Hard Labour.

Three weeks ago we used some wire wool to get the worst of the corrosion off of the samson post at the front of the boat. It seemed to work, so all well and good.

The trouble is that wire wool is made of iron and after a couple of weeks of salty sea air, all the tiny little flecks of wire that I'd washed over the side when we cleaned up, are now tiny little flecks of rust, bleeding all down the side of the boat.

So, this weekend was one of hard labour. We went down to the boat on Saturday afternoon and I spent a couple of hours working up a sweat t-cutting and polishing the cockpit. Missy and Clemmie spent an equally industrious couple of hours dozing on the top of the coachroof in the sunshine. The poor things were exhausted at the end of it.

Katharine Henry ACMA. came down to see us on Saturday evening, carrying a welcome bottle of pink fizz to celebrate the addition of those last four letters after her name. (She's now officially a Chartered Management Accountant), so I was allowed to stop working my fingers down to stubs to share in the celebration, Yay.

The wind and tides were all wrong this weekend to do anything very interesting (low tide mid-afternoon, brisk winds on Saturday), but we had a pleasant little sail around the harbour on Sunday morning to work up an appetite for lunch, we got the sails up on the way to Itchenor and headed in a stately starboard tack fashion through the massed ranks of racing dinghys, enjoying the experience of actually having some of them being the give way boat occasionally.

We sailed down just past East Head and were going to try and sail back, but with the wind wandering through 180 degrees at times and the tide ebbing pretty quickly, we motored back up to the marina. Not very exciting, but at least the sun shone and Katharine got to see more than Pontoon F.


Then it was back to more hard labour for me to try and get those rust marks out of Moonshine's sides. So the dinghy got inflated and I spent the next couple of hours bobbing around with a pan scourer and t-cut. (Actually Liquid Rubbing, especially made for boats and therefore three times the price). I got most of the marks off eventually, but that's the last time that wire wool gets used on Moonshine!

Another Sunny Sunday.

Bembridge was a great place to be for an early Sunday morning. The tide times meant that we wanted to be away by about 1pm, so we were up early (for us) to have time to enjoy where we were.

The view from the end of the pontoon was like this:



and a walk along the dunes and around a headland took us to this spot.



What you can't see of course is that Clemmie was full of seawater by this point - stupid dog.

It didn't seem to affect her too much as she enjoyed her new favourite spot on the boat.


We eventually got away at about 2pm, part of the mass exodus of the harbour as the tide rises and just squeezed into Chichester before the end of freeflow, in our usual state - tired but happy.

Bembridge.

Over the Easter weekend, we shared a water taxi from East to West Cowes with two very nice members of the Chichester Yacht Club, who recommended heading to Bembridge for a pleasant weekend.

We'd thought of going last year, but been a little, well, scared of the shallow, winding channel into Bembridge Harbour. I mean, when the Bembridge Harbour website itself has not one, but two pictures of boats aground, it's a bit worrying for novices like us.



Well, we're supremely confident veterans of almost two trips to the Isle of Wight now, so we say "pfft" and "pfffar" to the dangers.

A little light passage planning showed high tide to be at about 2pm on Saturday and access to Bembridge is about 2 1/2 hours either side of that. Ideally we wanted to be in on a rising tide (so that if I did accidentally get stuck, there'd be at least some chance of getting off) and about 4 hours to the trip, meant we needed to be away by around 9am. So instead of Friday night drinks at the George, we headed down to Chichester (and dinner at Dell Quay) so that we could have an early start.

A little more passage planning would have made me realise that low tide at Chichester was at 8:06, so there was never a chance of quite meeting our deadline. However, we did get away from the dock just in time (about 10:00). We were able to head straight for the lock, but by the time we actually got through it, they were already giving out number 20 in the queue to a boat calling in.

Nothing much to report about the short (14 mile or so) trip. We had a nice SE wind, perfect for our SW journey. A little stronger than last week, but Missy was just about able to cope with the extra swell.

We reached the Tide Gauge which marks the entrance to the channel and were relieved to see that there are enough buoys marking the channel to wonder how him up there managed to finish up on the sand like that.

The Bembridge Harbour guys were great. They found us a spot on the pontoon and were able to talk us into the tiny gap between yachts rafted three deep in front and behind us, took our lines and generally couldn't have been more helpful or friendly.

So time for a picnic in Bembridge Harbour. This is Missy replete after a little light lunch and a couple of glasses of pink wine.



If Clemmie looks a little strange, that's the tail end of a yawn going on.

The pontoon leads through the Duver boatyards and straight onto sand dunes and the beach, so it's an idyllic spot.



Clemmie had a great time, but got into severe trouble. In the picture above, there's a straight wall just underneath the line of the trees. That's a wall that crosses the harbour, enclosing a tidal mill pond. Half way across it, Clemmie decided that a patch of floating weed was solid ground and jumped onto it, ignoring my yells.

