A Windy Weekend

[MY littleboat]

Over the past season we have again managed to cruise the East Coast fairly extensively, despite engineering issues, as well as visiting some of our usual haunts on the Broads, however, last weekend bought us, for the first time this year, to the Waveny River Centre - a place that last year we managed to visit on a number of occasions, however several changes were evident. Firstly the lack of geese, previously - even at this time of the year - geese and ducks had caused alot of mess. It is interesting that the Broads has such a huge population of non-migratory birds!

The good news is that Nigel and Tracy are still in the pub and this in itself led to a great night - as well as contributing to a lovely hangover on Sunday morning!.

Because of the restrictions on the bridges at both Somerleyton and Reedham, it was only going to be a small meet, however, it was lovely to spend a weekend in the company of other Salties, Wayne & Tracey on Katakalouse (The hosts as WRC is their home mooring) as well as Barry and Sharon on their new Bavaria 37HT 'Alex's Star'. One of the other Salties decided to have a 'slow day' following a chance meeting the day before with a few others at Reedham...!!

Amazingly both visiting boats arrived within minutes of each other to find a hooley of a gale blowing us off the quayside, but with a help of Wayne's crew, both boats were safely tied up in short time!

The evening started almost immediately with a few drinks around the boats before the trip over to the pub and it seemed as though it was steak all round - which was absolutely fantastic... And then we were treated to an impromptu concert of Westlife, Kenny Rodgers and many more... or should I say, the first Salty Bottoms Karaoke night! (Imagining any of us with our shirts off may be a shock to the system but to see it for real,...... well.....)

All in all - another hugely enjoyable night amongst some of the fantastic friends that we have met through the boating fraternity, and a fitting end to the season for us as Escape is now bare, the heaters are on in the engine bay and the dehumidifyer is running... maybe we will get out again before our planned New Year abourd.. who knows.. but I have to say that October has been a lovely month for boating - and as far as I can remember, the best ever!

Just a few photos from the weekend - a bit windy but a perfectly blue sky!

Alex's Star looking superb

Escape with enough fenders!

[baz1033]

We had a great weekend at the WRC (no goose poo )

Apart from somebody taking his top of during a song it was a perfect weekend and even managed to get a couple of jobs done on the boat.

The bridges did what they said they would which was very good.

Lots of river inspectors around but they were in good spirits

Barry and Sharron

[mbird]

Good to hear about the lack of goose poo!!!

Glad you had a great weekend, and sorry we couldn't join you, but on the plus side, we did finally get the bathroom finished!!!!

[Guest]

Yes a good weekend..... although the nakedness of a nameless party is best forgotten

[G&A]

Hmmmm.........nah, I wont delete the video.........videos!! They do make me chuckle!! ........But i will keep them on my phone & out of someones use!!

[Guest]

Streaking, at this time of year?

Do tell ...

[diesel falcon]

Windy you bet it was!, anyway we left the mariner at about 11am sat,a strong breeze blew us out of our berth backwards, but controllable, we then crabbed our way round the sharp turns of st olaves ,and out onto the main river..plenty of power needed as head wind and tide against pushed tide upto the new cut then bliss wind and tide following all the way down the cut 1000 revs and 6.4 mph with no wash!.This soon turned into 3.2 mph at the top of the cut approaching Readham bridge.Lots of radio messages from a armarder of boats on route from Brundle to Outon broad ,though the bridge ,very strong current and lots of boats moored with lowered radar arches on the key waiting.Saw Hockam admiral moored and gave him a wave on way past,then past the ferry and out into the wilds of the Yare,grand daughter(10) at the helm under instruction,she couldn,t quite get the hang of the now very blustery wind ,so earned the nickname "snake wash" .Met Baz on his way to wrc and gave him a wave,made good time upto Coldham Hall,our intended destination ,but they were closed from 3pm for a private funtion(guessing a wedding) so it was plan b, we motored up to the ferry house but were confronted with the dreaded blackboards!the broom owners club had reserved 5 moorings and another group of 4 had reserved 4 ,the only space was to moor stern on right on the Norwich end...well after 5 atempts and a new pair of pants ,we got the boat in by holding her bow into wind and flow of river,which was flowing down stream! and hovering until i could get one corner near enough the quay for Sue to get a rope ashore then roped her in.Then the Brooms started to arrive...never heard so many bow and stern thrusters!! it was very difficult for them been tall boats! they eventually ended up side on double rafted, with one owner giving up in a smoke screen of Perkins smoke!and heading off down river.We were then joined by Wombat and jeff on thier boats ,who we roped in as there even lighter than the Leg and Chew!, a good night followed in the Ferry ,and Sonia didn,t let us down with her portions!

Sunday morning saw us letting go after breakfast ,the tide was with is but it was still breezy,called in to Brooms for Diesel as running on empty!(wallet screaming),a nice cruise down the river with the tide ,very sunny so lovely and warm under the canopy.Coming past reedham rangers hut we were suddenly hailed on a loud hailer by the ranger ,(was i speeding?..no few)to inform us ther e was a barge obstructing the bridge and to take care...which we did and got though .Turning into the new cut we were suprised at the lack of water it was very shallow,we got to the other end of the new cut to be confronted with a floatiller of large boats(about 9 or 10) they were very kind and waited until we got past the narrow part under the bridge as there some very large boats in the party..a 46 no less!.We then turn into st olaves as normal...and misjudged the wind and tide and ended up in the reeds! lee shores are not the best to get off but we managed in the end, in the mariner there wasn,t a lot of water either we were churning up the mud in places,we moored up with the help of Charlie who always seems to be ready to meet boats on our pontoon in the wind.

Heck i ve gone on a bit!!

[MY littleboat]

The new cut was definitely doing strange things on Sunday. It normally runs the same way as the waveney but since they hacked a hole in the side of it the current now seems to change direction half way down!?

[Hockham Admiral]

The new cut was definitely doing strange things on Sunday. It normally runs the same way as the waveney but since they hacked a hole in the side of it the current now seems to change direction half way down!?

It was certainly OK at 07.25 about half-way down when I saw a pair of otters on the bank!

[diesel falcon]

The new cut was definitely doing strange things on Sunday. It normally runs the same way as the waveney but since they hacked a hole in the side of it the current now seems to change direction half way down!?

It normaly does this on certain tides and wind, depends which river is filling/emptying quickest!,i think there going to fill the original entrance to st o,s in when new one is finished

[MY littleboat]

I hope not because it is extremely shallow there at LW (1.5m on Sunday ie .5m under the hull - that's us. Broom owners were digging Skegness trenches) and unless they are going to dredge this on a weekly basis almost there will be a natural silt filling as the water outfills. Unless by pure chance the Marina is deeper than the cut!

[diesel falcon]

Intresting ,the reason given for moving the entrance was to stop the marina silting up! ,although Sunday was an exceptionaly low tide!time will tell whether it,ll work