YnysMon

Lovely photos as always Malcolm. You do seem to have been lucky with the weather.

Excellent. Hope all goes smoothly with the move.

There seem to be a remarkable number of hose connectors on MS, so I doubt that we’ll have a problem! 😀

Me too!

Thanks for the hint Alan. I thought I'd double check that the Oulton Broad and Beccles Yacht Stations will be open next month. They are, at least the Beccles web page doesn't say anything about closing for winter. Interestingly the Oulton Broad has opening times of 08:00 to 12:00 between November and March, so I guess if we want electric we'd have to arrive between those times. Does anyone here know whether the electric posts at Reedham are available over winter?

Looks lovely! The kids look chuffed to bits. Bet you are too!

We have done a daytime stop at Norwich Yacht station in the winter. you have to climb over the rails to get anywhere, and the electric posts are boxed over, so unavailable. We haven't yet checked out whether the same is the case at Reedham. I've read here that water has been available at Reedham in previous winters if you have your own hose. i.e. the hoses have been removed but the water not turned off. We have been able to use electric over winter at St Olaves, Somerlayton, Oulton Broad and Beccles Yacht Stations, Loddon, Hardley Mill, Rockland St Mary, Surlingham Ferry Inn and Bramerton. There used to be Whitlingham too, but there aren't any BA moorings there any longer, so unless posts have tripped due to high tides, that's quite a selection. Does anyone know what's happened about those Whitlingham moorings? Are there still there, but under the ownership of the charitable trust that looks after the park, or have they been closed completely?

This October is proving to be fairly mild.

I think our first ever cruiser hire was late March. It was probably colder than we experienced when we were out in November, or even February, but at least the days were a bit longer.

Me too! Even though I write longer posts in Word and then re-read my pasted version again before clicking submit. I think Grendel once mentioned that if, you are quick enough, you can edit. I don't remember how many minutes grace we are given though. Helen

We hired Royale Emblem back in early May 2017, before it was refurbished. There’s a tale that you can find in the Holiday Tales thread if you are interested. It was only our second hire of a motor cruiser so I was very much a newbie on the helm for that holiday. I thought she was a dream to handle and the huge aft lounge was great for family socialising. We found the boat really comfy for 5 people and a dog. We also managed to explore the Broads pretty extensively in just one week, down to the southern Broads as far as Norwich and Loddon, back up to Coltishall, up the Ant to Neatishead and Ludham. That’s a point to note…the shorter days in November will limit your cruising time. On the other hand, I love how quiet the rivers are in November.

Good tip about the oil filled radiator, we'll certainly be using ours on our November trip.

We'll be around the first half of November too on our syndicate boat, Moonlight Shadow. We are based on the southern rivers, but might sneak up north either the beginning of the first week or the latter part of the second week, as otherwise the low tides are too early/late. Normally, the majority of pubs and cafes are still open, as far as I can recall the only cafes that have previously closed over winter are the Dunes Acle Bridge Café and the Granary Stores in Ranworth. I think they close at the end of October and don't open again until around Easter time. Pubs are mostly open, but you may have seen a few posts here about some pubs having to shut or reduce their opening times/food availability due to staff shortages. Welcome to the forum, by the way. Helen

Have a great time!

One of our favourites too!

Last year we had cards we had bought the year before and used them without any problems. As Stumpy mentioned, the BA changed the type of card about 4 years ago and recalled the old cards, or offered to change them. I don’t think there has been any issue since that switch-over with using the cards from year to year. However, I did notice in papers for one of the BA committees that there was a mention of the amount being set for the upcoming year for the amount of electricity purchased per card. That seems to change year by year. So, do older cards still give you the previous year’s allocation? No idea.

Hope you find your ideal boat solution. I suppose it will depend on how far you want to range on the Broads. I’m sure a lot will envy you if you have a boat based in Martham. Though I suppose you might want to get south of ‘that bridge’ occasionally. LOL.

That sounds good…work life balance is what it’s all about. I’ve managed to negotiate working my normal 74 hour fortnight into 9 days instead of 10. Spreading out the extra hours from the 10th day across 9 doesn’t make that much difference to the working day, and I get every other Friday off. Yay! This weekend has been one of my long ones. Lovely!

New jobs are a bit taxing, aren’t they. I feel completely discombobulated, definitely mind weary from trying to take in lots of new information. I’ve not even switched employers, but my new Unit (Business Development) use almost a different language to the Faculty that I’ve worked in for over 25 years.

Brilliant news. Hope you’ll both be very happy in your new home.

Well, there wasn’t much Broads was there. Not worth the effort of signing in to the channel to watch it.

Yes, on previous visits we've picked them up from Brooms or Bridge Stores, Ludham, but given we will by on the Broads for a fortnight early November we didn't want to reply on availability of cards from the normal outlets, especially as one of our syndicate members had difficulty on their first outing on Moonlight Shadow. Graham ordered 20 cards, as we've found that it's safer to have more than £1 credit on the post if we want to use a heater on overnight. Harry will be joining us, so goodness knows what two heaters will draw down. It will depend on how cold the nights are. Anyway, we didn't want to wipe out stocks in outlets in consideration of other boaters. Err...maybe I should have said we hope to be on the Broads in November, given the situation with caring for my father-in-law. There's no confirmation yet that a care package has been sorted for him in Anglesey. We are getting more than slightly stressed out with the situation. We are even considering seeing how he copes back home, depending on whether his neighbours would be okay with checking out how he's getting on.

Excellent service from the BA. Graham phoned them yesterday to order some cards for the electric posts and they arrived today.

We did manage a fortnight without a pump out on Moonlight Shadow about an year ago. There is a warning indicator on the loo and that stayed green the whole fortnight and there wasn’t any noticeable smell. However, my son unexpectedly joined us for the second week and was using the en suite to the rear cabin, so we made sure to use that loo during the day once he was with us. I guess that must have ‘evened things out’ a bit.

A warm welcome to the forum. Helen