Fixing stuff, visiting and waiting for some decent weather

Guess what - we had a sunny day! That had to be taken advantage of so we headed to Barrybados (aka Barry Island) so Izzy the dog could have yet more beach fun with her mate Moxie the labrador. Plenty of ball chasing ensued. There was one cameo moment  when both dogs hadn't seen which direction the ball went in so the crew and Nikki tried to help them with an unsubtle hint. It was funny to watch them point in unison - perfect  timing, totally unplanned:

Because the dentist wanted to excavate a couple of cracked teeth (one each) and add a half crown to them, we had a trip back to Hythe. Then we invaded Richard and Kim - the owners of the lovely yacht Millie who you've seen in here before. By the way, please be assured that Richard and Kim are lovely people, it is not just their yacht that is lovely.

They are busy upgrading a new to them yacht that spent her life on lake Windermere and so was short of a few seagoing essential items like a VHF radio, navigation gear etc etc. We took the doglet for a walk and ball fun on the beach at Southbourne and, of course, had to stop for human refreshments. Izzy is a good judge of both character and legs - she cuddled up to the legs that belonged to a former "Miss Pretty Polly" and enjoyed the whole experience greatly as you can see:

Our next stop was Weymouth, a chance to annoy Andrew and Linda the Nordhavn 43 owners. Again, a good walk and beach fun was had, enough to tire the dog who this time had to rely on the significantly less lovely leg of the captain:

Heading back to Penarth we bumped into an excellent coffee stop on the way - Jordans Courtyard link . There was an interesting gentleman's outfitter in the area too - read the nice little notice in the window, way better than "closed":

If in the area (near Ilminster) go and try the cafe. Maybe the cake too. 

Back afloat, life continued in the same manner as most of the past winter. A day of rain, a day of gales, then an overcast one. All rather depressing really. On another fine day we took the doglet to the beach at Barry once more for her final sand and ball fun before returning her home. It was an amazingly empty main beach considering the weather, it was almost as if folks had given up believing the forecast when it said "dry" for the rest of the day. 

Earlier we mentioned the Miss Pretty Polly title, awarded to Kim. Well this is the place that it was earned at::

only the Barry Island holiday camp has now become the housing estate you can see in the picture.

On the basis that all good things some to an end, we returned to Hythe, dumped the doglet with her owner and braved the dentist for the half crown fitting. Only that went a bit wrong - the dentist was not happy with the gapping to another tooth on the crown made for the captain so he was given another temporary filling and the dentist had a stern phone call with the lab that made it. A revisit is in our near future. It seems that anything we are trying to get done at the moment is far from simple (see the maintenance info below!)

Not having seen Tiny Tina for a while, we had a day trip to the Isle of Wight. Four buses and two ferry rides but the public transport worked out perfectly which amazed us really. A most civilised lunch with Tina and Steve followed at the Robert Thompson restaurant which is in a lovely old building right on the seafront. Have a look at weblink.

On the Red Funnel ferry from Southampton we witnessed another cracking bit of seamanship. A little Corvette motor cruiser was pottering down the main shipping channel - well inside it for no obvious reason. They seemed oblivious to the ferry chasing them and until the ferry altered course to head around and overtake them we are sure that hadn't seen or heard it. Their quick course alteration as the bow of the ferry drew alongside them was a strong hint that their watchkeeping was not great!

Maintenance News:

When we returned from our south coast travels and fired up the electrical systems, the gas alarm and on/off solenoid panel refused to wake up.  We prayed that it wasn't the panel as they are expensive and it would be very difficult to remove. Luckily we found that the 24v to 12v converter had packed up. It was a reasonably cheap Chinese thing that we fitted several years ago. So, it was replaced with a slightly less cheap Chinese one:

If that fails then maybe the time has come to buy a nice Victron device.

The amusement continued with a boat wash off and then one of those regular fun tasks - cleaning out the grey water tank. Such a nice aroma. Izzy the dog stayed well clear after the captain removed the tank sender unit to release the delicate smells contained within. The grey tank is now pristine and fragrant again - at least for a little while.

