SwanR

Lovely photo Jay. Enjoy this time afloat. Have you got family to keep you company? A few showers this morning on the coast and colder than when we were out in March.

I’m fairly sure someone mentioned this chap on here before which was how I found his channel. Simon, A Bloke In The Woods. I highly recommend his videos.

Have a great time Steve. I don’t know where spring has gone!! Just been for a walk along the seafront. Bitterly cold northeasterly wind. 6 degrees feeling like 2 degrees at the moment. Needed my scarf, hat and gloves plus thermals and winter jacket!!

Ok so it’s the week before Easter and I’m not actually afloat but thought that anyone waiting for holiday reports might like a quick look at Oulton Broad this morning. Not many people around in the cold wind! Not even any sailies out on the water!

Don’t give the hire companies ideas or they will be insisting someone has to take you under the low bridges at Great Yarmouth!

I like to try to tick a few things off the list whenever we’re afloat balanced with mooring in our favourite places. Having ticked Irstead off last time out I would still like to moor at the church mooring near Horning.

Richardson's actually have something on the keyring they give you that reminds you not to run your engine between 8pm and 8am. There is no excuse!

Oh, you mean that it doesn't look like this now ...

Looks like the season is underway then. A gloomy morning on the webcam at HW but good to see that some of the boats must have gone out yesterday now that it's school holidays across much of the country.

Enjoyed seeing your videos Jay. :) Amazing the quality of what you can take with a phone these days. The light on the water was beautiful. Was it late afternoon?

Love seeing your photos Helen. All sounds very interesting and wonderful to share a hobby together. :)

You've summed that up perfectly. :)

Sounds amazing! Have a great time. Looking forward to hearing all about it. Interesting to have shares north and south.

It’s bizarre Tony!

This was my point exactly. I didn't think that the pricing was immediately obvious. Initially I picked my date and looked at the price and thought that it was out of my budget. But when I read the small print underneath and realised that it included £150 fuel deposit then all of a sudden that's a different proposition. I clicked as if to book the boat just to check that I hadn't read it wrong. £699 plus whatever fuel one uses is a very different proposition when booking than £849 and you will probably get some money back. Apart from anything else, why should the hire companies have my money for months only to give most of it back!! I know I've said this before but why should the fuel deposit be the same no matter the length of hire? £150 is excessive for a 4 day booking in my opinion.

Interesting. I see that Faircraft Loynes have gone for the Ferry Marina style of fit out with the galley in the bow of the boat, which is lovely when you're moored up and preparing a meal. I like Gleaming Light. That's the one style of boat we haven't hired yet but I have a feeling I would need to be stern on moored to stand a chance of getting off!! But looks like it would be a cosy boat for out of season hiring. Herbert Woods website, like many others I've checked out recently, has a much more modern feel than it used to. But I think they might be making their boats look very expensive. The price stated includes the fee waiver which is fine, but it also includes a £150 fuel deposit even for a short break. Knowing that we wouldn't spend anything like that in 4 days, the holiday looks way more expensive than it will turn out to be. We only used £41 of fuel on our recent trip.

Each to their own KaptinKev, thank you for your reply. The first time we went in March we had some clear sunny frosty mornings. This year it was more grey skies than blue and admittedly we counted ourselves as fortunate not to have any rain and only one breezy day. I guess it's about being prepared for all eventualities and for us the joy of the quiet rivers outweighed the extra layers required. :)

Completely agree. We are more than likely to repeat the experience of hiring in March. :)

Was that tongue in cheek KaptinKev or were you being serious? Our few days afloat were fabulous.

Have to say that our recent experience with Richardson's was very good. I noticed that in their skipper's manual they have a sheet with the air draft of all their boats listed. And when we returned to the yard, the young lad who refuelled our boat also asked if there were any issues. He had pen and paper ready to write down any problems so as to pass them on. That's good customer service in my book.

Finally managed to get a little video uploaded. Looks rather grey for a lot of the time as we only had one sunny day, but hopefully you will enjoy it anyway!

Thanks Jeff. I use the facility to check copyright on YouTube and mostly manage to find the information I need and avoid tracks that mean the video will be blocked widely. About to upload something this evening so we'll see whether I've got it right!

We have thought the same about booking next year. We usually do book anything well in advance to be sure of getting exactly what we want. And I've never seen Ferry Marina offering discounts before but of course they are under new ownership now I believe. So we may just wait until a few weeks before we want to go and see what's about.

We've done north and south but by hiring on that side and spending up to a week on board. Ideally if I was going to do Breydon I think I would want to hire for ten days so as not to lose too much of my holiday to the long stretches either side which are often described as a bit of a slog. I've watched so many videos of other people crossing Breydon that as long as we time it right I have no worries about doing it. But I am glad that our first hire a few years back now was on the southern rivers before I joined any forums or groups or read anything on Facebook about the Broads. So we just did it without thinking about the higher rise and fall, needing more slack on your ropes etc.

Great photos and videos. I liked the choice of music. Takes me forever to find what I want for mine!