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.