On a wet windy day (there were plenty), the heating system fuel filter was replaced but the current drinking water filter had a reprieve - the rain stopped so we walked the doglet. Meanwhile, we are looking at battery alternatives to replace the main engine start batteries that finally have failed (they were the original fit, dating from 2007) and the very nice and very capable trimmer guy doing our pilothouse headlinings has found that sourcing material thin enough to replace the original with a foam backing is hard in the UK. He is really struggling, having recovered the panels already before he realised that the material he used was too thick. He is now trying plan B. We think that plan C will be painting them white for this summer so the boat can be used!

Basically we need to get those back, swap the engine start batteries and then we are ready for the off. Well, once the captain has his temporary filling replaced and  the weather settles down a bit. Maybe July?

Visitors, more rain (of course) and a little light maintenance

Having delivered Dave the doggy doorstop to the Toddlers a while ago, we were horrified to hear from them that Dave had become Dora. We know that it is "modern" to allow children to choose their gender but letting a little stuffed doorstop dog do the same?  A worrying expansion of dog freedoms if you ask us. 

To make up for this disappointment, we collected the very female and very alive doglet Izzy for a stay:

She was joined by her human mum for a long weekend - Anne braved the train and probably never will again. Rammed full from Romsey to Cardiff on the way here and then a totally disrupted service on the way back with cancelled trains, altered routes and a way later arrival home than planned. Izzy was quite pleased that she had stayed with us.

Having a doglet in Penarth, it is compulsory to visit Barrybados of course, get a little of the Gavin and Stacey vibe and let the doglet have fun with her buddy Moxie in Barry old harbour at low tide:

The miserable weather curtailed another visit for several days unfortunately. Like the rest of the folks in the UK, we are hoping that the never-ending rain and wind will ease up sometime. However, it gave us an opportunity to do some well overdue work on the poor neglected boat.

Maintenance news:

Paul the Maricom man was brilliant. We dropped the satellite compass into his workshop one afternoon and by that evening he had soldered in a new battery and reset the configuration for us. So, it needed to be refitted. Again, Simon the surveyor man came to our rescue - the Captain should not be working above shoulder height with his right arm yet....  

Connectors replugged:

power supply being reconnected:

and the compass worked perfectly again - feeding data to all the devices it is talks to quite happily. One thing fixed.

We mentioned that it was a struggle getting the last chunk of the headlining out as the TV mount and TV were seemingly impossible to remove. Well, again Paul came to our rescue as he knew how the mount worked. One cut down allen key later, the TV and mounting bracket were removed:

 In the old days, the average TV has a power feed and an aerial connection. Nowadays:

The last headlining board was taken away by the trimmers and we hope to see them all returned and nicely refreshed soon. 

One challenge is that removing and refitting the overhead lights had caused trouble with the original Walter Cantalupi fittings. The metal casing likes to split and then the retaining springs dont work any more. Naturally they are no longer made so we sourced some LED replacements:

If anyone else has the same issue, these are what you need:

The only challenge is that our saloon, pilothouse and main heads areas have dimmer functions. The kit that does the dimming will not work with LED lights, just with the halogen originals. So, the new lights ended up in our cabin and the displaced ones became replacements elsewhere.

Ages ago, Martin (the owner of Malaspina the other N47 here) kindly brought a new exhaust elbow temperature sender for us from Canada. Way cheaper than buying one in the UK. Mad but... They now come with a fancy fixed connector which must fit to newer engines, not our old one. So, the lovely looking plug was cut off, a simple connector was crimped on and the sender was fitted to the wing engine and tested: 

As you see, it just screws into the exhaust elbow, looks insignificant and no way justifies the cost of the thing.

As the final bit of main engine maintenance needed, the fuel filters were changed and bled. Then, when the captain went to start the engine to make sure all was well, the starter gave a clunk and nothing else. Bad words ensued. The starter batteries had been on float charge from the inverters but as soon as they got any load, the voltage dropped like a stone. Paralleling them with the house bank, the engine happily fired up and ran. Time to replace the two engine start batteries - two as it is a 24v system. We cannot complain about them really, we knew that the day would come as they are the original 2007 kit. They have done extremely well! Two 4D AGM batteries needed and some tame gorillas to fit them (because they weigh 60Kg each). We will replace the wing / genset start batteries at the same time as they are also the originals. Amazing service from the original Lifeline batteries really.

