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.

Plymouth to Fowey (yes, we found some space this time)

The tide times for a trip further west were a bit pesky. We REALLY wanted to get into Fowey for various reasons but we know that the 3 larger mooring buoys and the visitor pontoons get very busy in the season. So, the idea was to arrive late morning hoping that a few folks have already left from the night before. The other limiting factor was the tidal swirl around the breakwater pontoon in Mayflower. Backing out of our spot and the length of the breakwater at half tide when the stream is quite evil would have been highly amusing. So we just decided to leave around high tide and accept that we would have to push a little adverse current out to sea.

It was a gloomy start to the day. A bit gloomy on board too as we are not keen on setting the alarm clock. Heading out we opted to use the little channel that is OK with enough height of tide to save the trip around Drake's island. This is how it looks on the charts:

with two friendly little red and two green markers. At 6:30 am it looked like this:

Rather less appealing really. At high water(ish) we had plenty of depth to play with under the keel:

Still, as the wind was pretty much off the land we knew it would be a calm trip. We dodged a couple of anchored warships that were on the Cawsand side for a change (one of our Destroyers and one German Frigate) then headed out to sea. A nice simple route, just over three hours out there as we ran slowly to allow a few folks to depart the harbour in Fowey before we arrived:

On the way we had an annoyance too - apart from the obvious rafts of poorly marked pots that is. Our nice new alternator regulator was behaving rather well, running in "follower" mode where the batteries tell the Victron box what they want and the Victron monitoring box relays it to the regulator:

Only then it didn't. For some reason it stopped sending the battery voltage information through so the regulator, properly, stops the alternator from charging in case there is a wiring or battery fault:

Not a big problem though as we changed the feed into the regulator using the neat app. We have one wire that directly senses the battery voltage and so we used that feed instead and all was well again. An odd issue that we've seen twice now. Poor Paul from Maricom has it on his plate to chase the suppliers for information and a fix.

Arriving in a still slightly gloomy Fowey, we did the right thing and called the the harbour patrol folks who told us we could pick up one of the large visitor buoys near the harbour entrance. Well, we could have but.... the buoys are huge - maybe 2.5 metres diameter. The eye that the crew needs to put the mooring line through is dead in the middle. Our usual technique that has worked well everywhere else is for her to open the side access door, the captain brings the boat alongside the buoy, the crew simply leans over a little and threads the line through. Only her arms were not long enough for this one. Normally that would not be an issue as we have one of the nattily named "Jolly Hooker" devices on board specifically for this kind of challenge:

They will thread the line through for you. However, ours is stowed in the lazarette and as we'd inflated the little rollup dinghy, it was trussed up in the cockpit, over the top of the lazarette hatch. Wonderful. The crew could not move it on her own so we sneaked up river a little as we saw space on the mid-river pontoons. The harbour guys were happy enough for us to go onto one which made life easier. 

It felt good to be back in the place.  When we paid for the mooring and harbour dues, we discovered that our last visit had been in 2017. Way too long ago for this lovely place. Why? Because it has usually been rammed with boats and we've been turned away. Having Fowey as our registered port doesn't help it seems!

After a clean up and recovery time, the little dinghy and outboard took us ashore for a much needed leg stretch. Spot the Nordhavn time again:

Wandering around the town things were noticeably busier now that the school holidays were on. Unfortunately. Still a lovely place to visit though. We admired both the artistry and sentiment behind this, affixed to the wall of a local house:

Talking of artistry, old lifeboat crew boots have been most artistically given a second life:

Some inventive  folks around here.

The car ferry across to Bodinnick reminded us that we should do the circular walk - over to there, down to Polruan and then back on the foot passenger ferry. Only we were too tired after a bad night of sleep and an early start, so it got saved for another day:

We happily returned for an early dinner and chill time - we do like this place.

