Bob48

i was planning a visit in October to Coltishall , however when the good lady and i went in May we noticed that not far from Belaugh the reed beds seem to be doing rather a good job of invading the river , not only that but after all of the rain we are led to believe it's going to be nice and sunny ( ideal for growing reeds ) can anyone who has been up that far tell me what the Navigation is like through to Coltishall please

we always have at least one window open on any of those that we have hired , the last one we went on had 4 in the cabin ( all open when the hob was on ) and the door open too , better safe than sorry , she also had a roof vent or maybe an escape hatch in the forward end ,which i had open during the day for airing purposes , i think that as long as you are sensible this sort of thing shouldn't happen , as i said at the beginning always have a window open we had the " down wind" side open every night ,there is always an extra blanket should you need one .

Richardsons have put a new canopy on CG4 it has side " windows " if you will (clear panels) and it has a new "zip -up " rear screen which is much easier to use that the older version with the "twist " type fasteners , getting the canopy up and down is a bit of a handful and would be a proper pain if you were single helming , but the wife and i have got it down to a fine art now , the rear deck on this particular boat is as you say fantastic in the sunny weather , we had our canopy down five out of the seven days ,only because firstly we didn't take it down before we left Stalham on the Friday and on the Wednesday it was light rain all day. otherwise great times were had , even if it was a bit " breezy " on the Tuesday .

terrible news this morning , my prayers are with the families of those found asleep with their dog at Wroxham island , may your course be straight and true and the wind forever at your back .

What madness be this , we have been home for a fortnight and i have started counting down to our October trip already , so as of today it's 16 weeks 5 days . can't wait bigger boat this time , Tobago 3 out of Richardsons, Stalham , the Good lady and myself plus Mum, Dad,the old boy and our Daughter , her first time on a boat . look forward to seeing some of you on the water . Stay safe , and remember the sun cream.

it's my sausage fingers sorry Broadsword or maybe too much wine , i'm not sure , my spelling in that report was appalling , sorry .

do not be mislead , here are the facts straight from Richardsons , if you use the bridge pilot you have to sign a form to say that you have been through the bridge , you pay nothing to the pilot . when you get back to Richardsons they deduct the £12 return journey price from whatever remains of your fuel deposit ,if you have used most or all of it (fuel) you pay Richardsons either the balance or the total amount respectively .

i certainly hope so .

we'll be back next May for another 7 days , we booked it the moment we got back lol i believe the term is " passionate about the broads " see you on the water

we are there 4-7 October . may see you about , my NBN poster will be in the Port side front window give us a wave if you see us .

thankyou .

