To Ottawa - testing the trains

After the fun of Montreal (and the fun of adjusting to the new time zone), we had to move on to sample pastures - or even cities - new. Ottawa was our chosen target and the challenge had been a simple one. How to get there? A flight with someone like Air Canada costs a small fortune and lasts no time at all. A one way hire car did not seem appropriate so we'd opted to test out the Canadian trains to see if they could be as unreliable / uncomfortable as our recent UK experiences. The trip was only 185Km and around 2 hours but was not friendly price-wise if you wanted to take luggage. Kind of Ryanair style ticket pricing. As the posh Business class ticket cost little more than an economy version with bags, we opted to go posh. It gave us a lounge to use whilst waiting (that was handy as in true UK style boarding was delayed) and lunch on board. We were at the end of the carriage and the best meal options had run out by the time they got to us. However, the crew managed hers manfully - or should that be womanfully?

The train was comfy enough but we were surprised at how rough the ride was for much of the trip - the permanent way certainly needed some attention. Way worse than on most UK mainline services. This little video shows how the coat hangers danced to the tune of the steel tracks, not the music ones:

Despite that, it was a good trip with a chance to seem some proper rural locations on the way too. Watching the freight trains pass us by,  often with 100 wagons in a rake, was quite something compared to the "baby" train stuff we are used to at home. The only trouble on our arrival was finding our way to the public transport links as we arrived in Ottawa.  Poor signs and location maps. The good bit was that they have a new metro system called the O Train and it links to the airport. We were staying in an airport hotel so we bought a nice cheap transport pass and headed out there. The second of the trains we used reminded us of the Edinburgh trams - painfully slow! However, it all worked well.

We kind of fell in love with Ottawa. Friendlier than Montreal (less sniffy about English language use too), a small city centre with a great mix of old and new buildings. This reflection of the parliament estate buildings in the windows of a new block kind of sums it up:

Following on from the last cathedral experience, we had to see the Ottawa offering. Less "visitor friendly" but equally beautiful:

with another glorious interior:

The museum opposite was suitably futuristic as were the sculptures outside. The sort of thing that you would not want to bump into on a dark night after a couple of drinks:

The point on which the museum was build showed the link to the "First Nations" people - something that we became more and more familiar with:

It also had good views back towards the Rideau Canal entrance and government buildings:

Being boating types, we had to walk along the canal and admire the flight of locks at the entrance:

The canal is a UNESCO World Heritage site, have a look at this Wikipedia link for more information on it. We noticed real similarities to the Caledonian canal in Scotland - not a surprise as both were constructed by the UK military to give safe passage to their ships. The hooks used in the lock chambers for transiting craft to pass a rope around were pretty similar in shape to the ones we'd used in Scotland:

One huge difference of course is the number of petrol (gas) powered boats using the waterways compared to the UK / Europe where diesel is king. This sign in the locks: 

made sense - avoiding nasty petrol vapour explosions when boats are restarting their engines after locking through. Once boats have transited the lock flight things were comparatively quiet and pretty weed infested too. Some folks seemed to find paddleboarding exhausting:

The anti-Trump feelings were pretty clear from the pavements:

and the signs in many shops:

We quite understood why. 

More Montreal

Montreal had some "interesting" arty constructions, like this odd circle affair in the rather prosperous looking downtown area linking two office blocks but for no obvious reason:

The city also has some strange looking and controversial housing that was built for the 1967 Expo. Well worth having a look at the website  Habitat 67 website  - here is a distant view from across the river to give you a flavour of it:

The concept of modules linked in a way so that they all had serious amounts of privacy was pretty clever but a little like Marmite for the local inhabitants. The waterfront hosted a couple of large marinas, old grain stores and the Jacques Cartier bridge:

which for the terminally bored is apparently the third busiest bridge in Canada. The joys of building a city on an island....  We have to question some of the city planning decisions though. This church tower looked a little out of place, or should we say that the things erected around it are very out of place?