Things went a bit downhill on our second day here. A 5:30 am phone call from Toddlerville telling us that Mrs Toddler was far from well ended in her being in hospital again. A slightly more than stressful day followed, plenty of phone calls, messages and general gloom. The only good bit about being woken up then was that we got to see a china clay boat coming into the harbour and being swing by the tug before it was dragged upriver to the loading wharf:

We did take the dinghy ashore to get the legs working and we also went across to Polruan. As always, the fishing boat repair place called Toms was very busy, lots of welding and cutting and splashing paint about. Good to see:

They have a monster travelift there, 220 tons capacity. It would barely notice us in the strops. However as they will have been used for many barnacle encrusted fishing boats beforehand and we would end up in the yard next to a steel boat with grinding and welding going on, it isn't tempting. Anyone who has had to remove little brown rust marks left by particles of steel off their GRP boat will know why. The lift does look impressive though:

We wandered down to the ruined castle that used to protect the harbour entrance mainly to enjoy the view back towards Fowey:

Very Cornwall indeed.

We did some planning to see when would be a good time to head back to Penarth so the crew could get a train back to Hythe and Toddlerville. Tides and weather were consulted as we waited to hear how things were going in the hospital. Typically, the wind was stubbornly from the north or north west - more on the nose than you would really want for the trip once you round land's end and plod up the Cornish / Devon coastline. The prevailing SW stuff is quite nice for that run but was not in any forecast, short or long term. Such is life.

We had better news about Mrs Toddler the following day and our stress levels dropped a notch, however our liner curse was still working. This thing was anchored off the harbour and was shuttling in the normal lanyard and cruise pass wearing gloomy folks who shuffle around, look bemused and generally clog up the tiny pavements and streets in Fowey:

Plymouth, cycles, cranes and fires

Since the weather was still behaving, we dug out the long ignored bikes and headed off. First stop had to be at the rather good coffee stall by the Mayflower steps with the compulsory cannoli too:

We then cycled to Saltram House, a National Trust place:

and after a brief lunch stop, returned via the supermarket. So much easier than dragging the shopping back by hand as we've done whilst Izzy the doglet was with us. 

Our social activities picked up a lot when Simon and Amanda (the man who used to run the yellow peril day boats from the quay in Dartmouth) came for lunch. Then Richard and Kim arrived for a couple of nights in their sparkly new to them yacht JeANNie. We might have tasted a couple of gins with them, had a wander into the city and a rather excellent lunch in the Fishermen's Arms pub. It is just far enough up the hill from the Mayflower steps to help it avoid most tourists which was much appreciated. We of course never class ourselves as tourists - properly deluded folks that we are.

The bike batteries were recharged ready to attack the Plym Trail. An old railway line through the woods to the east of the city that is pretty nicely surfaced. We especially enjoyed the nice gradient as we headed back - around 8 miles with no need to pedal at all. A rare treat - of course, we had earned that heading up the valley in the first place. 

Mayflower marina has quite an eclectic mix of craft ranging from ex-lifeboats, the odd larger powerboat and a very sad looking yacht that let us continue the "old Seagull outboard" theme from Guernsey:

Sitting in the cockpit of that yacht with the engine running would be a lovely noisy and smoky experience. A proper throwback. Mind you it didn't look as though the yacht had moved in a while. The captain was almost tempted to try and rescue the engine for old time's sake. Then he got better.

The following morning, we were highly unamused. There had been a fire in Devonport and the boat was covered in grey / black sticky goo that liked staining the GRP. A big wash off removed some but not from the areas that needed polishing. Our intention of heading off the next morning was parked - instead we opted to stay put and try to clean things up. As it turned out, the weather was breaking. The fantastic sunny stuff was reverting to showers and sunny intervals which didn't help with polishing. However, we did manage to clean up the flybridge which looks way better now. There were a couple of really windy nights and the waves, together with the wash from the very annoying Police boat who likes belting past the moorings for no obvious reason other then he can, caused this:

The two lines were abraded against an elderly and a bit rusty bollard that we needed to tie up to. Then the snatching from the waves and wash did them in.  Not good at all. Bear in mind they are big heavy ropes, 24 mm diameter. 

We concluded our extended Plymouth stay with some serious shopping trips, knowing that further west it would be trickier to find big supermarkets nearby - also because we had some visitors planned. The bikes became shopping baskets, lugging all sorts of stuff back to the boat and giving us some exercise at the same time. During one excursion we rather liked the strap line for this restaurant:

Sorry for the non UK readers, a very "in joke" for people of a certain age over here. We fit that profile only too well.