Medical stuff just seems to continue (must be an age thing) but we managed some outings

Our seemingly never ending round of medical stuff continued with a dentist visit for the crew having broken a chunk off a tooth during our stay in Wadebridge. At least the return to Hythe for treatment  allowed us to catch up with Anne and the little doglet who seemed very happy to join us in a local pub for an evening meal. As Anne hadn't given her any dinner, Izzy's focus on food was even more intense than usual:

Sadly our experience was not so good - having frequented the Bold Forester many times in the past, this visit was underwhelming. The only good bit was that the staff spoiled the doglet rotten and took a picture of her for their canine wall of fame. Pity about the food and service for the humans really. 

We then went to the dental appointment that had been arranged for the crew only to find that there was no dentist in that Saturday and the receptionist had clearly messed things up. Just what we wanted to hear. So, another trip to Hythe beckoned....

After returning for an appointment that actually worked out, the crew somehow managed to unstick the temporary half-crown that had been fitted at lunchtime that very evening (not through eating either!) So, we camped out at the dentist as they opened the following morning and a little more adhesive was used. The captain had kindly offered to attend to things with some Araldite or super glue but these had been roundly refused for no obvious reason.

Since the grim weather was well set in and heavy duty boat maintenance was not possible thanks to the recovering shoulder, we treated ourselves to a couple of trips away. The first was for a couple of nights in Bath, not having been to that lovely place for many years. The place and hotel were not car friendly and as there is a train direct from Cardiff, we decided to use it. Bad choice.....

Our trip there coincided with a rugby international in Cardiff. We took an early train from Cogan to Cardiff, wandered into the city and enjoyed the atmosphere that the rugby crowds bring. After a fortifying coffee, we returned to the station and waited for the train to Bath (which goes to Portsmouth harbour eventually). First of all there was a platform alteration - just swapping sides so that was OK. The train came in, stacked behind one timetabled to leave 5 minutes after it. How was that going to work? We should have guessed. The massive plus point was that it had 6 carriages, not the normal 3 and so seating was available.  It was also way better rolling stock than the normal elderly Turbostar things. So, the delay we happily ignored (it ended up as about 20 minutes "late arrival of the train guard" - a frequent excuse) and headed towards Bath, in the rain of course. 

In Bristol, a rather customer unfriendly GWR employee climbed into our carriage and told us that it was no longer in use and we all had to move. So, from a reasonably loaded train it became a busy one with plenty of folks standing. Fortunately we found a seat in an otherwise full carriage. Why move - the train was too long for some of the smaller platforms between Bristol and Westbury. Why the carriage could not have been left in use for folks travelling further to ease the congestion is a GWR mystery.

None of that dulled the beauty of Bath and how nice it was to wander around again, even if the weather made it look a bit grey. Here is the famous bridge with shops etc on it:

and with the Abbey in the background:

We enjoyed our time there greatly, found some good food and amazingly had a Hong-Kong Chinese lady waitress who had moved to Groningen in Holland many years ago then to the UK. Groningen is where the crew's mother was born. Anyone who wants to work out the mathematical probability of that is going to find it hard and really needs to focus on more important things. Suffice to say it was pretty unexpected.

Heading to the station for the trip back things went horribly wrong, here is the live train information for Bath:

A points failure at Westbury totally messed up all the trains except those coming from London. The station announcer kept apologising for the delay of a train that should have arrived 90 minutes earlier and that was shown clearly as cancelled on the National rail system.  Another one was shown  on the platform as 10 minutes late, then as delayed when the central system showed that it hadn't left at all and had been cancelled. All a bit shambolic really and folks who didn't use the rail app were even more confused, waiting for a train that was never going to arrive. So, we got a train to Bristol that had come from London originally, waited an hour and then caught another to Cardiff. It really reminded us just how much amusement train travel can be - even on days when the drivers are not on strike. None of our recent train trips by Transport for Wales or Great Western have been much fun / on time / as planned. Encouraging folks out of their cars gets harder and harder around here.

After a brief stop afloat, we headed to the Gower area for a couple of nights. For the non-locals, the Gower is designated as an area of outstanding natural beauty, totally unlike Port Talbot and Swansea which you travel through to reach it. Here is the area:

We stayed at the Gower hotel, a small family run place with an excellent restaurant and friendly staff. Have a look at this weblink Gower Hotel Website. The room was wonderfully quirky, with a strange name:

and sure enough, it lived up to its' billing:

There was a normal bathroom too with a shower we hasten to add. Naturally it rained during our stay so exploring was a little limited but we will happily return to the same place sometime.

