A long weekend on the boat.

[matm]

Ah, we wondered who it was

Just taking on some water.

You'll not get a much better day for making the crossing than that. Are you up stream on a buoy?

Not the most flattering view with fenders out but always fear the worst with people rafting up against you

Henry

We're up at the Dart Marina / Hotel thingy. Possibly the priciest Marina I've ever stayed in but food in the hotel last night was excellent. Venturing into Dartmouth today and doing the castle, poss steam train etc.

Woke up early this morning thinking that someone was driving us back across Lyme bay. The tide is ripping through the Marina up here!

 

[henryf]

It's a bit windy and you do get a drop of tide

That's why we popped in here, civilisation whilst the weather does it's thing.

I think the marina has the claim to fame of being the most expensive in the UK but I can't confirm having only ever walked around on foot for which there is no charge

Henry

 

[henryf]

A bit late in posting today, will sort out shortly. If I upload photos via the mobile they get all compressed and aren't very nice, can't find a settings option on Photobucket so had to try and find a way to get them uploaded terrestrially.

H.

 

[Quest]

So what would they look like if uploaded extra-terrestrially???

 

[henryf]

Day 13 of our long weekend

The weekend doesn't look particularly conducive to long distance passage making so after a brief wander round Fowey to take the photos I had been meaning to for 2 days we decided to start back East with a run to Dartmouth. I was hoping to return via the Yealm but unfortunately a low spring tide prevented even a fleeting lunch time stop over. The last time I was there we were bathed in sunshine and I didn't want to spoil the memory with marginal bank holiday weather.

The builders round here are a right shonkey lot !

The run over to Dartmouth was perfect. 25 knots smooth seas initially, slight off Plymouth then back to smooth bar the usual mess around Start Point. No crashing waves as we had given it a wide berth but the tidal eddies mean you suddenly find yourself at a bit of a strange angle for no apparent reason as the autopilot corrects your course. Visability was moderate particularly as we approached Dartmouth but once safely inside the sun broke through. We entered Dartmouth just astern of a lovely looking Princess Flybridge 58.

Halfway through the journey we dropped to slow displacement speed for some housekeeping, namely emptying out the holding tank. It's simple enough to do and we flush the whole system through thoroughly. Fresh water toilets may make a bit of a dent in your water tank but I wouldn't have anything else now, they totally eliminate any odour. When buying a new boat it's always worth popping a finger in and having a quick taste to check.

Having dropped the tanks I thought I'd use the flat calm sea to sneak in a quick snack and a cup of scalding hot tea. Wouldn't you just know it no sooner had the kettle boiled than 2 motorboats descended on us over a 20 minute period sending tea and boiling water everywhere. In truth they were some distance off and nothing actually got rippled let alone spilled but let's not have the truth ruin an otherwise good story. I couldn't resist the photo opportunity to mark a right of passage with my yachtist brethren.

One of the teagate hooligans

We saw a lot of what I initially thought were dolphins as we made our way East but I wonder if they were basking sharks? Mostly in groups of 3 to 6 they slowly rolled up out of the water showing their dorsal fins and arched backs. They were very slow in their movement and vanished as we approached.

Having initially been offered a spot inside the Town Quay at Dartmouth we found there wasn't quite enough water to get past a large Sailing Cat so had a bit of dialogue with Dart Nav and ended up on one of the deep water moorings. The harbour patrol boat held our mooring whilst we took on some water on the refuse pontoon in order to preserve our self sufficiency. Very friendly guys.

Had a small Bayliner bash into us as he struggled to manoeuvre his boat alongside the pontoon in front. He let the bow swing too much and the tide took it. Frustratingly the strong tide actually made it easier to move the boat sideways if you knew what you were doing. Someone needs lessons from you instructor types! No damage done to us although our anchor might have argued with his canopy cover. He blamed the harbourmaster for telling him to go there, I resisted the opportunity to say they only suggest somewhere, if you don't think your skill set allows you to use it then relay that information to them and ask for help or an alternative.

Late lunch and a dinner reservation at Seahorse. I've never eaten there before, it's always been full so we fancied giving it a bash. When reviewing restaurants I try not to discuss price. Different people have different views on what constitutes value so it serves little purpose, look at their menu and see for yourself. The service was impeccable, the surroundings lovely if slightly cramped and the food was excellent although the balsamic dressing on my chicken liver starter was a bit too acidic for my pallet. I'm just not sure my taste buds felt a wow factor. It would be easy to have the bill run away with you in there and I personally didn't feel there was enough 3 dimensionality to the meal to warrant the cost. I can however see why it's popular what was served was cooked perfectly and there were little snippets of joy in some of the accompaniments.