Maintenance news:

We wanted to launch the RIB so the captain could use it to give the waterline a scrub - several days in Dartmouth, with the boat sitting lower in the water than normal meant some weed was starting to grow around the bow area which took the full sun. Only the crane had other ideas. It lifted by half a metre or so then stopped. Totally. A bit like a child who is "putting its parts on" and refusing to move. You could hear the solenoids in the crane that operate the winch / rotation clicking when the button was pressed but the hydraulic power unit, located in the lazarette, was suspiciously silent. Oh good said the captain, or something like that.

The power pack is a 24v motor running a hydraulic pump. The captain's very wrong assumption was that the solenoid on the electric motor had failed. The really great bit is that the power pack is buried in the furthest spot you can find in the lazarette. Right aft and over to the starboard hull. A proper little corner. To get to it, you have to wriggle around the big enclosure that holds the two inverters. That would be kind of OK but then some nice person in the UK added 2 large air conditioning compressors in the same spot. End result - you can get one arm into the now very small space between the compressors and the inverter housing and the power pack is at the full stretch of the captain's arm. Great. So, after removing everything from the lazarette,  a little piece of wire was used to power the solenoid from the main supply to the pump. It duly worked. Oh. Getting a multimeter onto the green signal wire in the system:

to see if there was  a voltage being applied when the crane controls were operated was fun. Holding the two probes at full stretch in one hand and trying to touch the right terminals prompted some choice words. Sure enough, there was no signal. Was there a break in the wiring that leads down through the supporting tube for the crane and over to the power pack across the underside of the deck in the lazarette? Seemed unlikely as the cable was three core, all the wires ran up to the crane together. However, it does have a swivel thingy that allows the crane to go through a full 360 degrees. Could that be playing up and if so how on earth do you get to it without removing the top of the crane? We retired hurt, to borrow a sporting phrase and instead inflated the little dinghy, cleaned up the plug on the little Tohatsu 2 stroke engine cleared out the storage oil, treated it to fresh fuel and it started on the 4th pull after nearly 3 years of being idle. It even pumped cooling water too. So, we have a dinghy to use in Fowey, Falmouth, Scilly. Just not the RIB which was marooned on the boat deck - better than being stuck in the water or in mid air though.

Having slept on things and had another medicinal gin, we decided to put a temporary solution in place for the crane power pack until a proper investigation of the wiring could take place. We ran a cable from the 24v power supply, through a fuse and a simple push on / push off  switch to the relay and just disconnected the inoperative signal wire:

The temporary cable was long enough to be operated up on the boat deck. The power pack must only be switched on when the crane is actually told to move by the controller so the extra switch has to be up there when you are using the crane. Managing the controller and the switch it will be more of  a juggling act than usual.

That piece of temporary cabling involved more time in the corner of the lazarette, squeezed into the little space from hell, doing things one handed at full stretch. It was a most happy time indeed...... Bad words might possibly have been used. Once or twice.

Kingswear to Plymouth

The lovely spell of weather was continuing and although we were having a good time in the river Dart, we'd decided to move on. The plan was to spend a week or so in Plymouth to allow us to dig out the bikes, raid some bigger shops and do some different walks. The tide times mandated an early but not too early morning start. Then we saw this information about an exercise on oil spill response:

As we were berthed right next to the spot they had chosen, we decided that leaving before 9am would be sensible. So much for a lay-in and lazy morning. Still, it was worth it, we headed off the berth and tucked in behind one of the trip boats that was also heading towards the harbour entrance, enjoying the sun and calm conditions from the flybridge:

It was all very tranquil and enjoyable as we left the river:

even if the crew was being pesky with the phone camera

:

As it was so calm and sunny, we finally had a flybridge trip with an interesting coast to enjoy as well. The weather allowed us to go close in to Start Point which can get pretty bumpy in windy / wind over tide conditions. We just needed to keep a careful eye out for the many pot markers that you get inshore in this area. It was worth it though.

As we were nice and close to the lighthouse, we had to take a picture for the collection:

You can see how flat the sea was. Just perfect motorboat weather really. 

