Tarbert 2007: Peace, Love and Reefing.

Well, we're back safely from Tarbert after finishing slightly above our usual bringing-up-the-rear position in 10th place out of 13. Generally, the view looked something like this:



This year's crew in the evocatively-named Sunsail 76 were skipper Ken, plus us two, Cheryl, Bisi and Mark, plus two Beryl Bravo lads, Paul and Angus. The weather was fairly lively at times, particularly on Sunday afternoon. The BBC was reporting gusts of around 36 knots, so it got a bit bumpy. Great sailing weather, but not really in the spirit of picnics in he harbour!

Saturday night was more surreal than usual. Here's the crew all dressed up in our best hippy gear for the Saturday night fancy dress.



We're outside the Anchor Hotel in Tarbert in the picture. Inside, the decoration in the bar was different to last year, with the ceiling covered in draped cloth. Very exotic, we thought. As it began to rain outside, though, it became apparent that the cloth wasn't there for decoration, but instead to prevent dust and dirt covering the bar while the roof was being replaced. We were soon trying to find spots inside where we weren't being dripped on, while the staff tried to find enough mops and buckets to keep the floor reasonably dry. An odd evening.

Sunday was an interesting day's sailing, with strong winds at the beginning, lightening during the middle, and strengthening again in the afternoon, so that we entered Kip Marina with the weather blowing an absolute hooley.

Missy was suitably dressed for anything that the weather could throw at us.

Tarbert time

This coming weekend will have a change of scenery. We're heading up to Scotland for the annual ExxonMobil Tarbert Challenge. This year's event will have 13 boats and over 100 people competing (sort of) for a range of trophies loosely based on a weekend of racing from Largs to Tarbert and back.

If the last few years are anything to go by, we'll be watching the rest of the fleet heading off into the distance. It'll be fun though.

This is last year's finely-tuned racing crew.

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.

Roma! - Monday.

Monday started with some aching limbs after some serious walking on Saturday and Sunday, but with the skies still blue and the temperatures still in the mid 60's it was a perfect day to head off out being tourists once more.

Today we were heading to the Vatican to see Catholic Head Office. An easy trip from our hotel on the Metro, fortunately. We weren't really feeling up to another heavy duty walking day.

During our pit stop for caffe latte and pastries on the way towards the Vatican, though, we nearly had a disaster. Missy turned her ankle a while ago and it's been a bit temperamental ever since. While sitting drinking coffee, she moved and it went again. Oops. She wasn't able to put any weight on it at all, which was going to be a problem, even if we were only going to try and find a taxi to take us back to the hotel. There's a pharmacy every couple of hundred metres in Italy (I must find out if they're as hypochondriac as the pharmacy-density implies) so I headed off for bandages and some ibuprofen. As expected, it was a short trip, and I was only away for fifteen minutes or so. Fortunately in that time whatever had popped out on Missy's ankle popped back in again. As a precaution we strapped her up and she had a couple of ibuprofen in case there was any inflammation developing. Amazingly we didn't have much problem after that.

But I digress.

St Peter's Square looks impressive on the TV. Close up it's clear that if Gian Lorenzo Bernini was aiming for awe-inspiring when he designed the piazza and surrounding colonnades, he succeeded. Huge, symmetrical, dazzling marble. Wow.




Suitably impressed, we thought we'd head into the CEO's building - St Peter's Basilica. As ever, Wikipedia's St Peter's entry saves you the excesses of my prose.

Remember the Basilica di Constantino in the forum and the octagonal reliefs? Well Michaelangelo and Bernini were so impressed by them that they pretty much copied the design wholesale. The barrel vaulting of St Peter's shows what the Law Courts of Rome must have looked like 1300 years earlier.



And here's the man himself, holding the keys to heaven. Funny, he doesn't look like your typical doorman.



We'd planned to head off to the Vatican Museum for the afternoon, but the lure of a decent meal hijacked us, so we were forced to sit and watch the world go by in Piazza Navona while eating pasta and drinking wine. Shame that.



Piazza Navona stands on the sight of an old stadium, you know. The shape is still the elongated running-track shape of the classic Roman chariot racing circuit.

Roma! - Sunday

Sunday: Blue skies, temperatures in the mid 60's, a whole city to explore. First stop the Colosseum. Well, second stop actually, first stop was a little cafe for a couple of caffe lattes and pastries to fortify ourselves.

Top Picnicsintheharbour Colosseum Tip:

The queues for the Colosseum suck. You have to queue for security, then queue for tickets. OR you can head on down past the Arch of Constantine to the Palatino booking office. The ticket's valid for both and there aren't any queues there. You still have to queue for security, BUT you can just keep left past all the people queuing for tickets and down to the turnstiles.

Once inside, the Colosseum is as impressive as I'd expected it to be.



OK, I know, everyone knows what it looks like, but it's this huge structure that's been there since 72AD. According to the blurb it was still in use for housing and workshops right through to the 19th Century. I'd assumed the missing South side of the outer ring had collapsed gradually through neglect, but it collapsed during an earthquake in 1349.

