Plymouth exploration then to Lymington

After an evening of catching up on life, the universe and everything, we walked around the city with Andrew and Linda. The centre is still in chaos with lots of building work after all the trouble with the trees that were removed sneakily by the council. We so hope it is worth the upheaval and cost - personally we think they have to flatten most of the ugly postwar shops too. However, it is easy enough to escape to the Hoe (the waterfront area) and to be tempted by the coffee and sweet treats at the favourite stall near the Mayflower steps. We resisted this time though:.

Optimising the tide times for a trip to Lymington meant a late afternoon departure. As most marinas want you out by noon, we asked in the office if we could have a short stay berth from noon until around 4:30. The nice folks told us we could just stay there, nothing to pay. Apparently they don't evict visitors until 3pm anyway. We always love the friendly and helpful reception there.

So, after another wander, a raid on the local Lidl shop and a very full rucksack for Andrew, we returned to prepare the boat for departure. The Border Force craft on the outside of the breakwater was abandoned by the crew, the fenders were riding up onto the pontoon and the hull was rubbing nicely against the timber:

We decided not to try tucking them back as we are sure there would have been CCTV images of us that could have been misinterpreted.  Mind you, seeing something that we buy with our taxes being treated like that was not nice. So, we headed out and enjoyed the last bit of sun and a fair tide heading towards Salcombe. We had purposefully put in a couple of waypoints well south of there as we knew it was an area rife with fishing pot markers that we would be transiting through in the dark.  Sure enough there were plenty of them, even 2.5 miles offshore. The FLIR was busy, this image just giving you an idea of how the wave pattern looks:

Once clear of the pot area, things were easier, we settled in to doing watches and that was simpler for us than normal as Andrew did some as well. The sea was calming down nicely, the stabilisers were not working hard at all and things were going well with only a few fishing boats who had turned off their AIS system to track on the radar. Somehow they always seemed to be close and a nuisance when the crew was on watch. 

We arrived south of Portland Bill in perfect time for some strong tidal help as you can see from the plotter image:

For non boating folks, the yellow / red arrows are showing the tidal strength and direction, in other words going with us and a good 2 knots or so. Lovely assistance, at some points we were managing more than 10 knots over the ground. Things stayed quiet until a glorious sunrise - here seen through a grubby windscreen:

You can see the early morning condensation on the deck, it hadn't been raining or rough enough to splash sea water up there. Just off the Isle of Wight is a narrow channel passing the Needles rocks and an area known as the Bridge - seeing the big cardinal buoy there made us think that we were nearly back in our old stomping ground:

The tide carried us nicely up the Needles channel to Hurst castle:

and then into the Solent itself. We were well before  noon which Lymington harbour quotes as the earliest possible arrival time but we called them on the radio, hopefully. It was our lucky day - the Dan Bran pontoon was almost empty as the Saturday overnighters had all left to take the tide east. We could head straight in and moor, passing the little yacht race hut thingy that has stood at the river entrance for many many years:

Suitably tied up on the pontoon we managed lunch, showers and then a walk into town. Lymington has changed a fair bit recently, it looks a little less prosperous but still very appealing. We did struggle to see how anyone could drive a car down this entrance though - Andrew stood in the picture to give you an idea of size:

After a very good dinner in the Kings Head pub, we returned to the boat just as it was getting to be dusk. Quite an atmospheric and calm evening:

All in all pretty good weather and company.

Maintenance news:

Well....... Ages ago, the Ultra pump switch for our main bilge packed up and refused to turn on the pump. We were in sunny Northern Ireland at the time and getting a like for like replacement was mission impossible. The only ones in the UK were 12v not 24 volt units. So, the captain got hold of and fitted a little Whale switch instead that worked just fine.  Captain Rae, the slightly famous owner of Albatross, another Nordhavn 47,  helped get a new Ultra switch from the USA for us. It was a painful process but not the fault of Capt Rae, more the US Postal Service. 

We were going to fit the new switch during our annual liftout fun but fate wanted it done earlier. The little Whale switch didn't want to turn off the pump after kicking it into life. Bad news.

So, the captain and our most helpful and practical guest Andrew went to swap it out for the brand new Ultra switch, like this one: 

The slight challenge was that the wiring  on that was very different to the wiring on the original - the factory had clearly played around with things. We had real fun (yes, that was British understatement) checking the wiring, connecting up the pump, figuring out why the switch was properly powered up but the pump would not run and finally cracking it. What should have been an hour's job at the most turned into a much much longer process. A learning opportunity indeed, but not one we wanted. Poor Andrew.