here she is Crown Gem 4, and us once we were moored up

if it's ok i'd like to share with you all the Adventure we had from the 20th to the 27th of May this year . it all started just before 6 am on the 20th with a cuppa at home before the usual headless chicken act that starts most of our days , then called the taxi for the short hop to the railway station , , ( 07.36 ) train on time off to Norwich via Ely . got to Norwich , a walk up to Castle meadow to catch the x11 to Stalham , this was running a few minutes late but we were on holiday so it didn't matter too much. got into Stalham around 10.40. first stop is the Cherry blossom cafe for a much needed cuppa and a sausage roll , this is a great cafe the staff are very friendly it is exceptionly clean and the tea is fantastic .tea was drunk off to Richardsons boatyard to get the boat ( by this time the excitement is at fever pitch ) get to reception and look out of the window and our boat CrownGem 4 is moored up right out side the door ! , we are told that she'd be ready about 1pm so we have about an hour to wait , no problem a wander aroud some of the new boats is a good way to use an hour , we had a look around " Commodore " it's like the Enterprise on board every techy gadget you can think of . ( rabbiting on sorry ) so we get the keys , life jackets , a couple of extra pillows , and we are out of there first stop Ludham bridge , great day for a gentle cruise down the Ant ,and across Barton Broad, pass through Irstead where the icehouse is having a new thatch put on , get to Ludham bridge wind blew us into the moorings here . later we went to the Dog at Ludham bridge , really friendly here very dog friendly too , great food as always ,they have had a face lift recently , redecorated ,still it hasn;t changed the atmosphere. day 2 starts with me not being able to get the boat to start , i felt a prize lemon after the engineer from Richardsons came out , turns out i hadn't pushed the key "in " before twisting it . so our trip to Coltishall was postponed and we headed for Womack water instead , along the Bure we came across a rather smart saily with a gentleman waving at us from aboard turns out that it was Broadsword and his lady , got into Womack relatively easily , then things started to happen that were really frightening a lady fell from the back of a " princess " class cruiser , one of the big ones with the flying bridge out of Acle , 2 problems first , no life jacket second it was reversing into a mooring , thankfully there ws a group of firemen/paramedics on the boat next to them and she didn't suffer any injuries apart from being frightened out of her wits and being cold and wet . her husband was as white as the driven snow , he hadn't realised she had slipped off the back , just shows life jackets are there to be worn. Sunday, day 3 .left the moorings and headed for St Benets for a visit then up to Salhouse for an overnight stay so we can get to Coltishall tomorrow , interesting times were had here the moorings have been renewed here , and the stupidity of people will never cease to amaxe me , the was a lad maybe 8 possibly 9 years old in the broad swimming with his i believe brother in a dingy with an outboard on doing " doughnuts " around him , ridiculous really but there you are , walked to the " Bell" for something to eat only to find out that they don't serve food in the evening ,bacon and egg sarnies for tea . Monday off to Coltishall we had a great trip up to Wroxham and with the eyes of the world ( namely the Barnes Brinkcraft webcam ) watching and people on the bridge and both sides of the river i pulled into the pilots mooring like an consumate professional ( with a huge sigh of relief i can tell you ) pilot took us through and we moored up for a wander around Hoveton and Roy's store . supplies onboard ( mostly wine ) and off to Coltishall the river Bure is beautiful upstream of Wroxham bridge but is getting rather overgrown in places , i wouldn't want to take a large boat up there , lots of bits of tree sticking out of the water to starboard , be cautious !we moored up outside the Rising sun recently re-opened after being closed or so i'm led to believe, fantastic fish and chips , here but the other meals that we saw brought out looked similarly huge helpings and very reasonably priced too.over nighted here very peaceful even though there is a road running parallel to he river . Tuesday up and back to Wroxham it's a fantastic trip back the wind has picked up rather a lot and helped us off he moorings , got to Wroxham , went back to Roys for proper shopping , Baked crab on board tonight, through the bridge and off to Ranworth, more interesting times , the wind almost blew us down Ranworth dam , mooring up was scary to say the least , but we got in and dropped the mudweight to stop us being blown all over the place, baked crab for tea , now i did make a video of myself doing this but i am a bit loathed to post it on Youtube ,i have seen what people have posted and have decided against it , sorry . Wednesday, wet and wild day , really just a short hop to Horning marshes at Ludham bridge , , now while Crown Gem is a great boat and is very well behaved in the water her window wiper is shall we say not so good at it's job , you can't have it all can you . met some great people here this evening we were very kindly invited onto there boat ( Brinks rhapsody 2 " they had an african grey parrot , i thought my sides were going to split talk about a naughty bird .i digress we had a great evening with his owners , and drank more than a little. Thursday relatively late start dur to last evening woke up to a fine morning , and sadly had to head back to Stalham , came across Broadswrod again , said hell across the river , beautiful slow run back had the engine just ticking over hardly any other boats about , got back to richardsons about 2pm , there is good reason for this , on fridays Richardsons boatyard can become extremely busy , and if you go back Thursday you can enjoy a chinese meal from the Fortune house takeaway , we had a set meal for two comprising of , special fried rice, chicken and mushrooms , beef and green peppers in black bean sauce and sweet nd sour chicken balls and 2 spring rolls for £13.20 and there would have been enough to feed 4 ! Friday up early to clean down the boat we had packed the evening before, bit of a cuppa then the yard crew start doing pump outs and refuelling , we had £100 of diesel on board when we left last Friday , when we got back to the yard we still had £70.40 worth , " life should be lived at 4 miles per hour " so less the £12 for the bridge pilot we had £58 which paid for our lunch at the comleat angler in Norwich before getting the train home . i hope this isn't to " ratttly " we had a fantastic time in our favourite place , and cannot wait until October when we come back for a 4day cruise on Tobago 3 . if you have been thanks for reading

there has been some discussions about whether or not the moorings at Granary staithe are free or not, i think i am now in a position to answer this question.

we ( my Wife and I ) went to Ranworth last Tuesday i approached the staithe to the left of the Dayboat moorings , swung around for the stern on moorings and got caught by the not light breeze , we ended up sideways onto the quay heading in what was a rather scary and stupid manouever (?) namely me sans life jacket pushing the boat away from said quay head we managed to get moored up , i was berrated fiercely by my wife for being so stupid. I have a video of us at Ranworth in the wind should anybody like to see it .

been on Youtube , and for the first part of cooking the crab , which is only 55 seconds long it's going to take almost 20 minutes to upload , is this a normal occurance ?

Thankyou Hockham Admiral , it could take some time as i am a bit of a donk where it comes to this sort of thing , give me a hammer and a bag of nails and i can fix anything , computers are something entirely different .

can i post video clips on here ?

who would like to watch me make this on a boat ? the reason i ask is because i did it on Wednesday at Ranworth, with the obligatory glass of wine of course .

i find it to be the best way deebee, there is always time for a glass of wine , it makes cooking so much more pleasurable .none ever goes to waste , as for our holiday , it starts this Friday so there will be no new recipe next week . i have decided that when we get back i'll post one recipe every week right through the year so there will be seasonal foods and favourites as well as some more interesting recipes . i was going to write a recipe book ,but all of that wine has an impact on my writing abilities stay safe, see you on the water

ok this is what we saw at Ludham bridge , i call this a touch of madness . only saving grace was he was wearing a buoyancy aid , there were other children doing exactly the same thing on the other side of the boat .

just got back after a week in our favourite place we saw fabulous skies, endured wind and rain, saw stupidity beyond description, drank wine ,and cooked fabulous food as well as eating in some great places, i have photos. and will post some later on ,once all the unpacking is done, one other thing Hello Dannyboy nice to meet you even if it was calling across the Ant

how far from the moorings is the Recruiting Sergeant ?

that's exactly it SwanR ," going home " . we can't wait , , taxi to the traain station train to Norwich , bus from Norwich to Stalham tea and a sausage roll at the " Cherry Blossom cafe" ( thoroughly recommend this place ) then a wander down the high street , past " Hero " to the boat yard . we cannot wait did i say that previously , sorry . but i know you all understand me .

might see you on the water Broadsword