Maintenance news:

Many many weeks ago we had been in touch with Wayne, the excellent local upholstery man, to arrange to get all of our headlinings replaced. The pilothouse was the most urgent, having suffered from some staining caused ages ago when the wiring from the stack instruments had been disturbed. Wayne came over to remove the headlining panels so our pilothouse looks like this now:

Plenty of insulation as you can see. Then, most annoyingly, the satellite compass decided to tell us that it needed a new backup battery. Naturally it could not have decided that towards the end of last year when the Maricom guys were on board sorting out the AV kit. Grrrrr. As we have no plans to visit the Hamble river this summer (will a summer ever come?) getting the battery replaced was going to be tricky. There was nobody locally that we would trust to do it - many folks simply return the unit to Furuno themselves as it involves soldering in a new battery and reloading the firmware and plenty of pesky parameters too.

As recovery from shoulder surgery involves not working above head height, and the satellite compass processor and display are up high, we called upon Simon the surveyor friend whom you've met many times before when he crewed for us. Some of you might know him better as the dad to Moxie, the lovely fox red labrador. Anyway, he gave up some time to remove the unit from the pilothouse so we could take it to the Maricom guys during yet another dental appointment. More voids in the pilothouse now:

It is looking so tidy in there. Removing the plugs etc we were happy that the Maricom team had everything properly labelled:

and the wires too.  All in all 11 connections to the box. Yes, 11. We will drop it to the Maricom office and hope to get it back quickly.

Cornwall and canines and rain

To help with the post shoulder operation recovery, we did the obvious thing - drive to Wadebridge in Cornwall. Yes, not your normal approach but ages ago we had committed to go and look after the lovely Indie and Stan who belong to the equally lovely Norman and Julie. (We felt that we should say that, just in case they read our ramblings).

After the owners headed off to enjoy their holiday, Indie had that "under new management" look:

whilst Stan just continued with his ball obsession:

The weather was far from kind to us. Plenty of rain to enjoy or avoid (the dogs much prefer the latter) so our walks were arranged around the little deluges. Oh, also around places that sold coffee and were dog friendly. In between showers we hid in Dollies, a basic cafe in the town centre which Indie loved. Why? Well, the owner delivered two gravy bones as treats for the hounds, Stan didn't want his so Indie had two:

Not high on the coffee satisfaction stakes but off the scale in the Labrador happiness index and frankly, their happiness is all that matters. Things got evened up when we discovered Stir, a tiny shop with some outside seating under a huge sail for the nice wet times. Awesome coffee though and brownies that are amongst the best ever. Only drawback is the limit of two different "cake things" available each day but when they are all very good.....

And you can see, it is dog friendly too (inside and out):

.

and they make rather nice patterns on the flat white!

Life became way more sociable when John and Irene popped over to Wadebridge - they were staying in Polzeath nearby. Then an invasion, the refugee from the Isle of Wight known as Tina arrived by train and was collected by the captain from Bodmin Parkway station. This was very exciting - not because Tina was coming to join us but because it was the first time post op that the captain drove the car any distance. Sorry Tina (or maybe not).

As all of those renegades had met before, we had a reunion in Padstow. The dogs were so happy, five people fussing over them and offering cuddles. We've offered several pictures of old lifeboats in here before and Padstow harbour allowed us the share another:

Indie decided to bark at the little dog on board. The little dog duly ignored her - we guess that happens many many times a day. Lunchtime was a real treat. St Petrocs is, like lots of Padstow, owned by Rick Stein. A kind of dog friendly bistro with rooms housed in old buildings so plenty of individual dining areas. We had our own room, great food and great fun.

Stir became a go to place, between showers and Camel Trail walks. Stan seemed to have adopted Tina quite well:

although she was less impressed with the diligent licks that he was delivering to her hand. 

The social time continued when Robert and Deborah, the Malo yotties popped over to Wadebridge to say hi. Deborah had great fun amusing / winding up the hounds and they showed suitable appreciation too. Believe it or not, finding a spot in Wadebridge that served lunch on a Tuesday out of the holiday season and that is dog-friendly is very hard! Our choice was simple, a Hobson's choice really, but it worked out so well. The Molesworth Arms did us proud. Good food, friendly staff. 

