Old Haunts revisited

Sad as it is, we needed to give the little dog back to her owner Anne. The weather had not been kind and her new raincoat had been put to good use, protecting the rather nice grooming job that she had "dogfully" suffered a few days beforehand:

So, a road trip to Hampshire and lunch with her mum allowed the handback to go smoothly. We then dropped the little Brompton bikes off with Brilliant Bikes in Chobham for a service, new puncture resistant tyres and a freebie upgrade to the mudguard stays. A much needed alteration. The folks there are just great and really know Bromptons. Also their (Surrey based) service prices are about a third of the amount that the Pure Electric folks in Cardiff want to charge, despite the fact that the Cardiff team know very little about the product. Or perhaps because they know very little? 

We amused ourselves with a memory lane kind of trip to Windsor and a wander along the river Thames where a flotilla of the Queen's swans headed towards us on the scrounge for food:

This was our old cruising ground, when we had boats based at Bray Marina just upstream from here. It felt strange to be in the area as a visitor somehow but most enjoyable.

The wildlife was as we remembered too with a few of the distinctive Egyptian geese around looking most regal:

We pottered across the bridge to Eton and watched the monied / privileged elite in their school outfits walking around with the air of future cabinet ministers, or MPs at a minimum. Heading back we actually saw a little motor cruiser underway, pushing quite a strong stream as it headed for the bridge:

Plenty of people on board, no lifejackets anywhere, the river is clearly a safe place even with strong streams running near the weir.

The final sociable thing was meeting Mark and Julia (again, you've seen them in here before) and their new puppy Mabel. She is achingly cute and very well behaved too, totally unlike Julia:

Our return to Penarth, after collecting the bikes, was via Hythe to pick up the flybridge cushions and covers which had been stored there for the winter. They are just too big to keep on board happily, they either trash the forecabin or the engine room all winter, neither of which is ideal.

It was time to top up with diesel ready for, we hope, a good cruising season ahead. Only we mis-timed it. Having been away enjoying ourselves in posh places like Windsor, we returned to find that diesel prices had rocketed up. Thank you so much Mr Putin. No matter, the stuff was needed. We don't plan to make the normal trip over to Guernsey for fuel this year, instead we want to head north as soon as possible so a top up at UK prices but before the tax on red diesel goes up (April 1st) made some sort of sense. At least it did to us if not our bank balance. 

As we keep reminding ourselves, fuel costs are not high for a slow old boat. We cannot imagine cruising around in a fast 1 MPG planing powerboat now. Well, we cannot imagine paying for the fuel. Post April 1st our old Broom 415 boat would cost around £6.80 per nautical mile - more as fuel prices continue to creep up. The Nordhavn costs more like £2.30  per mile if we buy the full price fully taxed  UK stuff  but £1.10 by filling in Guernsey. Remember that full fuel tanks will last us all year, cruising in the summer and heating / genset in the winter. We hold a lot of the stuff.

Keeping the puppy theme going, we met up with Simon and Nikki who also have a fresh out of the box pup. Moxie is a mega-cute fox red labrador who is still being carried around everywhere until her jabs are all sorted out:

She looks very content in her carry bag and was also well behaved when we hit Cadwalladers for one of their excellent bacon sandwiches. Her nose did twitch a little though.

Maintenance news:

Sometimes the "do it annually or after x hours" instructions seem a bit like overkill. This time, they were not. The genset had a new impeller fitted and we found that the old one had one blade that was breaking up:

It had been fitted 187 hours and 366 days ago. This time the captain didn't bother to take off the boot from the heat exchanger tube and fish out the missing bit. The heat exchanger had a big clean out last year so the one piece of neoprene can stay in there for a while. 

New duck bill valves were fitted to the anti-siphon loops for the genset and main engine too. A relatively cheap item that could flood an engine if it fails. For anyone who is unfamiliar with the vented loops, this link will provide you with more information on them than you ever wanted to know Forespar vented loop information .

The vented loops for the grey and black water tank pump-outs were also given the once over and the little grille over the condenser of the fridge/freezer given the regular clean out. It is truly amazing just how much fluff finds its way in there when the fans are running. Leaving it to build up makes a huge difference to the compressor run time as well.

Toddling then an Izzy road trip

Warning - this is quite a sociable post involving lots of car miles, no boat miles (nautical or statute) and plenty of stopping off spots. You do get some more topless pictures later on though. Prepare yourselves.

Our first stop on a little "UK tour" was to Ocean Village marina where Malaspina, another Nordhavn 47 resides. When we bought our boat she had three electric downriggers on board, the original owner was heavily into fishing although they (and the boat) were very little used. We've never used the downriggers either but Inge (the Malaspina lady) wants to do so. Hence we delivered the downriggers to a new and more appreciative home:

Seems that Inge is getting Malaspina ready for some serious fishing on the West Coast of Canada. Look out fish.