Henry

 

[henryf]

Well everyone else is finally out on the water for a couple of days. Been off the grid, popped back on briefly to update:

Henry

 

[henryf]

Day 14 of our long weekend.

Good old wind guru has been spot on this trip. Sure enough the predicted winds came together with the associated rain making our decision to come straight to Dartmouth the right one. In town away from the wind it was actually a pretty decent day when the rain abated. The sun made a welcome appearance and together with activities associated with Dartmouth's impending regatta we had a gay old day.

I have to mention Elphic the juggler. Aimed as he was at the significantly under 10s I was some way off his target audience but what a great street entertainer. A bit of juggling, loads of humour and even a bit of magic thrown in for good measure. I stood there for 15 minutes enjoying his performance. If you do happen to be in the area and are looking to book someone for a children's party you'd do a lot worse. The fire brigade band were pretty good as well playing a James Bond inspired piece. Somewhat more musical than the "official" Fowey band a couple of days previous who had been touring the harbour aboard one of the local work boats. 20 Elvis lookalikes, four blokes dressed as women and 3 people with music ability. That's the Fowey lot, not the Fire brigade band, they didn't have any Elvis's

We're planning to head upstream tomorrow for some peace and tranquility but for now we made best use of the town.



Once again the builders round here are shocking. Not a straight piece of string in the county.

Matt M of the parish was in town for a couple of days and suggested we meet up at the Dartmouth Arms for a quick drink. As you well know by now I'm not a big drinker but didn't want to disappoint him so we had a quick half of shandy before retiring to bed at 9.30pm.

Well that was the plan as things turned out we actually got back to the boat around half past one. What a great night, good talking , a decent bit of grub and one or two drinks in between. I'm sure I didn't order the last couple but I didn't want to offend anyone and felt it best to do the decent thing. Oh yes and there was a drunken group of golf themed young ladies on a night out thrown in somewhere.

I also learnt all about "selfies" and snap chap from the younger members of our party. Basically you keep taking loads of pictures of yourself to show what a great time you're having. To the outside observer a transformation occurs. Teenagers otherwise engrossed in their mobile phones or just generally looking miserable suddenly spring to life, look like they've won the lottery, take a picture then instantly return to their sullen ways. For some reason all my selfies just looked like some bloke who's had quite a few pints !

Disappointed to see the Dartmouth apprentice has closed down, we enjoyed a couple of good meals in there. Angel has also vanished as well.

You can't visit Dartmouth without noticing the lower ferry. A most unique set up, how it gets coded or classified I will never know. One of those situations where we've done it like this since the year dot and no-one wants to try to stop them.

Henry

 

[henryf]

Day 15 of our long weekend

When I was younger I did a number of jobs, one of which was delivering Pizzas in Lincoln. As things quietened down later on in the evening we used to alleviate the boredom by setting various challenges involving sourcing different things to eat. A cream egg, a chicken and mushroom Pot Noodle and a can of Vimto in July at midnight. I was the undisputed master, I knew Lincoln and it's late night retail outlets like the back of my hand - most of them ate Pizza. Some weren't even proper shops, they were people's houses so there was very little I couldn't source when the radio crackled up a request.

A pint of Legend best bitter, hand battered Cod and chips made with fresh fish not frozen, a packet of pitta breads, a box of Cinnamon Grahams, a frisbee, some rabbit flavoured cat food, 4 first class stamps, a special delivery (pre-noon) to Leeds, a Sunday Telegraph. oh and an A3 sized artists sketch pad. Now that would have been a challenge. To all that is except residents of Dittisham for they have The Red Lion Inn.

The Red Lion is a pub and a very friendly one at that which serves superb pub food. It is also a guest house. Nothing strange with that I hear you cry but when you add Post office, village shop, craft shop and dry cleaners it becomes a little more unique, you'd have to travel some distance to find it's equal in England. It plays each role with great aplomb, a little eclectic in places, who else displays large framed photos of customers above the bar, but a great find run by a charming French lady and sometimes her mother who only speaks French. Next time you are upstream I urge you to make the 10 minute walk up hill into the village and visit the Red Lion. The first hundred yards by the Ferry Boat are the worst, the gradient softens after that and you are rewarded with spectacular views across the river. Walking back when there is a moon the reflection off the water below is stunning.