On the basis that all good things must come to an end, Tina needed to leave ready for a slightly warmer holiday trip coming up. In case you think that Bodmin Parkway station is near Bodmin, prepare to be corrected. It is actually around 4 miles out of Bodmin centre:

Someone forgot to build a decent access road (or fill in the potholes on the tiny one!) and a Parkway station with no car pick-up/ drop off area is rather unusual. However, we managed to dump Tina there, in the rain of course. 

Somehow Indie the labrador seemed to know that we were leaving, she gave us her best lugubrious look: 

Despite this blackmail, we duly headed off into the "end of half term" traffic with folks departing the West Country and heading home. All was well until we found that the nice Welsh roads folks had decided that it was a good weekend to close an M4 bridge over a junction near Newport. The information about it seemed innocuous enough with a simple diversion quoted:

However, the resulting carnage stuffed all the roads in the area as folks tried every approach to and around Newport to avoid the huge queues. We looked at the car satnav, an old TomTom and Google maps on the phone. They all offered different ways to try and get through it as fast as possible.As it was such a mess, we opted for a big loop round, going up into the valleys, across to the delights of Merthyr Tydfil and then down to Cardiff again. Wonderful. The one good thing was just beating the rain as we got back onto the boat. 

Boat moving and shoulder fun (only it wasn't)

During a little wander around Cheltenham, we discovered how the well heeled folks there got a bargain at the local John Lewis store:

This struck us as a cracking deal. Perhaps we should have partaken and then eBayed them for a profit? Actually £400 for a hair styler sounds extortionate to us. Especially as the captain has little use for hair care products. He can count all of his remaining ones quite quickly.

Returning to Penarth we had the fun of another ocean voyage. Only this time using someone else's diesel. How good is that? Yes, the huge trip was moving Martin and Inge's boat Malaspina from her temporary mooring in the marina to a hammerhead berth directly astern of us.  Our new view aft, which looks way better than when we had the plastic navy pretend warship thing (that cannot go to sea in bumpy conditions) to admire:

From the aft cockpit we get a rather good view of the sparkly clean and tidy Malaspina in her new home:

Penarth is a bit of a Nordhavn creche, two of the three N47s that are in the UK at the moment are berthed next door to each other. The third one is also in a Boatfolk marina too, Haslar in Gosport. Captain Rae, the ex Lightning pilot proper chap who has starred in here many times before, has his 47 residing in Dun Laoghaire at the moment. He is so missing out although he is probably enjoying better Guinness and rugby success..

As the boats are pretty rare, Penarth marina added a Facebook post:

which then was reposted by the Nordhavn Europe folks. We really MUST start asking for royalties.

Moving Malaspina was a little weekend job, as was a chance to get out on the Brompton bikes on a dry and not too windy day. Then reality struck. The captain had an appointment for shoulder surgery - to remove a spur of bone which was abrading the tendons over time and causing rather too much discomfort in his right shoulder. So, a trip to the Vale hospital, a rather nice room: 

and then a less than nice keyhole operation. Actually being under a general anaesthetic you really cannot tell how unpleasant it is having four holes cut into your shoulder, a camera inserted and a chunk of bone ground away. Coming too again, the food options were very tempting only most were too tricky to eat single handed (and using the non-dominant one too):

Pasta was his friend. All in all, the care from the staff there was excellent. 12 hours in the place more or less and they made it as good as it could possibly be. The captain left with a rather natty sling, plenty of painkillers, exercise sheets and "something" to help with the possible after-effects of the codeine tablets they provided. 

After a couple of days, the sling could be discarded except for overnight and Dave the doorstop dog (a purchase in Cheltenham for the Toddlers) seemed to quite like his new coat:

Fortunately the initial recovery went OK, the consultant reported the surgery as very successful (ie the patient didn't expire) and the painkillers could be eased off way quicker than we expected. Plenty of exercises and being ultra careful follow for at least 6 weeks. We hope that things will be ready in time for the new cruising season.

Storms, Hythe, old times (well, not that old) and preparing for an operation

Sometimes, you get to be almost famous for 5 minutes. Well, this is the best we can offer. Have a look at Nordhavn Europe website link  We need to discuss the copyright on our images though. 

