham was carried out in wonderful weather enjoying views of the rather palatial places on the riverside:

We left the dinghy and walked up the hill to the very strange Red Lion pub come B and B come shop come post office which always was run in the weirdest way. Now, with Covid precautions in place it has become even stranger and well worth a visit for the novelty factor. Oh, and the view from the terrace:

On the way back down we saw that one of the locals had a most appropriate registration plate:

Remember, locals call the place "Ditsum" not Dittisham. We also saw an elderly tractor that needed some TLC just parked in an open fronted shelter:

As we know 3/8ths of very little about such things bar recognising it as a Ferguson we consulted the oracle - Robert's dad. He reported:

That fergie is an early one, it's got the very narrow tyres on the front, it could be a Ford /Ferguson for a time Henry Ford and Harry Ferguson were partners but they fell out when Ford tried to purlin the patent rights to the Ferguson hydraulic system it ended with a multi million dollar court case that Ferguson won, something in the order of 32 million bucks I think

So now, you are as close to an expert as we are.

Weymouth to Dartmouth

Getting up at 4:25am is no fun. Somehow the weather made up for it though. We left Weymouth with perfect motorboat weather (bar a little mist). The wind was almost non-existent:

2.6 knots true wind speed! As the sun rose, the combination of a little mist and an anchored cruise liner made a spectacular start to the day, almost worth the early rising thing:

With plenty of tidal help we scooted down the side of Portland Bill and opted for the offshore route despite the calm conditions - two fishing boats had left just before us and were busy chucking pots into the water around the inshore channel area. The route to Dartmouth is scarily simple as long as you avoid the Portland race:

and it was amazingly calm and sunny for the whole trip. A motor boat passing us in the other direction had a most strange name - unless you are an ELO fan. Clever name but probably lost on many people: 

If you are too young or were never interested in the Electric Light Orchestra's music, look at Wikipedia. The sun was out for the run into the river Dart and the entrance never fails to impress:

BTW - we hadn't bent the rail on the flybridge, the distortion is thanks to the panoramic picture from the phone. Heading up through the harbour we saw Zephyros, the escaped from Weymouth Nordhavn 43 on the mid river pontoons which we are no longer allowed to use (it was OK for 9 years then we were told we are too heavy - must be middle aged spread):

The space ahead of them was so so tempting, but out of bounds.... 😕 However, continuing the thrifty thing, we had great luck in getting a spot in Dart marina - another TransEurope place. Apparently the berth we were given has been rented for 2 years by a guy who has never put a boat onto it. Because we had expected to be strung between two mid river buoys, we had brimmed the water tank before heading off so we effectively lugged about a ton and a half of water across Lyme Bay for no good reason. We will not try to calculate how much extra fuel burn exporting Weymouth fresh water to Dartmouth caused.

After a much needed clean up, a wander into town for food shopping, a trip to the Foxx Exchange run by the stylish and talented Tracie was in order:

We had procured some wonderfully whacky sunglasses there for Mrs Toddler a while ago and she had lost both pairs. So, more were modelled by the masked crew:

 

and duly purchased for Mrs Toddler. Yes, they are "loud". Mrs T likes loud. 

Maintenance news:

Well, nothing really. The big Lugger behaved itself and the slightly annoying navigation PC did try a reboot early on but then ran perfectly for the rest of the 8 hour trip. It had a major windows and driver update whilst in Weymouth so we will see if it settles down. The event logs in Windows really don't point to any specific issue. We do know that the CMOS battery is toast though - date and time are being lost and have to be reset if the thing isn't started regularly. One very wet day we might exhume it from the cupboard, remove the 9 connectors (yes, 8!) and try to find out what battery is needed. 

Poole to Weymouth

Being mean types, we rather fancied a few free nights in Portland. To be fair, we didn't fancy Portland at all as it is a bit of a wasteland really but the berthing cost is a draw. The idea was to spend a few night there and catch up on some external boat maintenance. Well, Portland, the forgotten ugly duckling of harbours, was full!!! Never before had we heard of this. Proof positive that summer 2021 is just chaos. Instead the helpful harbour folks in Weymouth said that we could have a couple of nights there. As we love being in the harbour where you feel a real part of the town, we happily accepted the offer (NB - only two nights, full afterwards!)

Getting the tide times right for the trip was pretty much impossible. To get tidal help we would have left well after the 12pm throwing out time in Poole and arrival in Weymouth would have been very late. So, we just manned up and pushed the tide for much of the time. Leaving Poole we passed two "laid up" Condor fast ferries that normally are taking folks to the Channel Islands. They looked very sad:

and close up very scruffy too. Exiting the harbour, the Sandbanks area always smells of money:

If you don't know the area, have a look at most expensive seaside towns  Passing Old Harry the famous stack is always pretty:

and seeing it from the other side you get a better idea of the real colour of the cliffs even when taken from the little phone camera:

The route to Weymouth always looks strange when the firing range at Lulworth is active:

We contacted the range safety craft and were told that firing was up to 3.5 miles offshore so staying south of  50 degrees 33 minutes north would be fine. Hence the "flat bit" heading due west on the track above as we skirted the south of the active firing range until abeam of Lulworth when we could turn for Weymouth harbour. Rather a lot of "Fast motor craft approaching St Alban's head this is range safety craft" calls were heard on the radio as it seemed that several folks were either unaware of or didn't care about the live gunnery activity - despite the very audible bangs from the shore! The two safety craft chatted to each other about intercepting boats who did not respond to radio calls and one said "they are all out to play today". It certainly seemed so. 

