Moosey

Yes we said exactly the same thing! Forget the electric it's a pain in the bum. She's a lovely boat other than that but don't think we'd have her again! Might not be so bad if we'd have stayed north, with lower speed limits and less tide.

Day 2. 1st October Up about 5.30am after a terrible nights sleep. Whisper has to be the loudest boat we have ever stayed on. Not much sleep was had last night due to the noise of waves splashing against the bow, bloop, bloop, bang, bang, bloop!!! Gav makes us bacon butties for breakfast and we tidy up the boat a bit. Thank goodness for paper plates saves on the washing up (this boat stores all the waste water onboard and we are not yet sure how big the tank is). I ring YYS at 8.20 am and leave an answerphone message. 20 minutes later we get a call back from a really helpful guy who says it's 8’6” and dropping so we can come anytime. Hair still wet from the shower I quickly dry it off and forget about straightening it (one of the best things about this boat is that I can use my GHDs onboard)! Off we go! We leave on electric and it a weird feeling, sailing along completely silently. We cruise along pretty uneventfully, it quite quiet out there, the generator kicks in at The Stracey Arms and we are back to running on diesel, it was fully charged when we left so it appears you really don't get long on electric. Phone YYS from Marina Keys, we are still ok to cross, we give the quay attendant a wave on our way past. We are struggling to make 5mph and the battery charge is dropping like a stone even with the generator running. Off Breydon and we put the oven on ready for pie in a can. I eat half of mine whilst travelling but Gav wants to wait until we moor at St Olaves. We are still struggling to make 5mph and it turns out this will be a problem that will continue all week. Finally we moor at St OIaves at the free moorings, the battery is down to 50% charge. We eat our lunch with the generator running and plan tomorrow. We have booked a mooring at the Waveney River Center and decide it might be better to moor under the bridge. Gav is convinced there are public moorings so we miss a spot at The Bell to go looking for them. The moorings are not where he thinks they are so we turn round and go back to The Bell. The tide is running fast and we moor between a Richardsons bath tub and a private boat. Fair play to Gav it is a perfect parking maneuver, we finish tying up but I can't finish the last rope as the private boat is leaving and it will get in his way. They seem to be struggling with the tide and he re ties up and starts again. I ask if he would like any help but he refuses. We watch with interest they inch closer and closer to our boat, please don't hit us, they don't! We wander up to the pub to find out that they close early on a Sunday, so we book dinner for 5.30pm. After a little walk we go back to the boat for a little cider up top. The noise from the bow is unbelievable and the wind is picking up so we decide to give turning the boat a go. We manage to get her turned and tuck Whisper into a corner nestled against the reeds. It's just us and the Richardsons boat overnight and I think we sit next to them over what turns out to be a very nice dinner. The Big Bell Burger for Gav and the Halloumi and Mushroom Burger for me, followed by chocolate fudge cake and lemon blossom pie for pudding. We are absolutely stuffed! We enquire about breakfast and are told they serve it from 9-11am, guess we will be back in the morning! Back at the boat we turn the satellite tv on, it takes an age to get a signal but we finally get one and watch a couple of hours of junk tv before turning in before 9pm!

No apologies needed, I like reading all your posts and it hides the fact I haven't got round to another update yet

Yes the sinks went into the holding tank too. We ate out a lot to be fair. The shower on whisper is lovely and not at all cramped but still no match for the showers at Waveney, my favourites.

We had shore showers wherever we could, had very short daily showers when we had to onboard and managed without a pump out the whole week. We were getting a bit nervy the last day though!

They do sound and work like traditional bow thrusters pretty much, the generator I don't think is as loud as a traditional engine.

They have Silent Emblem as well. We passed in the South when both under electric power, was quite cool!

Thank you Lol, we did take to calling her Shouty Emblem as she seemed to run on generator more than electric but I think that was just the weather we were dealing with that week!

How remiss of me not to put the date, not sure how to edit to add but I am a bit late writing this up, it was Saturday 30th September. I do happen to know that the couple you were waving to are also on the forum though!

We always wave, we were out first week in October and we commented how wavy everyone seemed to be this year, it was nice.

Day 1 Saturday 30th September 2017. We eventually got on the road at 7am half an hour later than planned mainly due to me being sluggish and then having to stop for petrol and put air in the tyres as the car was quite heavily loaded. We had a fabulous journey down, which is not something I think I have ever said before when travelling to Norfolk from Manchester. We stopped off at a Little Chef for breakfast and if I hadn't of needed to eat we would have walked out. I have honestly never seen a Little Chef in such a bad state of repair. The ceiling in the restaurant had a pretty bad leak that had clearly been there for sometime and there were buckets all over the restaurant catching the water. The gents were also out of order due to a leak. It was literally falling apart and was just horrible. Our iphone sat nav took us the weirdest way and routed us down little country lanes and through villages, it was a beautiful route, we avoided the city altogether and pulled into Ferry Marina at 12.30pm. Whisper wasn't ready yet so we went to the Ferry Pub for some lunch, with a promise that they would call us when she was ready. Gav had a monster hotdog and chips and quite enjoyed it. I had a hot pork and applesauce sandwich and it was tough as old boots, we are seriously not having much luck on the food front today! Lunch done with an we are just setting off for a walk at 1.30pm when we get a call to say she is ready. We throw everything on board to be unpacked later and then after a very thorough introduction we are finally underway. We headed for South Walsam Broad in a little convoy of boats, feeling absolutely sure that there will be no moorings to be had when we get there. We turn the corner and there is loads of space and we pull up right at the end next to the reeds. Time to unpack and then have a well earned Cider sat up top in what is left of the sun, whilst we watch the world going by. One of the Faircraft boats comes in to moor next to us at such an acute angle we almost hold our breath. There is a man stood on the front with the ropes, then suddenly thud, he's hit the ground. I look round and he is on the ground on his back, ouch this doesn't look good. 2 couples from 2 private boats rush to help. One of the guys try to offer advice to the boat trying to moor, but that was instantly dismissed! Crack he's hit the ladders then crack he's hit them again. Eventually they moor assisted by the lovely private people. We take a walk and end up at the bottom of the moorings to get a menu for the Chinese. Hmmmm there are none there. There is a sign with a phone number though. We decide roughly what we are going to have and give them a call, beep, beep, beep, the phone won’t connect! We check it out on facebook and it appears that the Chinese has closed, that was our main reason for mooring there. Nothing else for it, Gav cooks his famous pasta bake instead, it's delicious served with garlic bread and prosecco. TV doesn't work and there is no DVD as advertised so we sit chit chatting rubbish. 8.30pm a pleasure cruiser comes past with music blaring out, there is lots of laughter and shouting, we rush up top to see what is going on. What a beautiful boat that is, looks like a good night out! Its been a glorious day weather wise, we didn't expect it to be as warm as this, Whisper is warm too, no need for heating tonight.

We were at Cantley last night and it was a rough one! Back on the north side and hopefully it will be a much calmer one tonight!

We've always had bathtubs before, so that would explain it! Wasn't so bad after we had turned her around, think it was mainly down to the wind.

Whisper Emblem

Thanks everyone for your replies! I think we must have been lucky before and never had a week with high winds before. We have tucked ourselves into a corner and will see how we go. It was bad last night at north walsam broad too so I think it must be the design of this boat combined with the wind. Never mind I'll soon be so tired I'll eventually sleep

Ok so we are round! It's a bit better but I think the fact that it's so noisy could be down to the shape of the eco hull on this boat, thanks again.