No such problem with the cathedral. Truly amazing place. Stunning architecture and attention to detail within, emphasised by clever, atmospheric lighting:

The enormous balcony area dedicated to the organ was quite something. The instrument has over 7000 pipes so must sound quite amazing. Our visit wasn't at the right time to experience it though: 

After all that culture (the cathedral was one of those rare places that just makes you stand and stare for ages), we did the proper touristy thing and took a boat trip. Yes, we were missing the boating fix. Our craft was less than elegant:

but gave us views of the old Olympic stadium and the massive dock area. Miles of alongside berths, mainly empty at the time we visited. The trip was shared with three ladies from Chicago who bemoaned the weather and possibility of being shot in their home city. Mum was enjoying her trip and as a 90 year old was setting a great example for older folks:

After the rather sedate trip, we walked the length of the waterfront and admired the bungee jumpers - the larger framed ones only just avoided a dunking before they were hoisted skywards once more. The little dinghy that was used to rescue them from the bungee line and ferry them back to the shore once the oscillations had stopped was amusing. It looked way more dangerous being released into the dinghy than actually doing the jump:

Montreal was great. Cheap public transport with only one major drawback - the airport which is pretty busy, is only served by road at the moment. The bus service was OK but the traffic around the airport was manic. Roll on the train link they are constructing. We enjoyed a wonderful Indian fusion meal, some good coffee and cake stops and learning more about the city in general. So far the trip was going well.

Going Canadian

Whilst Martin and Inge (the ex owners of  Malaspina, a Nordhavn 47) were staying with us earlier in the year, they told us that we had to visit Canada. They then suggested a couple of must do things which we could hardly refuse. You can learn about those in later posts. Suffice to say that we ended up at Heathrow for a BA flight to Montreal. We chilled in the lounge before the flight, amazed at how miserable / distracted some folks can be:

Her face never cracked - not once. The crew on the other hand, had the serious business of organising some food and a glass of fortification to keep her going until she got fed on the plane:

BA had a deal going on - pay for premium economy, get a business class ticket. It felt like old times for the captain, settling into the nice pod seat, having dinner then enjoying a snooze in the flat bed it converts into. For the crew,  it was a first experience of "turning left" on a plane and it has created a monster. Future longer haul travel is unlikely to be at the back of the plane. The BA boarding process was a mess (as usual). Why they consistently get it wrong after so many years of practice is beyond belief. After a nice flight with OK service, we then spent 40 minutes taxiing around Montreal airport trying to get a gate. The BA pilot announced that it was his record time spent circling an airport too. Luckily for us, it really did not matter much as we were staying in an airport hotel and had no need to rush around the following morning.

Our first experience of the Montreal area (crew hadn't been to Canada before, the captain had only been to the Toronto district)  showed that some Canadians have poor automotive taste:

The Cybertruck looks even worse in the metal than in pictures by the way. We headed into the city, wandered around enjoying the architecture:

and wondering if we had landed in Paris by mistake:

The "you don't speak French" thing was quite noticeable until people realised we were English when it became more acceptable. The crew, despite many hours refreshing her French language studies on Duolingo, stuck to English too. We were blessed with wonderful warm weather allowing some great walks around the city centre and waterfront. This preserved old tug just looked so much like a bathtub toy:

We enjoyed an excellent first lunch out in a restaurant that seemed to serve the "business lunch" folks - we were rather casual compared to most diners and our conversation was way less employment focussed. However, not all of the locals were that worried about work:

It didn't look too comfortable though.

More toddling and a little bit of winter prep

After a couple of weeks in Hythe, the crew returned for a few days so we could celebrate an anniversary (big one) and birthday (semi-big one). We try to avoid mentioning the numbers now, they feel so wrong.

Before celebrations began, work was required.  We put the wrap back over the newly painted exhaust.  Always a tricky job and it was boiling hot to make it even more challenging.  Then it was time to drop the dinghy to polish the port side of the hull.  A perfect job to do in hot weather whilst in the shade.  It was satisfying to get that done.  Next we had to give the boat a run around the bay to warm up the machinery and flush some fresh water through the wing engine cooling system. It was a lovely calm day for the pretty boring trundle up and down. It might be boring but having the sheltered bay is so handy, it lets us exercise the boat pretty much no matter what the weather is up to during the winter period. The usual strange track from our AIS ensued:

However, the boat behaved well, the freshly painted exhaust silencer smelt of cooking paint and the electronics all behaved too. That was a good start. We even got the boat to turn and reverse onto our berth through the thick weed (low water levels thanks to no rainfall in ages) with no use of the thrusters. That was planned as we were worried about what vegetation they might suck up and jam on.

The anniversary and birthday forced us to suffer two visits to the Pilot pub in Penarth - great place, good food, sensible prices. Then the crew returned to Toddlerville to take over the looking after things role from her brother. The Captain did a home alone thing. Some polishing of the starboard side of the hull to protect it for the winter but the weather conspired against him. It was wonderfully sunny which prevented finishing off the starboard side as it was in direct sun all day. The transom could be done but only before around 1pm. Then, when the sunny spell finally broke, there were showers followed by direct sun. Far from ideal for polishing. 