After a couple of nights in Toddlerville (aka our house in Hythe Marina), we collected Izzy the "goddog" and headed north, initially to Glossop at the top of the Peak district. After a couple of soggy walks, the rather furry Izzy happily enjoyed the hills and walks in improving weather and a pub lunch / catch up with Alex and Gisele, the owners of the HUGE Nordhavn 55 that has starred in here before. The windy conditions rather disturbed the furry Izzy's ability to see properly:

A most happy wander around the Chatsworth estate with Alan and Tish plus their little dog in lovely conditions was a perfect bit of exercise after a rather good lunch in Edensor Tea Cottage. The history of the stunning little walled village is here weblink . Quite a place. On the way over to the house, we were accosted by a very well spoken, potentially slightly "different" elderly lady who had a letter that she asked us to deliver to the Chatsworth Lodge as it was for Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. The outer envelope was addressed in wonderful handwriting, clearly produced with a fountain pen too. 

We figured that few letter bombs are prepared in such style and so we took the note with us (which luckily did not explode or leak Novichok on the way) and duly handed it in at the lodge where the flunkey accepted it and knew instantly who the sender was. Such a lovely old-fashioned way of communicating.

The house and grounds looked as good as always:

We sadly bade farewell (continuing the "old fashioned" theme here a little) to the Glossop pub and drove to Dumfriesshire in appalling weather with storm force winds forecast too. The country house hotel we were overnighting in had tall tress all around the car park. Wonderful. Still, the building and setting were impressive, have a  browse through Friars Carse website. The staff told us that in the last storm they lost power for several hours and had to rely on candles and a few torches. We ate (no vegetables with dinner, very Scottish...) before the possible power cut and as the lights flickered got worried. Luckily there was no interruption and we enjoyed a good breakfast in our own private dining room - thanks to having Izzy with us - that offered this view of the river: 

Sometimes borrowing a dog is handy. The drive to Portavadie was broken up by a stop in Luss, the sort of famous little village on the shores of Loch Lomond which is reckoned to be one of the prettiest in Scotland. To be fair, Scotland is not known for pretty villages or looking after them terribly well either but the setting with the Loch on one side and hills on the other is glorious:

The traffic cones didn't really add to the ambience though. Continuing along the side of the loch you can see how the weather welcomed us:

However, we did well as these were the scenes back in Hythe where our house is:

Staying in Portavadie with Niall, Sheila and Penny the dog is always a happy time. Only this time poor Penny was not happy as she had reacted badly to a jab. She was seriously under the weather, hiding in her basket and not joining in much. Her mood was not helped when Izzy decided that Penny's ball was nicer than her own and so chased and stole it at every opportunity, including taking it from Penny's mouth once. Poor dog. However, she perked up on a stunning walk around Glenbranter. Some snow, plenty of little waterfalls great spot:

It seems that Izzy likes snow, even if it is patchy:

and we enjoyed the scenery, exercise and smells / sounds of the forest:

Back at base camp in Portavadie, Sheila seemed to adopt Izzy:

Sadly all good things end so we headed off, stopped overnight in a very good gastropub near Peebles and took the doglet for a walk along the river which really was running hard. Many parts of the path had flooded which made it even more fun:

The drive to Hamsterley Mill took us through Kielder Forest and the number of fallen trees from the storm was a shock. Way worse damage than we had experienced on the west coast of Scotland which is a bit of a change around in fortunes from normal. We happily settled into staying with John, Irene and Archie (again, you've met them many times and would have seen them last summer when we had a dinghy excursion on the River Dart that turned out a bit bumpier than planned). Archie was looking his usual regal self:

A walk along the riverside in Newcastle took us to the always excellent Cycle Hub cafe and then we followed one of the cuttings which housed this rather strange concoction. Cannot call it a boat really but we wonder how many hours of work went into it, now mainly wasted:

Whitley Bay beach and the Derwent Way walks were enjoyed by all before we headed south again, stopping a couple of nights at the southern end of the Peak District. A planned wander around Bakewell was thwarted by a flooded car park and in Matlock, the flood height signs on the Cafe in the Park gave us an idea of how bad the flooding can be in the area.:

We could not try the place out, guess why:

The return to Penarth was uneventful for us, but not for our furry companion who had a groomer visit and became significantly less furry:

Which apparently is very tiring work:

The road trip was great fun, sociable and the only pity was that the weather decided to have a huge storm system come over in the middle of the trip. Still, great memories and experiences.

Maintenance News:

When we got back guilt kicked in and some maintenance was undertaken ready for the cruising season that we hope for. First job was the valve clearance check and adjustment on the big Deere. Yes, time for more Deere porn, another topless shot:

This time one valve needed loosening off a little but one was too tight. Er, that should not happen, when the valves wear slightly into the head the clearances get tighter not slacker. Must have been down to the idiot who adjusted them last time getting it wrong. Wonder who that might have been?

For folks who disapprove of topless images, here is the top, together with the oil breather pipe and fitting for the air cleaner. You have to take the whole lot off as the stupid little plastic 90 degree pipe that fits into the cover from the hose has tiny little plastic lugs to hold it in place and as they age, they love breaking off if you try to remove the pipe from the cover. 

So, one piece of maintenance completed out of the large pre-season list. We need to get busy on it soon.