Hello everyone. Like others I’ve arrived here after following the adventures of Indy from Plymouth. Sadly I came late to his party as he was already on the Broads when I found his blog. We are currently berthed in Plymouth and would have been interested in seeing the boat in the flesh.
Anyway, our first visit to the Broads was 43 years ago when my husband and I hired a small narrowboat for a week and fell in love with being on the water. Over the years we enjoyed many boating holidays on canals, rivers and on the Broads. The most memorable being crossing Breydon water towards Great Yarmouth with the tide in full flow and being swept around the bend at a hair-raising speed with our little mirror dinghy bouncing along behind. We had no idea what was happening. It didn’t put us off boating and over the years we’ve nearly always had a little water craft of our own from canoes and small sailing dinghies through rhibs which introduced us to the sea and 5 years ago we bought our first little motor cruiser which happened to be in Plymouth so that’s where we’ve stayed.
After a year we decided the sea was the place for us but we ‘needed’ a bigger boat. We found what we were looking for at NYA in Brundall, a Beneteau 980 which we had transported by road to Plymouth. We were not as brave as the Indy crew. The boat served us well for 3 years but again we outgrew her. Having both retired we are very lucky to have the time to spend on the boat and we wanted more space and more comfort. Unbelievably NYA had just what we were looking for again. An Atlantic 38, similar to the Brooms, same hull as the Haines 38, called Waterglade, which has now been in Plymouth for the past year.
We always thought that when our sea faring days are over we would return to the Broads but now I’m not so sure. Cruising on the south coast we have so many places to visit and I don’t know that there would be enough variety to keep our interest if we moved inland. Also, there are so many boats up there now, would my nerves stand it? I think we have a nostalgic view of peaceful trips up the river finding a quiet pub for lunch or secluded spot to stop overnight. Can you still do that? I’m looking forward to browsing the forum and learning more about the area.