It took some effort and scraped knees and elbows to scramble down the wall and pull a very chastened and scared little dog out of the water. She heard the words "You Stupid, Stupid Dog" quite a lot over the next day or so.

Dinner was at the Vine up the hill in St Helens. A fairly no-nonsense local, but with a decent food menu and atmosphere. Yet another dog-friendly place. We've been really lucky so far, Clem even got biscuits from the barmaid.

An early night this time. We were both exhausted and even Dark Side of the Moon played late and loudly by the Jeanneau in front of us didn't bother us much. (It bothered most of the other boats though!)

Fettlin' and Visitin'

We only had one day for Moonshine on the weekend of April 14/15th, because we were heading up to Kingston Blount to see Pete, Tanya and baby Ellie on Sunday. Ellie was born in August and we hadn't seen her, so it was a long overdue visit.

So on Saturday we had a proper working party. I got the netting finished, so Clem is nice and secure now and we made a decent start on t-cutting and polishing the topsides. If we're not careful Moonshine will start to actually look smart. I also managed to get a few bits fixed that had fallen apart over Easter, although I need to work out why we don't have a stern light or a white steaming light. (A bit academic since we have no intention of going out after dark just now!)

Sunday was lovely. Yet another weekend of warm, sunny weather. The Heath residence is picture postcard stuff even when the weather's not the best, so on a bright spring day that was convinced it was summer, it was beautiful.

Just the one pic, but a nice one, of a proud father and his girl.

Easter - Off and Running IV

Monday - another beautiful bright, clear day, so breakfast and a walk around the area for Clem before heading off back to Chichester.

There wasn't much wind as we set off, but what little there was was more or less behind us and the tide was heading the same was as us too, so we had the most gentle sail/drift Eastwards, just watching the world go by. Fantastic conditions for building Missy's confidence a little more.



By this stage, the sea dawg was absolutely shattered from being unable to spend her usual 23 hours a day asleep. She didn't much move from this position for the whole trip back.



We thought we'd have to motor back the last bit as the wind died completely as we approached Portsmouth Harbour, but a sea breeze filled in nicely for the last part of the trip to whisk us home.



There was an unexpected traffic jam at the marina. We were expecting to head straight in with free flow, but the high pressure kept the water level down so there was 20 minutes of trying to keep station until the tide rose sufficiently. Interesting to hear the idiots complaining to the marina about free flow being late, ho hum.

Fantastic weekend. The best yet. Exactly what we'd hoped for when we bought Moonshine last year. Definite Picnics in the Harbour weather!

Easter - Off and Running III

Our plan for Sunday was to head across to Beaulieu for lunch before heading back to Cowes for the evening.

So, we had breakfast, followed by a walk down towards Island Harbour marina with Clem to get rid of some of her excess bounce, followed by a once over of the boat next to us to try and get rid of the worst of her paw prints!

For the first time since June 11th 2006, we had to fill the tank with diesel, so we headed to a fuel berth on the way out. After a fairly clumsy docking effort (trying to come in with the tide to get the fuel filler on the right side - bad move), we parted with all of £12.41 to fill the tank. Perhaps I should put a two cylinder diesel in the Volvo.

Our Beaulieu plan didn't come to much. With wind and tide running West to East, we made very little progress Westwards towards the Beaulieu River entrance. How little progress we made can be seen from the fact that we had to get the motor on to get away from the Bramble West Cardinal mark just before this

swung past us.

The Cardinal mark is almost due North of Cowes, so we'd had practically no movement Westward in the couple of hours we'd been sailing. It was good practice, though and we eventually decided to swing around and head back into the Medina River.

Cowes Yacht Haven was full up, so we called up East Cowes again. They allocated us a berth rafting up against a very, very shiny new boat, so we told the nice young man sorting out berths from his rib that we had a dawg on board and were given a spot alongside the pontoon - result!

Nothing much to report from here on in. We had a little light lunch and a couple of glasses of wine. Clemmie and I then had a snooze while Missy headed off to the showers, then off to the Sally Taxi stop on the pontoon and over to Cowes for dinner at the Anchor.

We were slightly worried about whether the Anchor minded dogs, so snook her into the back room and under the table. We shouldn't have worried as about two minutes later a great dane the size of a pony wandered in, so yet another dog-friendly pub then.

Easter - Off and Running II

Saturday was as perfect a day as was Friday. Blue skies and light winds meant that we could follow Plan A for just about the first time for us.



Well, it actually turned out to be Plan A2, because we spent longer than we'd expected showering, breakfasting, dawg walking, line organising etc, so it was about 13:00 before we actually got out of the dock. Actually Moonshine got out of the dock for us. I had A Plan involving Missy and ropes to make sure that our bow didn't hit the big old motor boat next to us, so I was busily concentrating on Missy and letting go of the stern line and hoping the tiller was pointing in the right direction, that I didn't notice that Moonshine had sort of shrugged and headed off in a perfect arc towards the fairway - Backwards. I tried to look as if that's absolutely what I'd intended and we headed off to the lock.

