Eco Cruising SW.

hlb

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With the ever rising cost of fuel, marinas, overnight mooring, not to mention divorces and grubby mitted tax men and the imminent recession. Exacerbated by an intense hatred for poncy marinas, not helped by the 30 quid a night charge for parking next to a lump of rickety wood.

So with the help of M Farters bright green 45 gallon oil drum, we first manage to outdo the marina out of there 40 odd pence a litre outrageous fuel price, down to a more sensible 37p for 500 litres. To be fair, it’s swindlery but not as much as others I’ll admit.

Now I’m not some one who likes to make big plans on destinations, especially with a week of very uncertain weather forecasts. So the prognosis was turn east out of Plymouth on the grounds that we’d been West loads of times lately.

After an episode a year or two ago, and the weather being a bit iffy, I decided to give Start Point a wide berth, though so far the trip to just off Salcolmbe had been quite uneventful, If a bit hazy.

Just after Salcolme we steamed into thick pea soup fog. The admiral deciding that the captain should get smartly downstairs and man the radar, but also steer the boat as well, whilst she kept a lookout from upstairs. So off I trundles down stairs and start pressing buttons on the radar, just catching glances of a little dot close to the centre as I zoomed the range down.. All of a sudden there was a screech over the intercom, which I could not quite get the jist of , but later discovered that debs had been looking at the whites of some raggies eyes as he slipped past our stern.

It was just after this that we realised that whilst I could hear Debs from upstairs. The intercom was not working down to up!!

Anyway the radar screen was amass of green dots and at the now greatly reduced speed of 8 knots, we were heading in every direction apart from Dartmouth.

Eventually the screen cleared and it even looked a bit clearer through the window. So decided to head back upstairs and out of the claustrophobic atmosphere of down stairs.

So back up to a miserable 17 knots, owing to Mucky’s even muckier bottom, I figure that if I keep my hand on the throttles, I can stop in time if anything turns up, the unerring auto pilot having put MF back on course for Dartmouth, hopefully!!

Then we see’s one two three, numerous boats all out fishing !!! in the thick fog on the Skerries, we plough right through them, there hesitated waves back from them, expect they were a bit surprised to see us go right through the middle of em. Now they were sitting targets there stationary in the fog, but we missed them all.

We were going A to B so no choice but to carry on or go miles backwards, but sitting there fishing in the fog, well it’s a really daft thing to be doing. Well that’s what Debs thinks anyway. Don’t think the big trawler even noticed when we zoomed before her bows!!

Wait for the next thrilling instalments.

The helpful harbour man.

Lost at sea in fog.

The officious totally cocked up coast guard.
 

hlb

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The town quay being full at Dartmouth, we headed for the visitors pontoon, trusty dinghy on hand for visits to the pub and the litttle petrol generator to run the telly and the eberspatcher. All quite respectable really. Next we're off to Brixham. But not to the marina. A nice little private place with electric and stuff. We got to look round Vigulance ?? A big 100 ton old, wooden ex Brixham trawler, now owned privatelyand takes folk to france and other places. Paid about £8.50 for two nights, never saw HM second night. So free!! Discovered that the comercial folk round Brixham have a key for the fuel pump and pay 29.4 litre for diesel. WORKING ON HOW TO GET A KEY!!

The weather was not fit for big trips, so sneaked round to Babicome? and anchored there, very peacefull but unnerved by the ripples on the water and apparrent gale blowing overhead. Stopped on Torquay harbour pontoon, not the marina. Never have paid anything there, and much closer to town, no electric though.
 

hlb

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Back at Brixham the HM guy moved heven and earth to get us electric, he put 12 quids worth of cards in the electic and called out the electician, totaly forgetting to charge us for mooring, guess he felt a bit embarassed by actually charging.
 

hlb

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So anyway, were hiding in Brixham from the gale and listening to the weather forcast. Girl at Brixham says go 86 if Fowey and 23 for Dartmouth area. So beeing in Brixham, go 23. Nothing. zilch. So tell coast guard. Whats yer position says he. Right in front of yer window says me. Ho well you should have gone to 86 and done this and that, whilst sticking your finger up yer bum, says he. So I says well give us the weather again anyway!

Next day, still weather bound and looking for forcast. Weather girl says Fowey 86, Dartmouth 23. Then says Dartmouth aint working!! Another guy comes on and says he aint heard it either!! They do seem to think we're a load of prats, and there equipement cant fail at all at all!!
 

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