Anyway, the thing is installed and working properly and the little Whale sender seems to be OK - it had some contamination on it which upsets the senders. Cleaned up it worked fine when tested.  We now have a spare. We hope never to need it. Several hours bent over the little hatch playing with the switch and wiring were plenty enough in one human's lifetime. Our knees and backs said so.

Falmouth to Plymouth

Falmouth over the bank holiday was not really that busy. We were able to wander around, visit the shops for supplies and generally enjoy ourselves. Even the train to Truro on Easter Monday was not rammed. Norman picked us up from the station and took us to Wadebridge where we enjoyed the regulation cuddles with Indie the labrador and some ball throwing for Stanley, the ball obsessed Jack Russell. He hasn't changed much 

Norm and Julie took us to Padstow (or Padstein if you prefer since Rick Stein gentrified the place) where we saw a more normal crowd of holiday folks. Parking was tricky as was avoiding the folks who liked wandering into the road aimlessly as though they had bought the place. Perhaps because they owned a holiday home in Rock?

Lunch was at a Paul Ainsworth bistro place, Rojanos. 

Good food, sadly variable quality service though. The manager came up to talk to Norman after the meal and handled the issue very professionally. A flashback to being at work when we both thought "I would give her a job". So happy that we no longer need to worry about such things! 

The return to Falmouth on the train was subject to the usual railway fun. This time every other train (there are two an hour) from Truro was cancelled due to the guard being taken ill. Looked like nobody wanted to come in on a bank holiday and cover for him / her. We realised how we almost expect a train journey to go wrong now and how immune to it we have become. Luckily we were not still in Cardiff trying to travel around the valleys,  where things were in chaos thanks to emergency repairs to a bridge.

The clouds built and the wind had a real "edge" to it when we walked to Gyllyngvase beach. A few hardy souls were braving the water though:

As Andrew and Linda (the N43 Zephyros owners) were coming to join us the following day in Plymouth, we raided the Co-op and staggered back up the hill to a warm boat.

Leaving the happy place of Port Pendennis the next day was OK though. A chat with Mark the manager, a bit of boat prep for sea (not too bad as we'd not got things scattered everywhere this time) and then we headed out in nice sunny and pretty calm conditions. Here is the view astern of the marina and National Maritime Museum - the odd building with the tower on the left of the picture:

Plenty of fleet auxiliary craft and little patrol things were around in the commercial docks:

We happily headed out to sea again and barely needed the stabilisers as it was so nice (initially at least). Our favourite little lighthouse on St Anthony's head said farewell:

just as poorly marked fishing pots said hello, in a quiet and often almost impossible to spot way:

That one was tiny but colourful. The black cans or old transparent milk bottles are way worse. The trip across to Plymouth was pretty quiet apart from some pot marker spotting and dodging. All went well. Approaching Plymouth that all changed:

There were 4 naval vessels (one from Canada) exercising outside the harbour and then one entered to anchor in the approved area just north of the big breakwater.  It made the captain happy to hear that even the best professionals get it wrong. HMS Richmond called the port control folks four times asking if they were OK to drop their anchor and each time they were told that they were still not in the correct spot for anchorage number 7. On each occasion they were told how far and in which direction to move. Each time it didn't work.  Then another UK naval vessel was supposed o be deploying their seaboat which would enter the harbour to do a crew transfer. Several minutes later they called to say there was a problem launching it and they would swap to another. Then the radio on that boat was very poor and the port control folks got very frustrated with them.  We think that the captain of the Canadian warship must have been wondering about the competence of our navy. We did.

Heading up to Mayflower Marina was OK, a large naval supply ship was leaving so we had to hang around for that before going to our allotted berth on the inside of the breakwater. On the outside was a Border Force boat with lots of crew on board who were standing chatting. Strangely nobody offered to help our crew with the mooring  lines as we tied up opposite them. Normally folks help each other - official guys like police, harbour patrols etc too. Their ability to totally ignore everyone and everything going on around them was amazing and so different to our usual experiences.

We wandered up to the office, chatted to the lovely folks there, then met Andrew and Linda from their taxi and got them settled on board. It was lovely catching up.

No maintenance news to report, again the mechanical and electrical bits all worked OK. We gave the wing engine a little run approaching the harbour just to make it happy and  so it didn't feel ignored. We fear that the genset was jealous and might get even with us when we need it next.