Tinkering around and waiting for many things

Thanks to the half crown that the dentist was unhappy with, we had another trip to Hythe, this time a real whistlestop thing. Fortunately the replacement from the lab was a better fit to the other teeth and the nice dentist lady was happy with it. Our guess is that she had to be - it was costing them quite a lot and the cynic in us says that it was going to be fitted no matter what. An unfair comment probably, she seemed very intent on doing a good job.

The return run to Penarth was a little bit different and it ended up as a real pain - the M4 near Bristol was closed thanks to a truck fire so we had a monster diversion up country to avoid the carnage in that area. We had already made one diversion, heading to Fareham first to visit the vinyl supplier that the local trim shop uses. Getting the right thickness material with as little grain as possible for our pilothouse headlining was proving tricky so we went to look at the actual rolls of material and picked the one we wanted. We then brought it back with us to help speed up the job.

When we arrived back, the rather annoying trip was forgotten as we enjoyed this view of Malaspina astern of us:

Just a perfect evening albeit a tad chilly....  We then amused ourselves with bits of hull polishing, a run up through the Brecon Beacons in the drizzle (ended up driving through the clouds) and a rather good Sunday lunch with Simon and Nikki as a "farewell" thing in case we didn't get to see them again before we depart Penarth. 

Meanwhile, Martin and Inge, the owners of Malaspina had arrived from Canada, gone to the Netherlands and returned to Penarth. All rather hard to keep up with really. We much enjoyed catching up with them and admired their diligence in cleaning and polishing their already very shiny Nordhavn:

The picture gives you a good idea of just how high the bow is on a Nordhavn 47. Martin is no pygmy. 

Locally, the excitement was that the resident swans had a third go at making a nest and this time seemed serious about hatching whatever eggs she has produced - earlier on this spring they abandoned one egg in their first nest:

Maintenance news:

We pressed on with the hull polishing fun and made reasonable progress between rain showers and freezing cold winds. Wayne, the lovely trimmer guy, returned the headlining panels for the pilothouse when he'd covered them using the material we brought back from our Hythe trip and refitted them. A way nicer look that the bare insulation and dangling wires we'd been enjoying:

A fiddly little job was replacing the battery in the crew's Sena wireless headset. We use them for communication when berthing and the battery life had become pretty poor. We'd learned from the Sena folks that a normal USB phone charger was pushing in way too many amps for the little lithium battery and that had shortened the life of it. Naturally, in the manual they don't say "charge at 1 amp or less", just in a supplementary document they will email you when you talk to them. Thanks to Andrew (the owner of Zephyros the N43) we ordered the right battery, dismantled the headset and removed the old battery which has this tiny connector on it:

That has to be cut off and soldered onto the new battery:

then refitted into the earpiece under the loudspeaker you can see off to one side:

Hopefully the crew's headset will have a way better "talk time" now.

The final must do job before we depart Penarth was replacing the engine start batteries. We mentioned beforehand that they were the originals and had finally given up. Not bad for 17 years in service really. We looked at replacing them with lifeline AGM on a like for like basis but the price of those premium batteries (and availability) was wild - over £1000 each plus delivery. We had decided to replace the wing / genset start batteries at the same time as they are the same vintage and were showing signs of age (lower resting voltage than expected) but were still working fine. Buying 4 batteries to make up the two 24v start banks with Lifeline branding on them would be rather an eye-watering bill. We will certainly go for lifeline again when the domestic bank needs renewal but for lightly stressed and very lightly cycled start batteries, we opted to go cheaper.The marine engineering guys in Penarth said that they'd had good experience and service from Monbat units so we opted for those.

The dinghy crane made light work of removing the old heavy lifelines into a marina trolley:

and then lifting the new replacements into the lazarette:

Standardisation is a wonderful thing. The answer to "when is a 4D AGM battery not a 4D AGM battery" is an interesting one. We'd had fun finding the right case size to fit into our specially made battery trays but nothing prepared us for this amusement. Here are the originals:

and the new ones:

Yes, the terminals were reversed, meaning that the battery cabling had to be re-routed / gently persuaded to swap sides. They are VERY thick and heavy cables so it was far from easy. Luckily, as the captain is still begin ultra careful with his shoulder following the surgery,  Jim the engineer guy was doing the grunt work and had that fun. Accessing the main engine batteries in their cupboard in the lazarette was a pig of a job. The wing / genset batteries are behind the wing engine in the engine room itself and way more accessible. Not a fun job but one that had to be done.

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.