As we passed Prawle Point and the Salcombe entrance, so the quantity of pots ramped up dramatically. We were fairly busy dodging them and the odd yacht that was either drifting along (no wind) or wearing out their little diesel engine.  Much as we used to like Salcombe, the way it has turned into London-on-sea is less than appealing. Some folks that we bumped into in Dartmouth had just left the place and reported it as manically busy on the water, especially the bigger mooring buoys in "The Bag" and the anchorage just north of that. We really didn't want to be part of the reported mayhem so we pressed on towards Plymouth. Not as pretty or rural but plenty to see and do plus the attraction of some proper food shops as well. Totally unlike Salcombe.

As we approached Plymouth, we were slowly being overhauled by this rather lovely craft, Yolanda. The skipper waved as they passed doing around 1.5 knots more than us so a very slow motion kind of thing:

Yolanda became more than a passing "little ship" later on.

We headed into the eastern entrance after giving our wing engine some much needed exercise too. There was a warship inside the breakwater doing some crew transfers with a support vessel - they actually called us to advise of their intentions to turn inside a cardinal buoy in that clipped "we are all frightfully good chaps" accent that so many naval officers seem to have.  We were in water that was way too shallow for them so we were not in their way - again, a very naval thing to do. We were even wished a good watch - we must look like a serious boat.

There were a surprising number of yachts about as we headed round to Mayflower marina where we had booked a slot again. As we rounded the breakwater, we saw that our neighbour was to be Yolanda - good job we waved back in a friendly way and gave their boat a thumbs up when they passed us.

The trip was lovely. Flybridge all the way bar when we had to pop inside to give the wing engine a run. Calm, sunny, happy days. Pretty quick too as we took the tide with us all the way.  One of those trips that makes you realise just how lucky we are to be able to "play boats" when we want to. The evening military parade wasn't bad either:

We had an evening chat with the Yolanda folks, learned that what had looked like a typical Dutch steel boat was in fact American and aluminium, then we just chilled. Great day.

River Dart time

Dartmouth is such a lovely place. A variety of scenery, some lovely old buildings, the steam train over in Kingswear making lots of retro train noises, the paddle steamer on the river etc etc. We happily wandered around the town again, enjoying the rather good weather too. Naturally, as soon as there was a slipway or beach area, the little dog needed to paddle. This time she was hidden behind the crew on the slip leading to the boat float:

In case you are even mildly interested, here is what the boatfloat looks like:

We enjoyed a great day with John and Kath, who own a house overlooking Dart Marina, right on the waterfront. Spectacular views and they were great hosts too, feeding us and the doglet royally. Not having seen them since New Year, there was plenty to catch up on.

The walk to Warfleet Creek, one of Izzy's favourite paddling spots, gives you good views back up the river and you can see how kind the weather was being too:

Once there, the usual stone / ball chasing fun had to be enjoyed by all. Perhaps a little bit more by the 4 legged member of the crew:

We then met up with John and Kath again, this time at the castle, near the entrance to the river. John took the instruction to make Izzy work for her treat most seriously:

which was good, testing the wait command nicely. 

We were very happy pottering about but decided to walk up to the recently rebuilt and gentrified Noss Marina for a couple of reasons. One was that there is a company based there (Spares Marina) who will replace the battery in EPIRBs. For the non boating folks, have a look at EPIRB weblink for more information than you really need on how they work. Suffice to say that ours was now overdue for a battery replacement. Unfortunately, it isn't like popping a couple of AA batteries in a torch. If only it was that simple or cheap. As a pretty critical bit of safety kit, it also gets tested and resealed. The Spares Marine site details what they do as:

The service includes full testing before and after the service where the 406MHz, 121.5MHz and GPS functionality are checked. The batteries, plastic dome and seals are all renewed. The old Battery Expiry Label will be replaced, showing the new Battery Expiry Date (SEPTEMBER 2031).

Hence we needed a specialist to do the work, who had a test environment that allowed them to activate the device without alerting the emergency services at the same time. So the EPIRB was dropped off to be fettled.