The captain occupied himself by taking the bike out for some exercise, doing domestic stuff and a few internal maintenance jobs. An F pontoon impromptu party evening was good - several berth holders, fish and chips were collected and a little alcohol might have been consumed. Not by the captain of course:

The Nordhavn made a good backdrop to a sociable time. Simon and Nikki, who had joined us at the Pilot, kindly took pity and invited the captain for lunch on the bank holiday Monday. A very good curry and the chance to have some cuddles with their new hound. Sydney:

Meanwhile the crew was slaving in Hythe, cooking, cleaning and reminding Mrs Toddler about her recovery exercises which were going very well indeed. They were watching the cricket hundreds avidly as the captain cycled past the stadium in Cardiff:

where the Welsh team took on the Trent Rockets:

Big happy crowds filled the road and path heading to the venue. We guess they were less happy when they left as the Welsh team lost.

As a final hurrah before he headed to Hythe, the captain took the train into the city to do some footwear shopping. Big mistake, the place was crawling with bank holiday week vacation folks and the yet to go back to school ankle-biters. After struggling to find any floor space in a couple of shops, he had a semi-brainwave. Since Transport for Wales were offering a £1 flat fare on any journey, he took the train to Caerphilly which was way quieter and had a couple of "shed retailers" that might be useful. First of all, a visit to the castle was needed. We'd been many years ago before a big revamp and renovation was undertaken. It was a good wander around:. 

and the old moat area looked pretty good too:

Then it all went wrong - the shop didn't have the required shoe size in stock and back at the station it was the normal public transport carnage:

As you can see, the heading of "live trains" was a bit of a joke, they were all very very dead. We do wonder how nationalisation of the trains will help - Network rail who run the infrastructure are  effectively central government controlled. Transport for Wales have been run by the Welsh government for years too. 

Luckily, the captain returned to Hythe using a hire car. The only excitement to report is to tell readers not to buy a Peugeot 2008 unless they like a rather bouncy ride (spring damping is strange) and a clutch pedal so close to the footrest that can stop you from depressing the thing. Not ideal.

Back in Hythe we cooked, cleaned, shopped and did a few maintenance bits and bobs for the house and also for Mrs Toddler who needed a doctor visit to sort out some plumbing issues. In the boatyard was the strangest sight:

A tender from the passenger liner,  Queen Mary 2. We wonder if they missed it. It almost felt like our liner curse was appearing on dry land too. 

Toddling along

Upon our return to sunny Penarth we had a lunch break, then had fun washing the salt off the boat (there was plenty of it) and generally preparing for the crew to depart. The following day we both took the train into Cardiff.  We stopped for a coffee before the departure of the train to Southampton which the crew had a pre-booked ticket for. The so called advance ticket is the only way to do that trip at a vaguely sensible price.

Guess what, the train she was booked onto was then cancelled. As was the following one (they are hourly by the way). With her stress levels already through the roof, this really helped a lot but is typical for the horrid so-called service between Cardiff and Portsmouth. A nice lady in the booking office understood the urgency of getting to Toddlerville and gave her the OK to take the route via Reading which normally costs about twice that of the direct train (but is often quicker) thanks to our ludicrous train pricing. Perhaps they charge so much more as you are likely to get a seat and a half decent train travelling that way?

She finally made it and settled into a routine of hospital visiting / cooking etc. The captain joined her a few days later after doing some boat polishing  to remove more of the fallout from the Devonport fire we "enjoyed" earlier in the summer, It was in time for Mr Toddler's 92nd birthday. Despite the circumstances, this was celebrated in style. Fizz, roast dinner and an excellent crumble for pudding courtesy of Izzy's owner, Anne. Mr T looked suitably happy:

The round of hospital visits, small shopping excursions into Hythe (thank you Mr Lidl and Mr Waitrose), cooking for Mr T and general house stuff continued. Meanwhile, Mrs T was making an excellent recovery from her stroke, so much so that she just had to wear one of the many pairs of "distinctive" sunglasses that she owns:

The level of care and attention in Southampton General (OK, they have renamed it but the locals still know it under that name) was variable. Excellent for the stroke treatment initially. Good staff on the day shift but the night-time lot were more than disinterested. Naturally being admitted initially during the resident doctors strike didn't help. A microcosm of our NHS challenges was behind the bed that Mr T finally ended up in (after being woken up at 1:30am so they could move her, one of 4 moves that day. Er, is that any way to handle a 90 year old recovering from a stroke???? This kind of summarised  the messed up processes they operate:

At least they have a huge Costa in the entrance area, which we frequented regularly and didn't seem to be run with NHS efficiency.....

