The final final prep time - just waiting for the weather

Of course, the weather got a little worse before it got better:

Very rough is not tempting. 6 to 9 metre high waves. We will stay tied up for a while longer.

Naturally that gave us time to do a few more things and some more tinkering on the boat. The davit hydraulic pack got checked over, the main engine gearbox had a little oil added, the genset got a little more coolant (the level has settled down and stabilised now after the recent coolant change) and the steering gear had a "spanner check" on the key bearings and bolts.We found time to walk the two fluffball dogs (Pip and Poppy) too. Pip looked tired afterwards:

However, the sound of the camera made him instantly inquisitive:

and maybe a little bit cute.

We also had a guided tour of September Moon, a glorious Laurent Giles designed timber yacht. One of the Dorus Mohr class and an award winner when constructed too. She is owned and has been restored by a local Yacht Surveyor and is truly beautiful. Here is a picture of a sister ship to give you an idea:

We will never complain about our polishing workload again when we think of the painting and varnishing involved in looking after her. Well, maybe we will moan, just a little.

What else? Well we had a farewell lunch with waterbus man Steve who presented us with a third cartoon that had instructions about not opening until we were beyond the Sully Island area. So, we cannot offer a picture of it yet. Please contain your understandable excitement until the great reveal is possible.

As a small recompense,  here is Bron helping dad steer the waterbus on our last trip with them:

A nice big high pressure system is coming so departure should be soon.

The cruising season starts with some planning and re-planning of course

The winter berthing finishes on April 1st and our plan was to head straight for Falmouth - 30 odd hours at sea. However the forecast for the 1st had 3 metre waves on top of the swell around Land's End and was not tempting. Here is how Passageweather.com saw things:

4 metre high waves? Er. no. No need to get bashed around like that when time is more or less our own.

The forecast for a Sunday morning departure was way better. Here is the picture for late Sunday evening, roughly when we would arrive off Cape Cornwall:

As this looked much nicer, the departure decision was an easy one. Another Atlantic low arriving on Monday messed up leaving any later.

Of course, you go to bed, wake up and the forecast has changed rather a lot. Here is the wind forecast for the time we would be going around Land's End, with the tide behind us:

Blue is good, reddish hues much less so! The thought of Lands End with gusts of 30 knots of wind blowing against the tide was not tempting unless we had to. Time to delay our departure further as we didn't fancy a bumpy first trip of the year.

We added these images in for the non boating folks so you get why our timings are always a "bit variable" unless you are happy to plough through the rougher weather. Although the boat would be fine, the crew is less keen and as we don't have to, we choose not to!

It did mean a few other opportunities popped up though. Steve the waterbus man / cartoonist extraordinaire and dad to Bronwen the spaniel called in a small panic - he had no waterbus crew. So, the captain spent a day pottering to and fro across the bay in Princess Royal acting as barely competent crew:

It was surreal in a way. The boat was built in Wroxham on the Norfolk Broads around 1955 and used to be operated there as a trip boat. For a little information, see Broadlandmemories website. As a kid, it was the most exciting treat each summer to go there by bus and then have a short boat ride. The skippers always had a white shirt and wore a tie. The crew wore pinafore dresses and served tea. We were not quite so well attired, served no refreshments and there was no cross dressing either before you ask.......

Of course, one treat whilst crewing the waterbus is that you get plenty of Bronwen cwtch time:

Not a bad day really.