A planned cat sitting trip to Hampshire was cancelled when Ann and Martin, the owners of said cat, were pretty much forced to move house rather than go off on vacation. The joys of the English approach to house sales with a chain of buyers involved. Instead we headed to Hythe and stayed in Toddlerville for a few nights. We had the delight of a trip to the local waste recycling site (better known as "the tip / dump" to we older folks) where we were treated to rudeness by the rather grumpy staff. If anyone can explain why a waste recycling centre doesn't take glass bottles and jars, that would be of interest.

More fun was a trip to the Nordhavn Europe offices in Swanwick marina and lunch with the team there. It kind of made up for the lack of royalties on our pictures. We also visited the Golden Arrow folks in Southampton to collect a couple of the wildly expensive ZF gearbox filters. The credit card shivered gently. Luckily one was to replace a filter we had given to Martin (Mr Malaspina) and the other was a spare for him. I calmed the credit card down with that news.

The captain visited the farm run by the supermarket chain Waitrose. Not for produce but to meet a couple of reprobates that he used to work with. Lovely location, nice cafe / restaurant and shop too: 

We did the "old retired characters" thing, were amused at some of the stuff that Chris had in store (eg old Rover Financial Services calculators - he had never worked for them and claimed to be storing them for Mr Bishop) and much enjoyed catching up. The captain is now convinced that in comparison, he is not a hoarder. Chris admitted to having every bank statement filed away bar the first two, since he opened an account at the age of 15. It would not be nice to mention his age here but that lot must take up several ring binders.

We haven't mentioned the goddog for a while - well, the poor girl needed an operation to remove a (fortunately) benign lump from her head. We met Anne and conehead as she is now known for lunch and admired Izzy's new look. We brought a lamb bone and watching her manage to chew it and remove the marrow whilst in the cone of shame was most impressive (and very entertaining too). She did look quite forlorn:

We are pleased to report that conehead has now been removed though and all is well.

Being social continued with refreshments and cake at a neighbours in Hythe and a dinner out in Barry with Simon (the man renovating his "Norvette" - a Corvette 32) and Nikki before returning to batten down the hatches. Yes, yet another storm was on the way.

Here is how the Windy website saw the incoming wind pattern:

and yes the more red it gets the worse it is. The different thing about this storm is that nearly all of the UK was getting clobbered.  The resulting wave heights were pretty evil:

and in case you are wondering, the white bits to the west of Ireland are even bumpier than the red bit! It was forecast to peak with over 10 metre waves. We just made sure our mooring lines were OK, the RIB cover was secured and stayed inside. Friends in Northern Ireland reported it as pretty horrid. One sent us this AIS track of the route the Stena ferry followed at night when approaching Belfast: 

Yes, it was too windy for them to attempt entering the narrow channel up to Belfast and to dock so they did several circles just north of Bangor waiting for things to calm down. The passengers must have been so happy / violently ill.Guess what, two days after that storm, the next one came through just to amuse us..... We are getting more and more bored with this weather pattern.

Maintenance news:

Since the captain is going to be slightly incapacitated from the end of January when he gets shoulder surgery, we tried to complete most of the must do maintenance tasks before the boating season starts. Hence the genset and wing had fuel filter changes, a gearbox oil change for the wing, the genset was due for and treated to an oil and filter swap and the main had fuel filters swapped too. Quite a pile of old filters to dispose of. A new filter for the Seagull water purifying thing will be needed soon and we must admit to having almost ignored the RIB outboard - no winter oil change took place. The one saving grace is that it did very few hours last year so the oil will not be too contaminated yet. That will have to wait until the Captain has a properly functioning shoulder once more. 

And then it was 2024 - how did that happen?

We had a quiet Xmas planned, bar a lovely Xmas eve dinner with Simon and Nikki at their house. As it rained and then rained some more, we didn't even get off the boat on Xmas day. However, it was a good one.

Between Xmas and New Year, Martin and Inge who own the other Nordhavn 47 here (Malaspina) were around so our social activities picked up, taking them to Castell Coch and then to Cardiff central for their massively delayed train to London.