Next stop, a little light lunch at a pavement cafe just up the Via dei fori imperiali and then on to the Palatine and the Forum. It's breathtaking stuff, but fortunately Wikipedia tells the story, so I don't have to.

I have to make mention of the Basilica di Constantino, though. It contained the law courts of Imperial Rome and enough of it's still standing (with a little help from some high-tech steel supports) to get a real idea of the grandeur of the place.



It's hard to make out the octagonal pattern beneath the arches, but pay attention, we'll be re-visiting tomorrow.

We surprised ourselves by still having the energy to head across to the Pantheon, the most astonishingly complete of Rome's ancient buildings, it seems to me. As far as I can tell, saved by a) being a Christian church for much of its history and b) being located in one of the few areas of Rome that remained populated continuously between the decline of imperial Rome and its renaissance in the, well, in the renaissance.

That was it for us, we managed to stagger exhausted to the Metro for a quick snooze before heading off out for dinner with Andrea and Grazia. Andrea is one of Missy's Sabre colleagues and Grazia is his beautiful wife of 30(?) years. We had a great time, eating at Ristorante il Ciak across the Tiber in Trastavere. It's one of those gems of a restaurant that you'd never find in a million years if you didn't have a local guide. A wonderful, unpretentious local eating place specialising in meat. Lots of it!

Roma! - Saturday.

My birthday present from Missy this year was a long weekend in Rome, and very good it was too. Four days in the eternal City was well worth the effort. We headed off early (taxi at 5am!) on Saturday and Returned on Tuesday evening.

Nothing much to report about the trip out. We were ridiculously early for the flight. At 5:30am on a Saturday morning, Heathrow is not the most crowded place, so check in and security took all of ten minutes. We even had to wait 20 minutes for the coffee shops to begin to open. The flight was on time and uneventful, we were out of the airport by noon, took the 12:05 train into the central station, pausing only to make a wake-up call to James who was very sheepish to find we were already in Rome when he was still snoozing in bed.

Sooo, at the hotel by 1pm, loads of time for lunch and sightseeing! Erm no. We were so tired we fell asleep until 5pm!

At the Lonely Planet Guide's suggestion we headed up to Piazza del Popolo for the evening - we were blissfully unaware that the Italy vs Wales Rugby game was being played at the nearby Stadio Flaminio. After a very pleasant meal at Ristorante Edy, we were greeted by lots of Welsh supporters drowning their sorrows after their unexpected defeat. Plenty of Hymns and Arias going on outside the bars. I even got a cuddle from a (male) Red-shirted Wales fan. Very surreal!

Well so much for that.

Moonshine's still got a dirty bottom. The trip to the Sealift on March 3rd/4th didn't happen in the end.

The tides were always going to be a problem in that we were going to be getting back to Chichester either on the ebb tide or right on low water. Not much fun, but we could have hung around for a while until the conditions were better.

Unfortunately, to make matters worse, from mid week, a big depression was forecast to come in from the Atlantic. The forecast winds were therefore F6-F7 and South to South East. This is exactly what you don't want trying to get into the harbour on an ebbing spring tide. It didn't take much thought to realise that we were onto a loser and so I cancelled.

Come Sunday and I was so glad that I did. The storm was a real belter. The wind speed at the bar beacon was touching F10 at times and the rain was torrential. We were at home and Moonshine was tucked up in her berth. By far the best place to be.

Had we gone out, we'd have had the wind on our nose all the way to the IOW, and then it turned and we'd have had wind and tide against us all the way back. Mmmm, lovely.

Under Pressure

This week Moonshine got her top half fettled. With the weather looking a little better than previously, we invested in the pressure washer pictured down below and sprayed the living daylights out of her.

I foolishly didn't take a "before" picture of the greenery sprouting from the deck and sprayhood. The deck was nasty enough, but the green growth on the sprayhood was beyond mere algae and had started to sprout leaves, so we'd got a real ecosystem evolving on there.

After working out which bits of hose went where on the shiny yellow beastie, I fired it up and watched it cut a swathe through the muck - hugely satisfying.

So she's all nice and shiny now ready to head off next weekend to remove whatever lurks on the bottom half.

Spring Cleaning

It looks like Moonshine is at last going to be heading out of Chichester Marina for the first time since the end of August. I've just booked a session on the spiffy Sealift at Cowes to get her bottom cleaned and checked. Peters, the boatyard at the marina, were as ridiculously expensive as ever. They quoted me £300 to get her lifted, scrubbed and re-launched.

That made it a very easy decision to head off to Cowes to get it done for £80, so we'll be heading over there on March 3rd. Yay!

Snow Bunny

The landlocked sea-dawg and I have just been to the park so that she can go and frolic in the snow (an unusual occurrence round these parts).

Unusually high levels of creativity in the snowman building today.



Here's the sea-dawg and her small friend Remy. Remy had to go shortly after this because so much snow had stuck to her furry feet she could barely walk!