Motor and sail living in perfect harmony

And we weren't alone !

Dittisham is a lovely spot very different from Dartmouth further downstream. It's a halfway house between Dartmouth and Totness. There are a number of mooring buoys which you can pick up, boats of our size use the ones just North of drying rock, smaller craft have a selection within the large pool just around the corner. You can raft 2 to a buoy on the larger 18 metre buoys, we shared with a large Catermeran. You dinghy over past the waste station to the small pontoon and fight for a spot to tie up - please use a long painter to allow others a chance of getting ashore. As usual in these parts there is a lovely irony between the no crabbing notices and the throngs of kids excitedly pulling crab after card out of the water.

The 2 obvious areas to head for are the Ferry Boat Inn and the Anchor cafe which has recently elevated it's status to more of a restaurant. We ate lunch there and enjoyed a magnificent Caesar salad with pan fried scallops. I do urge you to make the effort to explore further afield. When the tide is out a bit you can make a full circle, walking through the playing fields and back along the shore line to the Ferry Boat.

This is a fantastic place to get some nice pictures of your boat, so take a camera.

Henry

 

[oceanfroggie]

Hats off to you Henry. One of the best threads ever on this forum. You have a great eye for a photo.

 

[AndieMac]

Wow, the thread just keeps on getting better, fabulous stuff!

Some of those period homes look amazing, and some almost 'ginger-bread' like...

 

[longjohnsilver]

More superb pics, Henry. The Red Lion is great, far better than the FBI at the bottom of the hill. You've even managed to snap my solicitor with a mate of mine, Tris, in the steamboat he built. They spend most of regatta week going up and down the river. There will be quite a collection of steam powered craft before the end of this week. Another regatta tradition.

The drying rock is the Anchorstone. Legend has it that witches were tied to it at low water, if they drowned they were deemed to be innocent, if they survived they were a witch and suffered a similar fate.........

 

[matm]

I also learnt all about "selfies" and snap chap from the younger members of our party. Basically you keep taking loads of pictures of yourself to show what a great time you're having. To the outside observer a transformation occurs. Teenagers otherwise engrossed in their mobile phones or just generally looking miserable suddenly spring to life, look like they've won the lottery, take a picture then instantly return to their sullen ways. For some reason all my selfies just looked like some bloke who's had quite a few pints !

This was the point in the evening where Henry learnt all about "selfies" and Snap Chat. This was a "what have we done?" moment for the Teenagers. Is nothing sacred any more?

Sorry Henry, couldn't resist. Mat.

PS. you really are capturing the essence of the places with these pics - great stuff.

 

[CharlieAlpha]

Well done Mat, it good to see the story teller on the other side of the camera - what a great story/thread this is and now with a 180 perspective

 

[jfm]

I've just caught up and read most of this in one go. Fabulous diary Henry, thanks, and superb pictures. Thanks for posting it all.

I'm just off to do some licking to check the salt/fresh water thing...

Hi to matm too. Let us know sometime (on another thread so as not to hijack this) how the euro research is going

 

[henryf]

Once again thanks for all the kind words.

We had a great evening with Matt & the gang. To be honest I can't think of a time when we've met people off the forum and haven't enjoyed ourselves. I'm not sure I will ever quite get the essence of selfies maybe I'm being to arty aboutit. Also It's hard to get just yourself in the photo when others are gathering round

In Torquay now after the most glorious of 7 knot crossings - but that's for another instalment.......

Henry

 

[matm]

Hi to matm too. Let us know sometime (on another thread so as not to hijack this) how the euro research is going

Hi - will do although not much happened as the weather has been so nice here and exploring further afield!

 

[J.W.]

Thank you for this fantastic thread! Great writing, wonderful photos! I've been to Dartmouth and the Torbay area three weeks ago, albeit on land only (not counting the ferry rides from Kingswear to Dartmouth and Torquay to Brixham). It's nice to see these places again!
If you're into Cream Teas, check out the Angels Cafe in Babbacombe/Torquay!

 

[henryf]

Day 16 of our long weekend

I am often asked what the range of our boat is and how long we can remain self sufficient.