The winds were really light and our plan was to get to the Folly for the evening, so we finished up motoring the whole way. It was sort of a shame, but the weather was so perfect otherwise that it didn't really matter all that much.

We passed the de-liveried B&Q at about 6pm



and managed to find a nice spot against a not-too-shiny Beneteau 30 on the visitors pontoon down at the Folly.

Moonshine is somewhere among the throng over on the other side of the river.


Not surprisingly for a sunny Easter Saturday, The Folly was packed. We were impressed by their efficiency though. It took longer to queue to order the food than it took for it to arrive.

Another dawg friendly place, so Clem was happy again. We did find that she won't wee until she gets good solid earth under her feet. Despite the length of time she was cooped up on the boat, she would not go until the Folly water taxi delivered her to terra firma.

Easter - Off and Running I

What a start to the sailing year this was. Blue skies, warm temperatures, light winds and a four day weekend to give us the opportunity to enjoy it all.

Good Friday was largely spent in the garden at home doing some tidying, but we arrived in Chichester at a reasonable hour for us. We had a quick trip to Aladdins Cave to get some Clemmie proof netting and (yippee) the chart software for the handheld GPS that was my Christmas present from Missy, and then on to Moonshine to do a little light (ha!) tidying up. A couple of hours of stanchion-polishing and puzzling about the best way to get the netting attached and then time for dinner at Dell Quay.

The netting means that Clemmie isn't restricted to the cockpit, so she's a happier dawg and mistress of all she surveys now.

April arrives

The plan for the weekend of March 30th/April 1st was for me to spend the weekend by myself on Moonshine to get some fettling done.

Well, I sort of did. Ish. Nearly.

I did get there - on Sunday afternoon. It was hardly worth it, really, but I wanted to get the large items (mattresses, duvets) back on the boat so that we didn't have too much to get down there when we have the dawg in tow.

I did manage to get about four hours of sanding in before it was time to head home. Better than nothing, but not really enough to be shiny before her first sail of the year. After some consideration, I decided to oil the grabrails on the deck and the sides of the cabin opening rather than varnishing them. Now I'm not so sure. I thought it would make the wood look less plastic, but it just looks less shiny.

Come on You Rams

The weekend of March 17th/18th was our first trip up to Keyworth since Christmas. My birthday/my dad's birthday and mothers' day all clustered together, so we headed up the M1 on Friday night.

Saturday was my dad's birthday treat. We occasionally go and see Derby if they're at home when I'm up there, but this time, I thought we'd go up-market and get a hospitality package for the Cardiff game. So rather than a gristly pie and a pint in the SW Corner, we had a very pleasant three course meal with wine in the Assa Suite, with nice comfortable padded seats on the balcony and the bar open through the game. Excellent.

We won the game 3-1, keeping us top of the league (for a while) and father got told off by one of the stewards for getting over-excited when the third goal went in.

Here's a not-very-helpful picture of him watching the second half, standing under a heating vent (smart move) just before getting told off :-)



Saturday evening was a very pleasant dinner at the Plough. Because Sunday was mothers' day, we'd decided to stay over until Monday morning rather than having to leave early Sunday evening.

This gave us the opportunity to actually have a few pints in the Plough rather than the usual quick one before we have to head home. An unexpected bonus was that it gave my dad chance to give Missy some elocution lessons shortly before she passed out.

Roma! - Tuesday

Oops, four weeks since we got back and I haven't completed the account of the trip.

The Vatican museum was supposed to be part of Monday's trip, but we were too lazy, so today it was. The queues were alarming, stretching several hundred yards down the road from the entrance. Fortunately, it turns out that the museum is one slick operation and pushes a lot of people through its doors without too much hassle. There's not much room for quiet contemplation as you sort of drift along with the human tide through rooms and corridors.

Presumably because of the sheer volume of visitors, most of the rooms are fairly empty, with the interest being the staggeringly high quality of art on show on the walls and ceilings.

The Museum's virtual tour is a bit slow, but at least gives a flavour of the place.

Not much photography from me as we moved from room to room, but I did like this enormously long map gallery.



All paths in the museum lead to the Sistine Chapel and it doesn't disappoint. Fortunately, it's the only fairly open room on the tour, so it's possible to detach yourself from the tidal flow and pause for a while to take in one of the great pieces of world culture. It's a stunning place. Michaelangelo's two great works dominate. The set of panels making up the ceiling and the last judgement making up the whole of one wall are stunning. Below them, though are numerous masterpieces by renaissance artists, including Boticelli, which if anywhere else would be world famous in their own right.


So after our fill of culture, of course we had to go and have a final lunch back at Ristorante Edy before heading off back to Fiumicino and home.



A few more pics of the weekend are here.