Darting about whilst it was windy

After our little calm run from Plymouth, the forecast decided to become a little less appealing:

So, we happily hung around Dartmouth instead. Hanging around involved getting invited to a truly excellent Sunday roast at Bernie and Jenni's house. It also involved taking the gorgeous Beau the dog to Slapton sands for a run around and then up to Dartmouth castle too:

Although the sun was out you can guess about the wind from Beau's ears! Torcross, the little village next to the sands is a good spot off season:

We also witnessed some folks doing very strange things to the tank memorial there:

Yes, if you look closely, you will see that the guy was using a "Henry" vacuum cleaner to tidy up the tank. I bet that isn't part of the standard army operating procedure from the 1940s. If you haven't heard about it before, the tank was recovered from the sea and placed as a memorial to one of those second world war nightmare moments, when a US Army practice landing for D Day turned into a shooting fish in a barrel opportunity for German E boats. Have a look at Exercise Tiger.

We managed to tire out little Beau by then walking him up to Dartmouth Castle and back so our job was done:

What else did we get up to? Well, a trip to Totnes, more Beau walking and an excellent evening meeting Martin and Inge, the owners of another Nordhavn 47 called Malaspina. We were moored on the west side of the Dart river. They were on the East. We chatted until we realised that they had missed the last ferry back so a quick RIB launch and delivery service was needed. Great people. In fact we have liked nearly all the Nordhavn owners that we have met. Now, you have to guess which ones fit in the other category. Andrew and Linda - it is OK, they were not Welsh.... Michael, they did not have their own train set. Colin, they were not pilots.

Martin and Inge kindly helped to drink some of our gin stock. Poor (cross dressing) BA Captain Colin might find the cupboard bare if he doesn't hurry up and join us soon.

Dartmouth is a place you can easily get stuck in. When Bernie and Jenni invite you for dinner, loan you a car and generally make life so pleasant it is hard to move on. However a lift out next week beckons so we have to get going again.