After a few days, the captain returned to the boat. Easier said than done as it was a hot day (30 centigrade outside) and the wonderful rail service that we might just have complained about before, once again delighted. Turning up, almost full already, to a packed platform in Southampton were three antique commuter carriages. The melee to get a seat followed. The captain had already sharpened his elbows and managed to so so. On the "sunny side of the train" though which was to prove a mistake. Why? Because the train manager kept on telling us to hydrate as the air con was not working on the train. He was not kidding. It was roasting and a rammed full train did not help either. We were kindly told that if the temperatures were too much for us to contact him. No idea how you could get through the carriage that was full with miserable folks standing for the 150 minute journey and their luggage / tents / sleeping bags which were everywhere. Apparently there was a festival starting. The only plus point was that the festival was starting, had it been the end of it, the folks might have been a little bit ripe

Maintenance news:

The captain removed the grills on the fibreglass stack, then the wrap from the exhaust silencer (or muffler as the USA folks like to call it) to inspect how rusty it had become. We aim to check and repaint it every 3 years to try and prolong its life. Amazingly it looks like it was in pretty good nick:

with some of the paint starting to flake but little corrosion on the top flange which tends to hold any water running down . It was the first bit to corrode through in the original silencer.  The sides were also pretty OK:

so the thing was cleaned up and given another couple of coats of high temperature paint. We took advice on which one to use from Michael, the owner of the N40 Coracle - he knows about that kind of thing having built and run a steam railway. It is a tricky job, the access isn't great but anything we can do to extend the life of the unit has to be worthwhile. Hopefully this one will corrode in due course from the inside out, not the other way around. Replacing it is messy. For proof have a look at this blog post

The captain could not refit the exhaust wrap alone, way too heavy and tricky to manhandle into place so that had to wait for the crew to return. It did mean that the nicely painted silencer was proudly on display for a while though.

Falmouth back to Penarth

The tide times were pretty kind, allowing us to leave at a reasonably civilised 7am or so. There were a couple of tankers and one freight ship anchored in the bay to the south of Falmouth and of course all of them were on the route the autopilot wanted to take:

They are the blue triangles that sit cosily close to the grey course line. It kept us awake, dodging the pot markets and the ships. Funnily enough, the ships were way easier to spot.

Passing the Manacles buoy, we saw a serious number of seabirds, mainly gannets, diving into the water and several dolphins engaged in a feeding frenzy that must have decimated the shoal of fish around them. The dolphins were so keen to eat their fill that only a few of them wanted to come and play in our bow wave. Quite a spectacle. 

We gave Lizard point a good clearance as it was the usual bumpy stuff, around there, heading almost as far out as some of the smaller commercial ships, like this little container feeder thing:

As we approached Land's End so it got fruitier, pretty much as expected. The wind was on the nose, the tide was, as planned, luckily slightly against us but all the same the waves were a reasonable size and there was plenty of pitching going on. The crew was helming at the time and the captain was in the engine room checking that all was well with the big Lugger and pumping some fuel from the storage tanks into the supply tank. Down there might be noisy and hot but there is way less movement than higher up in the pilothouse. Plenty of spray over the boat to wash off when we get back....

Here is the first part of the route:

We cut close inshore at Land's End as you get a nice "back eddy" from the tide that takes you north even though the main tidal flow was still running to the south. Free fuel time. As we turned to head up the Cornish coastline the sea conditions were "interesting". Several days of a NW wind had dragged up some fair sized waves that were on top of the normal swell coming across the Atlantic from the SW. The result was a bit of a sloppy mess which the stabilisers worked hard to counteract. We normally run the boat with the stabilisers set to a speed of 12 knots. Obviously the faster they think you are going, the less they think they need to move to counteract any roll. The boat runs nicely like that, gentler movements and way less wear and tear on the stabiliser bearings too. Well, to keep the boat stable we had to wind the speed setting down a lot:

The black bars show how far the fins are moving - that is about 2/3 deflection. We failed to get a picture showing them at full movement which was needed quite a lot. 