There were plenty of anchored "laid up" liners in the area to amuse us on the way into the harbour:

,also a few poorly marked pots too. We were given a berth that we had used a couple of times before and even had a harbour guy helping us moor up. Excellent service. Somehow it felt a bit like home. No idea why but Weymouth, despite the "interesting" types of holidaymaker wandering along the harbour, is a happy place for us. 

To get some exercise, we cycled to Portland along the old railway line now known as the Rodwell trail. You get great views over Chesil which the sad captain remembers from geography lessons many many years ago:

Upon our return to the harbour, Lady Grey had arrived and doubled the local Nordhavn count as Zephyros the 43 was already in the west country (see, we said that everyone was heading that way!). She makes our boat look rather tiny:

A social afternoon / evening with Alex and Gisele was enjoyed before an early night, ready for an early morning departure. Thank you tides. 

Lymington to Poole - escaping the madness of the Solent

Picking the right time to escape the total boating madness known as the Solent was easy - head off just before high water to take the tide all the way to Poole. Much as we love Lymington the whole area was just so busy with staycationers that the thought of moving became more and more appealing. However, every boater we talked to was "heading west" so we guess the west country will be equally mad. Not having been into Poole for a while, it was tempting but our draft limits anchoring opportunities there. However, the Poole quay boat haven had a spot for us and as it is a TransEurope place at a sensible cost too. Leaving Lymington, Alex and Gisele on Lady Grey (did we mention that she is a HUGE Nordhavn 55) acted as photo boat:

and the crew didn't have time to recover all the fenders so you get this scruffy boat picture to enjoy:

For some unknown reason Marinetraffic really got confused about our track and final resting place:

We have no idea what the three lines are all about and the AIS was working all the way to Poole quay so it seems that the shore stations had trouble picking up our signals properly. The visible kink in the route was to avoid a couple of fishing boats who were hanging around Christchurch ledge.

Entering Poole harbour we had to push a strengthening outgoing stream as we passed Brownsea Island:

which was the site of the first camp that kicked off the Scouts movement. As we were in one of the narrowest areas of the harbour, with traffic heading out to sea as well, this passenger vessel decided to overtake and try to squeeze us towards the shallows. Very unprofessional behaviour - he was way too close considering the tidal stream but clearly could not wait a minute or so to have more sea room:

Sadly typical of many so called professional skippers around the harbour who seem to view all pleasure boats as idiots who get in their way. To be fair, many are but a silly close overtake in a very constrained area because we were going a knot slower than him was unforgiveable.

We had fun backing into our berth, watched by everybody and particularly the guy moored alongside us who had lots of shiny white GRP on his flimsy looking Princess 52 to worry about. We managed to avoid him and later on chatted at length, clearly forgiven for disturbing his afternoon. Happily berthed, the crew enjoyed the afternoon sun on the flybridge:

 

and a most enjoyable few days of relative peace and quiet followed. Until this guy pitched up that is:

It sounded like it looked and was crewed by exactly what you would expect. Luckily they only had a short stay.

We amused ourselves with some food shopping, walks, haircut for the crew (the Captain wishes he needed such things!) and general sloth - oh and the odd ice-cream. 

Back to Lymington, being eclipsed and sociable

We liked East Cowes. As a "Boatfolk" marina we had free berthing and they also gave us free power too. 32 amps of happiness. The happiness had to end before the weekend though as they were full - kind of a reoccurring thing in the Solent this year. We had organised a berth back in Lymington on our favourite Dan Bran pontoon, This meant we had to throw Tina out into the rain early in the morning so we could depart before the tide picked up too much (see the last post for info on tidal flows in the river there). 

Backing out of the marina in the rain did not feel right after several nice sunny days but it had to be done. For the short run to Lymington with the tide behind us Izzy showed how unimpressed she was with a 9am departure by sleeping on the crew's legs in the pilothouse:

but the poor captain had to pay a little attention even though the Solent was nice and empty for once:

We arrived in Lymington well before the expected 12 o'clock changeover time but the nice and well organised harbour folks found us a slot. With plenty of the day left Tesco was visited, Izzy walked and the favourite shop "Humbug" raided for an ice-cream. Alex and Gisele were coming to Lymington too, in their HUGE Nordhavn 55 called Lady Grey. They had called the harbour and been given a berth which was suitably sized. A few minutes before their arrival, the crew spotted a yacht heading into the nice long run of empty pontoon. She scuttled off, with Izzy for protection (er??) and shooed them away. Good thing as the Nordhavn would have squashed their rather lightly built charter yacht quite nicely.