Just as the world was waking up again on the 2nd, we drove to the Land Rover dealer near Hay-on-Wye to drop our car in for some work. We picked up a loan car, had a nose around the showroom and proceeded through flooded roads to a hotel near Tewkesbury. There was plenty of standing water, some deep areas to slowly wade through and generally, it was pretty horrid. We would have stayed on board if we hadn't been booked in to the dealer (sorry, they like to be called retailers now). Typically, during the worst weather in ages, we were not in our Defender with a 900mm wading capability but a Velar loan car.

The following morning we drove into Tewkesbury and went for a wander as the incessant rain had finally finished. There was plenty of water in places that it should not have been - the large car park was not really useful:. 

and camping or caravanning would have been tricky:

Luckily the Abbey was all OK and very beautiful too:

The rivers had well and truly flooded, up to the lower window level on this converted building:

and we doubt that anyone will be disobeying the "no parking" sign:

There are so many lovely old buildings in the town and there was a pretty famous boat builder too:

No, not the playwright, this W Shakespeare was famous for powerboat racing and for building speedboats. Have a look at Website history  for a bit more information on him.

We left the town and headed back to the boat, this time via the motorways in case the flooding on the prettier route had got worse. That proved to be a good decision as the day after we left, Tewkesbury was pretty much cut off. See this Yahoo news weblink

As it had finally stopped raining (the torrents were replaced by near zero temperatures and chilly winds), we dug out the little folding bikes and used them for trips around Cardiff and beyond. When the wind finally calmed down too, the boat had a much needed wash to remove all the green gunge that had grown in the strangest of places. A seriously tiring day's work. The boat needed a run out so we did our usual up and down the bay thing. When the crew fired up the kettle, we got the highest output from our domestic alternator that we have ever seen:

157 amps (it actually went up to 160). Normally when we are underway with the kettle on it hits 130 or so as a maximum but this time we were also running the heating system so the demand was higher. The alternator was pretty cold (as they heat up they always generate much less than their rated output). which helped it churn out so much power - it is rated as 175 amps at 24v so it is a pretty powerful beast.

Pottering up and down the bay, drinking tea was good until we tried to start the wing engine to give it a run too. It happily turned over on the starter but would not fire up. No obvious cause either. Bad words were said and we headed back to our berth. Here is the usual strange track we followed:

with the bend in it to follow the deepest water in the bay. Some areas get very shallow.

Although it was cold, the sun tempted us out on the bikes again, suitably attired:

and we consumed much needed coffee and pastries before returning and washing the salt off the little bikes. Cycling during the week is so much nicer than at weekends though, Why do so many people think they can walk / jog / run / exercise their dog on the cycle path when there is a perfectly good pedestrian bit too?

Maintenance News:

Well, despite the poorly shoulder, the captain needed to figure out why the wing engine that has been so well behaved for nearly 15 years decided not to start during our run around the bay. The starter would turn but the motor refused to fire up. A little investigation was undertaken on the basis that to run, old tech diesels are simple beasts, liking some air, a little fuel and a teeny bit of electrical power. There was no good reason why air could get into the filters / injection pump but that was checked first in case the system needed bleeding. Nope, all was good. The feed to the stop/start solenoid on the injection pump rack was disconnected and tested for 24v power when the ignition was "on". Only there was none. That suggested a dead "run" relay. The challenge was identifying which one of the two relays in the little box was for run and which for start. The Lugger documentation didn't tell us and the wiring diagram helpfully identified the wire colours but as they were all enclosed in a plastic chafe protector.....

Never having won the lottery, you could predict what happened. The first relay was swapped out for a spare and still no start. Then the second and the wing happily burst into life. Result. we left the new replacement in the start position too - they are of the same vintage and have been shaken around in exactly the same way thanks to the little 4 cylinder poorly balanced engine so it made sense to do a pre-emptive swap.

Here are the new relays in their home, before the cover was refitted:

For the folks who might just be interested, the one to the back (gearbox) end of the motor is the run relay.

Feeling happy the engine had an oil and filter change. Only when it was restarted, the new oil filter leaked! Not at all amused. It looked as though the filter had a little split in the sealing ring - not from over-tightening it either. So, clean up, put another oil filter on and all was, finally, well. The sore shoulder was unimpressed with so much leaning over the engine and "doing things". Yes, the filter and the relays are on the outboard side of the wing engine and there is a nice wiring loom running in front of the filter to make access even easier.