We plodded along the coast, it got dark and the FLIR was in action again. Approaching Hartland Point, the crew was again at the helm and this time the captain was having a snooze. The crew described the sea state seen on the FLIR as "like a washing machine". It does get messy there! We crawled through it pushing against the tide and into calmer waters as we progressed through the Bristol Channel:

Hartland point is where the NE track "kinks" towards the east. This image of the route misses out the first part from Falmouth. Why? Because we are mean and refuse to pay a subscription to the folks like Marine Traffic so we only get 24 hours worth of track available. The trip took 27.

As we approached Cardiff we wanted to make the 10:15 lock in rather than mess about for a half hour in the slightly foggy, gloomy conditions outside. So, our 1650 rpm cruise speed was wound up to 1800 (wild extravagance with the fuel) and then a good wide open throttle burn for the final bit to clean up the exhaust and engine innards. There is a fuel burn table in the useful stuff section of the blog but to give you an idea with a heavily laden boat (nearly full of fuel) we were burning around 11 lph to do 6.4 knots (that included the extra diesel needed as the stabilisers were VERY active). Running at 2350 to do 8.5 knots in calmer water used 33.5 lph. The law of diminishing returns and all that.

We were alone locking in to the barrage - in fact we didn't see any other pleasure craft after Land's End, perhaps as it wasn't really pleasurable out there. The guys operating the lock came out for a chat and told us how much they liked the boat. We got VIP treatment, lock to ourselves and as soon as we were ready they locked us through, no waiting for the allotted time. A friendly greeting from the Penarth marina folks and we happily berthed back in "our spot" after a struggle to turn the boat around in the weedy conditions (the weed grabs the long keel and kind of stops you from spinning round as you would in clearer, deeper waters). Normally we are not in Penarth during peak weed growing season!

The trip was a 27 hour one, no dramas on the maintenance front to report. We did top up the coolant a little the following day. No visible leaks though and not much was put in. The big Lugger, overhauled stabilisers and navigation gear all behaved as did the Zeus alternator regulator. It still does not like using the "high tech" connection to the battery management system via the Victron monitoring box. That just drops out after a while. However, the simple bit of wire that senses battery voltage works perfectly. Old tech, just like the captain and crew perhaps.

Having made it to Penarth we booked a train ticket for the crew so she could get back to Toddlerville and look after Mr T and visit Mrs T in hospital. The captain would stay a few days to tidy up the boat and do some of the "must do" maintenance things. To try and stay awake plus get some exercise,  we even dug out the bikes and went for a cycle trip into the city. Actually, it felt good - some stress relief time.

Fowey to Falmouth

It rained. That added to the gloomy mood on board. After we'd looked at the weather forecast and tides for a trip back to Penarth, we decided that the best option was to head to either Falmouth or the Helford river anchorage, then leave the following morning to head around to Cardiff bay.  The forecast was far from ideal for the longer trip but it had to be done. The lovely old saying "the most dangerous thing on a boat is a calendar" is so true, time pressure can cause some silly and potentially dangerous go/no-go decisions. This one was not at that level, it was just going to be a bit livelier than we would wish for.

We backed off the nice mid-river pontoon in Fowey as the rain really picked up. By the time we were out of the harbour and we were back inside the pilothouse, it had stopped. Yup, perfect start. A simple trip with a bit of tidal help followed, just plenty of pot markers to dodge on the way - the last few settled days seem to have tempted all the inshore fishing boats out to throw every single pot they have into the sea.

The trip looks like this:

if you are the kind of person who studies charts or maps a lot. It looked like fairly calm sea (wind was coming off the land), some grey clouds and a couple of dolphins if you were observing from our pilothouse. Where to overnight? Well, the quickest start to our return "home" run would be from the Helford river. However, the lure of a proper shop in Falmouth to get some food was strong - Fowey mini-market really isn't too tempting and we were running out of things that looked healthy. Hence we went wild, spent a small fortune and had a night in Port Pendennis marina. The view of the RFA ships was pretty normal:

but we didn't realise just how dilapidated some of that fleet has become - one being detained in port as being deemed unsafe to go to sea by the authorities. Read this  Newspaper article to get a feel for how the navy auxiliary ships are in trouble. Sad state of affairs, maybe some of the much talked about but not visible increase in defence spending will go to them.

We raided Tesco, treated ourselves to a coffee and cake out then returned to prepare for what was going to be a bit of a delivery trip tomorrow. We'd had better days.