grendel

one of the kingfisher photos, cropped to show the kingfisher

fed up of the noise at the locks it was out of the frying pan into the fire, I decided to moor up at the village visitor moorings, it had been peaceful last time i was here on lads week, well apart from all the paddle boarders down that stretch, I found their home base, a camp site had sprung up ofposite the visitor moorings, they had even thoughtfully installed a quay heading for the swimmers and paddle boarders, so at that point i was getting glares from all the parents whose kids were playing in the water, and all the paddle boarders ditto, despite the 3 mph limit, i was ghosting past at about half that, down to the single section of visitor quay heading, thankfully just out of earshot of the swimming location. now as i had spent some of the day without a top it will be a liberal spreading of alo vera over most bits of me. at least the campsite seems quiet. time for coffee.

it was working when I went through, it had just shut following about 10 of the tall things headed past.

phew that was a long hot day, 5 hours to get round to geldeston locks, well I just had to have a pint of Aspalls cider to celebrate that. in to hippersons to fill the diesel and empty the waste. when I arrived the quay was full- of canoes, and after executing a perfect reverse down into the dyke, the boat decided it wanted to be bow in, never mind perfectly moored, and now supping my cold pint (they can only carry on selling cold drinks until things warm up as the generator has packed up.) two other boats arrived behind me and have moored (enough canoists had departed) I may move later round to the dyke, as with the kids swimming and the other boats here now, its a tad noisy here. on the way up from beccles I spotted a kingfisher fly up the river and land, hopefully I have pictures.

spotted it was 7.28 so headed over to the showers, these are on automatic locks, so as per norfolk time it was about 7.35 when they opened, had a quick shower this morning and left it running for the couple who were queued behind me, came back to finish my bacon butty and coffee. next to do the washing up, finish preparations to leave and then depart.

well a relaxed day yesterday, with one very noisy boat departing quite late and Ranworth breeze arriving and being slotted in on the taxi rank position at the end, it was a tight gap, but with a bit of help from everyone we managed it, at some point yesterday we had moonlight shadow, and lightning was here overnight too, in fact when I was looking last night i struggled to see a hire boat on the lodden basin moorings, I carefully checked the electric before i turned in, still £1.50, so I had used 26p, mind you when I leave i will need to turn the fridge down a bit as i whacked it up full while I was on shore power. my first coffee this morning went down the sink after i added the milk (cheese) to it, Yesterday I got a pint to see me through, just in case, well that was good planning, second coffee is fine. at the moment i am enjoying the cool bliss that today has brought, its high tide about 8.30, so no point in leaving before that or i will be punching the tide down the yare as well as up the waveney, Geldeston locks ( or the dyke) is the planned destination for today. I will be topping the water before i start, (again) and grabbing a shower as soon as they open, then it will be away at about 8.30. While it is nice to be at a plugged in mooring, with all the facilities, I do also like the remote wild moorings where i can just sit and watch the world go by. water filled, dew wiped down and bacon cooking, life doesnt get much better than this.

I thought with gliders anything that ended with the plane on the ground (water) and the pilot alive was called a landing.

the biggest part of the problem is breaking the suction, you may find that reversing away from the mudweight will achieve this (or if deployed when stern moored driving forward, as from experience i know that mudweight doesnt want to shift at first when you are pulling on it, I find taking a gentle strain and applying pressure slowly achieves that, then once free the rest is easy. mind you it is the same with an anchor, you are pulling the boat until the anchor is up and down.

is that picture what you call deck totty Griff?

5 normal boats or 8 water rails.

yes the roof is up, I have had one cool shower in the showers at Lodden, and I hung my towel to dry off the edge of the roof (stopping the sun coming in from the rear), its lovely with a little breeze in the cockpit.

12 minutes and half a litre of water with 5 ice cubes is gone, and very nice it was too.

I had one come in each side leaving me filling 2 spaces, so I have walked her across an extra half boat width, still a lot of boats eyeing the 3.3m gap and deciding its not big enough. after a nice cool shower i feel like i need another already, balloon fenders from the front are protecting the stern from underriding the quay heading, the other is moving the high part of the stepped hull away from the next boat (it was about half an inch away with their fenders. fridge has ice cubes now, so cold drink time i feel.

in the really hot summer there is nothing like cruising with the roof up and screen and sides down.

i tried it a few weeks back, got weeded up just off the entrance and it looked worse, so I abandoned my attempt, That was in Marthams Jayne.

i am about 6" below the bottom of the quay heading in the basin, i will have to watch that as the tide comes in.

you must have been behind me catching up, I was cruising at 2000 rpm (nominal 5mph ) at 5.8mph and then as I approached the Chet I dropped to 1800 rpm and 5mph, until i got into the chet then i virtually stopped for a few seconds until i was doing 2mph, I had to boost back to 2000 to get up to 4mph up the chet, arrived Lodden basin 10.20, plenty of spaces, hooked up to electric and will fill with water later.

just popped across the road to the shop, bread, butter and milk obtained, a couple of chilled drinks, and 3 shower tokens, 2 for today and one for tomorrow morning, preparing now t rest out the heat of the day doing as little as possible.

battery is charging on the shore power. thus fridge is happy again.

the issue it that there is a weep from the starboard water tank, thus it is half emptying through the day, requiring more regular top ups, I had an early sail this morning 7.15 start from the broad, bacon butties beside me on a plate and coffee in hand, I had a pleasant cruise at 2000 revs all the way, and eventually turned right into the chet, still at almost 2000 revs as instead of going with the tide, i was punching what was coming out of the chet, as i came down I passed several boats headed the other way so despite there being some nice moorings at pyes mill (in the shade of the trees), I opted for the basin where there were quite a few spaces, moored next to the corner only to find the electric post there was already occupied on the point i had a cable for, walked the boat down the key a few spaces and got on the next electric point - £1.76 still in credit, that will do me, off to get some bread and butter, and some shower tokens. so electric and showers were the main reason I stuck for the basin today. sun is now getting hot.

Not sure where I want to end up today, but really it will need water and shore power to top up the batteries. its a gorgeous morning with the mist over surlingham broad, so it will be a quick breakfast and then off. (mainly to get the fridge going, its not as cold as it might be.) I did do 2 hours cruising yesterday, but that obviously doesnt quite top the battery fully, slowly learning the ways of this old girl

I am happy to allow any boat the same size or smaller to double moor, not that there are many hire boats just 25 foot long, and Water Rails high bow does present a formidable problem for some craft as we found at the wooden Boat show stern moored, when it was within an inch of the corner poking into someones porthole, additional fendering was produced to prevent this occurrance.

also moored up here last night and cant say it was too bad, I had a good nights sleep and slept in until 6am, traffic noise doesnt worry me much as i live in a city, the only interruption worthy of note was the girl loudly telling her boyfriend she didnt want to ever see him again at about 11pm.

Ah the real reason the government wants us all to wear masks revealed.

today has been work on the bilge pump day, finally got it working on auto, (top switch down bottom switch up)