Weymouth to Dartmouth (been here before!)

As there was a reasonable forecast we opted to continue our trip west after only a couple of nights in Weymouth. Sorry Linda - could not return the favour and feed you this time....

Our "unusual for us" berth at the eastern end of the harbour area:

Now, this is how the view forwards looked when we set off in the dark for Dartmouth (all down to those pesky tide times you know):

Yes, those two yachts ahead were very close indeed having moored the night before. Somehow leaving Weymouth on a still morning when it is still dark is quite atmospheric. No idea why but it just feels a bit special. 

Heading out into the bay, you could see the laid up cruise liners that were still well illuminated despite the complete lack of passengers and with only a skeleton crew on board:

Maybe they only have one big "on" switch? Seemed excessive to us but that is probably because we are used to paying our own running costs. The wind had calmed down much earlier than expected and so we had a very gentle trip indeed. Marinetraffic thought we were off to Canada again:

which is our fault as we'd left "Dartmouth" as the destination in plain text rather than using the proper port code:

That way the "non commercial" guys who pick up our signals out to sea will understand where we are headed. Is that a benefit? Hard to know really, depends upon how much use they make of that knowledge! 

We were able to cut across the area that is normally pretty bumpy - the Portland Race - as the wind was gentle and the tide was just building in our favour. Then we settled in for the Lyme Bay crossing:

The crew, focussed on catching up with her sleep, had a small diversion when a large pod of dolphins came across our path and stayed with us briefly too:

The crew is way more visible in this shot than the dolphins mind you. Sorry about that. The lovely weather made up for the slightly antisocial pod - here is how it looked on the rear view camera (with a few stray reflections on the screen):

You might well ask why we were using that image on the screen and not the Time Zero PC software. Well, that is because the navigation PC threw a seriously hissy fit and just hung up. Reboot, hang up again. Repeat a few times, swear about Bill Gates and all things PC like, then switch it off. Time to tinker with it when in port. Annoying as it had behaved impeccably for ages and there have been no updates or changes to it.

Approaching Dartmouth, there were a couple of enormous container ships anchored in the Torbay area. This monster container ship was showing an ETA for Rottterdam of October 1st and it had been at anchor since September 19th. If anyone was hoping to get a delivery of something from one of the many containers on board, it is going to be very very late indeed. The global shipping / port capacity crisis was most evident:

We arrived into a sunny Dartmouth an hour or so before high water, having slowed down on purpose towards the end of the trip knowing how hard the tide runs in the river which can make mooring tricky. Our preferred option of a buoy at Dittisham was a non starter as the harbour authority seem to like letting out the only big buoys on a long term basis so we were lucky and the Dart Marina folks let us back in. Literally - we backed onto the inside of their main walkway and felt quite at home after our unplanned long stop there earlier this summer.

The river Dart had become a bit of a Nordhavn 47 creche since Captain Rae on the good ship Albatross was also in residence. Being a graduate of the Royal Naval college, he could use one of their mooring buoys at a wildly low cost:

In fact he had been there longer than planned too thanks to a small brush with Covid. It was easy enough for him to isolate on board as he was alone anyway but it cannot have been much fun when he was feeling rough with the infection (and he had been double jabbed). Luckily for us, he had recovered and tested negative twice by the time we arrived so collecting him in the RIB and taking him up to Dittisham for a pizza and beer lunch was safe. Well, as safe as you ever can be with Captain Rae around. 

A two-seater spitfire had been roaring up and down the river and we enjoyed the spectacle and noise with our lunch. Capt Rae took this video for another Nordhavn owner to show him just what he was missing although you will get more sound than spitfire image to begin with :

Then he showed just why you would not want to be there with us:

Actually, they do a mean pizza and the view from the sea wall is pretty special too as was the company. The comment about 7 pints refers to a small moment that Capt Rae enjoyed one evening when he ended up in the water in the pitch dark after the odd Guinness when transiting between his RIB and the mother ship. His mantra of always wearing a lifejacket in the RIB saved him. A good mantra indeed.  

Whilst in Dartmouth we did the regulation walking to the castle a couple of times thing and just before departure were joined by Simon and Amanda (the boat hire folks) who added to our expanding and eclectic gin stocks with a clementine version in a bottle that lights up and has little gold flakes in it too, courtesy of Mr M&S. Captain Rae, see what you are missing by heading off to Portugal. Well, he said that Albatross was heading to Portimao but Marinetraffic reckoned otherwise:

Yes, Albatross was heading for Halifax in Canada too as Capt Rae had left "Dartmouth" as his AIS destination. Plenty of time to change it though as the trip takes 6 full days.

Our final act was to procure yet more whacky sunglasses from Tracy Fox's emporium for Mrs Toddler. The crew had to model them once more so that Mrs T could check on their suitability and decide which of her many individually crafted outfits they would go with:

and just in case that pair were not garish enough:

This pair might just have a new outfit created especially for them. Look out Mrs T's sewing machine - some wild patterned material might be coming your way.

One other Dartmouth institution is the Simon Drew shop, selling the humorous cards etc that he draws. Well, here is a new offering that was shown in his window featuring Boris, that is quite clever:

Maintenance news: 

Well, there is some. A 24v bulb in one of the engine room lights had blown so that got replaced.  More huge expense.

Then the sickly new Webasto heater that would not fire up got some attention. The captain had checked that there was no restriction in the exhaust and that fuel was getting to the unit so felt there was little a ham-fisted amateur could do. One thought remained though. The heater refused to fire up after our first bumpy trip since it had been installed. Maybe some air bubbles had been in the system from the install and they had joined forces and stopped the pump on the heater priming itself? Starting back at the filter (an old school CAV296 thing that is way over specified for the fuel flow needed to the heater) and working through to the boiler itself the supply pipework was thoroughly bled once more. Then the pump in the heater was "encouraged" with a little injection of fuel and amazingly on the second attempt it coughed and fired up, then ran perfectly.

Looks like it was an airlock issue in the pump but we've learned more about the new boiler and the modern fancy electronic controls in a few weeks since fitting than we knew about the old one in 12 years of ownership. That is plenty enough we have decided, now it just needs to work all winter.