Kingswear to Plymouth

Something strange is going on in Plymouth. We called our usual "backup plan" place to ask for a berth for a few days (the Yacht Haven which is out of the city over in Mount Batten and huge) to be told that they were full. Never before. Are we becoming too well known as troublesome types who write nasty things about some marina operators (MDL senior management / Dunstaffnage Marina spring to mind) from time to time? We've never been nasty about the Yacht Haven group, just the opposite in fact.

It would have been an ideal spot with Izzy on board, plenty of grass nearby for her to run on and for the evening pee trip. Instead we managed to find a slot in Mayflower, another friendly spot.

Things were pretty calm out to sea after the blowy few days we'd had. So much so that we could could run relatively close to Start Point where sometimes wind over tide and overfalls push you well out - hence the waypoint you can see on the plotter:

Why did we have a z shape in our track? A small inshore fishing boat decided to turn around near us and then shoot his nets and proceed to the west so we needed to go astern of him. We were not drunk, had not turned the autopilot off by mistake or put something large and magnetic near to the fluxgate compass.

Passing the entrance to Salcombe, we saw how the RNLI can spend our annual subscription in around 10 minutes:

Sorry for the fuzzy picture, it had to be taken through the glass as it was too chilly to venture outside and it was our lunchtime too. This lifeboat was heading for Poole and we guess refit time which makes our contribution seem even more infinitesimal. Sorry RNLI, we are "no income" people so you get what you get.

Plenty of pot markers to avoid crossing the bay towards Plymouth and a Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship announcing live gunnery firing practice nearby too, but luckily not in our direction.

As usual, the crew took the off watch role most seriously:

sporting slippers that have demented penguin faces on them. Patrick was not amused and ignored this spectacle totally. Smart penguin that one.

There were some more grey hulled things anchored just inside the breakwater at Plymouth:

and they make our boat cleaning challenges look so simple.

Mayflower Marina gave us our "normal" hammerhead on B pontoon rather than tucking us inside the breakwater which is even less well sheltered and quite a walk to the land. Because of this we opted to have a week here. A chance to do all the nice things locally that have amused us over the years. You will have to wait for the next update to know what they are but it is a fair bet that they will involve cake.

Maintenance news:

Nothing really. We gave the wing engine a good run on the approach to Plymouth and the prop must be nice and clean still as it pulled just over the expected maximum RPM. The boat was pretty heavy too - still lots of fuel on board and almost full of water thanks to the crew's permanent concern of finding a drought wherever we go.