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.