The first question depends on how fast we want to go, at maximum efficiency we could in theory carry on for over 1,000 nautical miles. Tick over on two engines burns about 16 litres an hour and drives us along at around 7.5 knots, using a single engine we burn 8 litres for a little under 6 knots. Up the speed to 25 knots and the figure falls to under 300 miles. At over 30 knots it falls further still.

The answer to the second question is 12 hours.

With just under 600 litres on board water isn't a problem, when the tank runs dry I always have my 14 litres of emergency bottled water required for the vessels coding. So we won't have to drink our own urine.

The generator could happily be left running for over a month if we had full fuel tanks sipping away as it does. So that isn't a problem. The full sized fridge freezer allows ample fresh food for the first week, frozen food beyond that and the canned food further still. If we really wanted to push things the fishing rod could theoretically keep us going ad infinitum.

So what component essential to human life do we not have which limits us to just 12 short hours? The internet. Yes dear reader, after extensive research and great human suffering I have discovered that the average soon to be teenager can only survive without internet for 12 hours before critical meltdown is reached and they hit the wall in a most dramatic fashion.

As with so many of our fine rivers the upper reaches of the Dart are not well served by t'internet. I can just about squeeze an email out of my iPhone but it takes 10 minutes. That's 9 minutes and 57 seconds too long for a 12, soon to be 13 year old young lady.

The only possible ray of light would be some form of shopping complex. Not one that sells fudge, pack-a-Macs and brightly coloured stones saying welcome to Dartmouth but one with a Claire's Accessories, a New Look and my best mate, a Primark. The shorts are still holding up nicely by the way.

I can totally understand why super yacht owners allocate tens of thousands of pounds to provide perfect satellite internet connectivity no matter where they are on the planet. Their billionaire owners can take wars, hostile industrial take over bids and financial meltdown in their stride but 12 hours without internet and their daughter, grand daughter, niece or "niece" will bring the world to a complete standstill.

Which is a shame, because Bank holiday Monday at Dittisham was stunning. The sun shone to the point where I genuinely had to come inside and sling the air-con on for a while to cool down. The fish were biting, we got a window seat at the Ferry Boat Inn, I found an hour to read the Sunday papers and we even saw a pair of seals whilst out on the dinghy. The best bit? Number one daughter became a human being again realised that you didn't need to be umbilically attached to instagram, snap chat, twitter and Facebook - actually there isn't a Facebook yet, we're currently having that argument! She had fun in the dinghy, went fishing with dad, whispered quietly so we didn't scare off the seals and even made seal noises to try and attract them when they went under water..

It does highlight how addicted to instant technology we have all become. The fact you are reading this means I've had to go online. Writing it keeps me from getting bored and also saves having to send out post cards or repeat to everyone what we've been up to. Read the forum ! There isn't really much I "need" when I'm away on the boat. I'm not into football, am grateful for the fact my meals no longer revolve around when Eastenders is on - my god they are a depressing lot. Surely even in the East End of London you have the odd good day without someone trying to kill you, put you out of business, run off with your wife, wean you off drugs, alcohol addiction or trick you into supporting the non existent child you haven't actually had with them? No, I'm quite happy tucked away in some quiet corner of the planet planning how I will get to the next quiet corner. I love getting back to basics. Providing of course I'm surrounded by all my home comforts

Henry

Tomorrow I have been told in no uncertain terms we are going to the relative civilisation of Torquay. Or else!

Photos uploaded via mobile phone tether so apologies for the poor quality.

 

[Quest]

As a father of a 15 yr old girl and 13 yr old boy I have to tell you the interwotsit doesn't get any less important over the next few years. Excellent stuff again Henry, thank you.

I've started a thread about technique for picking up mooring buoys Henry - I would be interested to know how you have managed at Fowey and Dartmouth with a boat of your size and how you approach them etc

Thanks again,
Andrew

 

[Pennpromo]

I have to agree with you there Andrew, having just spent 4 nights on the boat at Elkins in Christchurch, there is no internet.
My 15yr old daughter was very upset that she could only use her phone for Facebook, Snapchat etc etc.
Even my 10 Yr old boy is slowly becoming addicted.
Also our TV picture is poor when the tide is out, great when its high so they have had to miss Eastenders ...
Bliss for me, time to read the papers etc. and the weather has been good too...
Henry excellent thread, have really enjoyed it.
Are you back for the Cowes Torquay this weekend, (over with Barry?), or is it a really really long weekend on the boat ?