Our second reason to walk there was more selfish. We'd been told that the on-site café did great coffee and cake. That intel was so right. Heading back, we had to allow some more slipway paddling time for the doglet - her tail becomes a real weapon when she gets excited, spraying water in all directions as you can see from this video clip:

We learned to stand well back.

The social whirl continued when we met up with Simon and Amanda in town for coffee (bit of a theme building here it seems). They live at the end of Old Mill Creek, just upriver from the town in a wonderful setting - just a shame that nobody built a wider road to access the place. They used to run the little yellow day boat hire business here and before that a canal hire fleet and repair facility on the Shropshire Union canal so they are also steeped in the boating thing. Now retired and having got the hang of being so, we had many stories to share.

On the basis that all good things must come to an end, we realised that the further west we went, the harder it would be to return the doglet to her owner. Our plan was to rent a car in Plymouth and try to meet Anne half way but as her diary was rather busy, she decided to come to us for a couple of nights in Kingswear and then take Izzy home. After a tricky and long drive here for her on a Friday, we got some exercise and had dinner in the very good Floating Bridge pub. Back on board, Anne and Izzy played "spot the ball": 

with a variety of facial expressions. For people of a certain age, this reminded us of the old newspaper spot the ball competitions when you would place a huge cross in ballpoint pen on the page and post it  to some company or other with an entry fee and never see or hear of it again. 

For Anne's full day with us, we managed a huge Dartmouth shop crawl. The woman who told us that she had bought several items of clothing recently and so should get nothing else, then justified her actions as early Xmas shopping, We said nothing and just carried the multitude of bags. One traditional old newsagent come gift shop really was trying their best to dissuade customers with a series of notices running from floor to the top of the entrance door forbidding anything and everything it seemed: 

Dogs were banned three times so we took notice and waited outside as Anne went really big and bought a postcard for her mum. Apparently buying things in the shop was still allowed. Just.

Strange notices were not confined top the card shop, this one amused us more though, in a second-hand book shop with some artistic  items crafted from old decaying volumes:

The brutal honesty was refreshing.

Anne and Izzy duly departed and the boat seemed rather quiet. We decided to amuse ourselves by lugging  two loads of washing to the marina facilities, then dragging the even heavier slightly waterlogged stuff back. We powered up the breaker for the tumble dryer and washer, went to load up the dryer and found that the washing machine which had been dead, suddenly was illuminated. Er?? A self repairing Miele washer? The only thing that made sense was a dodgy door latch - the machine had been sitting idle after it refused to power up and there was a certain odour building inside it we thought. So, the captain had slammed the door shout on the supposed dead machine in frustration to prevent this. When we turned the breaker on, the thing seemed all happy again! Sure enough, we attempted another wash and it worked perfectly. It seems that brute force and frustration can fix things......

In celebration, we took the higher ferry over to Dartmouth, wandered around the town and cove, then did the very touristy thing of sitting watching the antique lower ferry setup as it traversed the river:

If you've never seen it, there is basically a barge type ferry that carries the cars and people, coupled to a tugboat which drags it from the slipway backwards, then spins around and drives it forward to the other bank. Iconic Dartmouth indeed:

Our last fun here was walking back to Noss on Dart (again on a rather hot day) to collect our EPIRB with the new battery fitted and tested:

Not the most exciting device in the world or one that we hope to ever use / need. However, if that day came.... . The lovely folks and Spares Marine and their huge lovely dog were great. So much so that we took pity on them and after our coffee and cake stop in the excellent café there,  we delivered some of the truly splendid carrot cake to Spares Marine as a thank you. It seemed to be appreciated. We also bought a new handheld VHF radio to replace our elderly and decaying one. 

The most painful part of our stay was paying the berthing fees and particularly the extortionate harbour dues. Still, for pole position in a lovely setting, it was worth it.

Maintenance News:

As mentioned above, it was kind of a reverse maintenance this time. The washing machine that had miraculously revived itself after being rather brutally treated was off the "must fix" list. We still think that it and the tumble dryer are due for replacement as they are doing well - 19 years old and heavy use since 2009, Thanks to the lovely weather and our sloth, nothing else of note got done. We are stacking up the jobs now, especially loads of polishing.