 You've seen Lady Grey in earlier posts but as a reminder of her size and imposing presence, here she is arriving:

Somehow bows on she looks even bigger - Alex on the flybridge is no midget by the way:

Greetings done, Izzy soon checked out the boat and made herself comfortable in the pilothouse in just the right spot to get cuddles from Gisele:

Strangely, Lady Grey has two dog baskets on board - but no ship's dog. Gisele is ever hopeful. So, Izzy happily took over a rather plush one:

which is well colour coordinated with the carpet too. The humans had plenty to catch up on after not seeing each other for many many months:

whilst poor Alex was slaving in the galley preparing dinner:

OK - maybe that picture has rumbled us - two wine glasses on view and a Fever Tree tonic bottle too.....

A most enjoyable evening indeed. We waved them off the following morning, they were heading for Cowes:

Somehow Lady Grey looks even bigger in the sun - must be heat expansion. 

Anne, who was supposed to collect her dog, managed to have a bad reaction to her second Covid jab so that became delayed. We kept the poor doglet for another night and dragged her to Hythe as well. Another spot for her to take over a sofa:

You know the old saying about bad pennies? Well, sometimes nice ones arrive too. After the weekend Alex, Gisele and their huge (did we mention huge before?) Nordhavn arrived back in Lymington:

That gave us the opportunity to spend more time with them and also introduce them to Roxy and Indie the two labradors. Oh, they also met Norman and Julie the dogs' owners who arrived in their new HUGE Cathargo motorhome. Two spaces in the Bath Road car park and lots of envious glances from other motorhome folks who drove past. Somehow we are feeling very eclipsed. Until it is polishing and washing time when our little 47 seems much larger.

The Isle of Wight beckoned

Escape from Gosport was simple enough. Unplug, untie and reverse out. Although it was sunny, the wind was still keen but luckily astern of us as we made the shortish trip to East Cowes. We braved the flybridge and the dog slept on the seat quite happily - although she is always unamused about wearing her lifejacket. This time it might have helped to keep her warm: 

We wanted to time our arrival in the "happy tidal window" having witnessed how hard the tide runs through the marina and sometimes across the berths when we were based in the area. Here is the official information from the marina:

"Please keep an eye out for the tidal current through the marina. We have a 2 to 3 hour stand, and then the whole of the ebb occurs in the last 3 hours before low water! The best time to arrive with us (and to leave for that matter) is between half an hour before high water and two and a half hours after high water. This is obviously more critical during spring tides."

We made a small trip past the river Medina entrance just to use up a few more minutes then headed up river. Sure enough, off Cowes Yacht Haven there was the usual melee of boats wanting to moor up / leave / decide what to do.  We were following a scruffy red hulled Jenneau yacht and we think that his throttle control has seized up. In our experience yotties either go painfully slowly or madly fast when motoring into places. This guy was slow. Very slow. We followed him up river and he berthed (again, painfully slowly) in the slot opposite the one allocated to us, so we had to wait mid-river until he was safely secured. The timing coincided with 30 to 35 knot gusts so that made the dogleg entry to the berth and slotting in next to him interesting. A chilled evening chatting to the various yacht folks around us followed.

The next day, Tina arrived to join us for a couple of nights. Well, not really to join us, more to see the doglet:

She had brought a wonderful present for the captain, which looks so much better when modelled by the crew:

We do wonder if  Tina expects to be invited ever again.....

A trip over to Cowes proper on the rather unreliable new chain ferry was fun. If you are an island resident like Tina you will know the tale of woe that the new ferry brought, frequent days out of service and loads of maintenance issues. It seems that the local council who commissioned it and the builder / designer really messed up. The council has a sense of humour bypass when they refused a petition request to name it "Floaty McFloatface". UK readers will get the links to an earlier poll asking for names for a research ship. Waiting for the ferry the captain spotted this van in the queue and was told just how sad and geeky he was for loving the numberplate:

If you don't get it, you probably will not appreciate having it explained to you anyway so we will not bother.

A wander around Cowes and onto the seafront area allowed Izzy to have a  paddle and chase stones, It also allowed us to see the long standing and rather pretentious notice on the Royal Yacht Squadron moorings once again:

An invitation only club allowing you to fly the white ensign on your boat. One that we are happy not to be a part of having seen how the motorboat section handled their boats in Yarmouth harbour a few years ago. After the doglet dried out in the sun, we had an excellent lunch in Coast. So-so service but great food. If you go, try the flatbread and hummus starter but order one between you as it is as big as it is tasty.

The evening was spent chatting, taking Izzy to the local park for some ring fun:

and trying to avoid falling into a food coma type of sleep. Rude when you have guests on board, even if they are struggling too.