YnysMon

Lovely and quiet in March, and no problems finding a mooring. We had our first (motor) experience on the Broads in March 2015 and got hooked. What week do you have in July? We are on Lustre (a sailey) the first week. Helen

Hi David...obviously not, I can’t resist either. OBB- I had a lovely and apologetic phone call from the guy who forgot about the cleaning. He didn’t move the boat, at all, fished during the day, pub in the evenings and used an electric heater. So,I’m sure he didn’t use any fuel.

Friday 14th February Our final day, as Graham wanted to go to agility classes with Seren Saturday morning. Awoke at 5am this morning, a big improvement on yesterday. Once Graham got up, we had a short trip downriver to the BA moorings on Short Dyke via Rockland Broad so that Seren could have a good run around. Fleet Dyke Rockland Broad Short Dyke Unfortunately, this week the Brooms fuel quay was out of action as they were replacing the shed on the quay, so we had to find another place to re-fuel and get a pump-out. Silverline and Swancraft had been suggested. Before we left Short Dyke, I tried phoning Swancraft, but as there was no answer, I tried Silverline. The lady that answered said she would have to ask someone and took my phone number. We waited around for a while, but then started off back toward Brundall without having had a call-back. I was getting a bit worried that the wind was picking up again, and I was worried enough about going up an unfamiliar narrow dyke lined with other boats without having to contend with the wind as well. As we still hadn’t heard back from Silverline, I tried Swancraft again, this time successfully. Jay had thoughtfully provided me with a map; however, I almost went past the Silverline basin. I managed to manoeuvre in okay though. They were expecting us and helped with our lines. Very friendly couple. They even got the water hose out so that we could refill our water (otherwise we would have had another tricky operation getting down a dyke to the only 'winter' water point available Brooms). I was expecting to pay more per litre for fuel, as we normally get a discount from Brooms, but we were surprised at how much fuel we had apparently used. We paid as much as we did at the end of our August week, despite not travelling far and not being able to use the heating for two days whilst it was fixed. I was too cautious reversing out of Swancraft and made things difficult for myself. I should have reversed out further. Still, we didn’t hit any other boats and once we were out in the dyke again it was plain sailing, or it would have been if getting back on our mooring hadn’t been slightly tricky. I aborted the first try as the wind and tide were both pushing my stern out (should have reminded Graham to tie up the stern first). By this time, it was almost mid-day. Shortly after we arrived back, I had a call from Silverline explaining that they couldn’t do a re-fuel for us as they had no room on their quay. So, it’s lucky that I managed to get hold of Swancraft! Rather than have lunch we decided to just get on with cleaning the boat. As we were cleaning, we noticed the barge with the tree cutting equipment coming around the corner. It started clearing away dead/cut wood from the bank opposite. We left the boat about 3pm and made our way to Wroxham to hand the key back to the BCBM agent. In the blog from earlier in the week I mentioned that the door key cut by Timpson’s in Sainsbury’s didn’t work. We got a refund and got the (excellently stocked and friendly) hardware store in Brundall to cut one for us instead. A very late lunch/early dinner was had at the Station Smokehouse in Wroxham. We had a platter for one of brisket, pork belly, chips, corn cob, coleslaw and beans between us. The meat was beautifully tender and we enjoyed out meal. The portion was plenty for the two of us. And then we got on our way home. Here's a final glimpse of Wroxham as we crossed the bridge. It’s been a mixed bag of a week, what with storm Ciara and the heater playing up, but we have enjoyed it. Very relaxing (apart from the trip up to Swancraft!). Just what we needed.

Thursday 13th February I really should not have gone to bed so early yesterday. I woke around 3am this morning and could not get back to sleep. It didn’t help that a hoolie blew up around 4am and then heavy rain. It sounded quite as rough as Sunday morning with the start of storm Ciara, except that the boat didn’t bash against the quay heading as the wind was from the opposite direction, blowing us off the mooring. She did bob about more though. Seren started whining around 6am. She didn’t like the wind noise either. The rain dried up after 7am, and it started brightening up. It was still pretty rough though, the wind whipping up the river into waves. Just after 8.30 I got a message that an engineer was on his way to pick up the heater and should be with us within the hour. He was quicker than that, and by 9.30 we had the heater re-installed. By now the wind had dropped and we had sun and blue sky, despite the forecast for heavy rain. We decided to make the most of it and made our way upriver, as far as Whitlingham (as reported above). Shortly after setting off, at the bend of the river past our mooring, we saw an otter. Wood End. We saw no other craft on the river apart from a barge that had passed to and fro of our mooring earlier, a lot of rowers with their training boats on the stretch up to Whitlingham and, shortly before we left the mooring, a ranger’s boat. As I mentioned earlier, when we got to Whitlingham Graham took Seren out whilst I cooked up brunch. I don’t normally post pictures of our brunches, but Malcolm had set the standard! Yum. It had started raining whilst we had our brunch, but that dried up by the time we were passing under the Postwick Viaduct on our way back. Shortly after that we spotted another otter. Just before the bend for Brundall we spotted a couple of tree surgeons (?) cutting back a tree, then a bit further on the barge that we had spotted earlier was loading up cut branches. Quite a lot of tree clearing going on then. 😊 We got back around three and had a mostly quiet evening, though Graham made the mistake of going to Sainsbury’s at Thorpe St Andrew just after 5pm (rush hour). We had another relaxing evening, and so did Seren. Due to the 3am wake up, I was really for sleep by 9pm again this evening. Hope I don’t wake so early tomorrow!

There are couple of reasonably priced options on Airbnb in Brundall itself and others close by for less than £50 per night.

We have been up there on a day boat hired from Whispering Reeds Boatyard, Hickling. Much easier than trying to sail up there. We’ve tried sailing up there three times on a Hunters boat. The first time we just collected too much weed on our rudder (weed cutting machine very busy upriver), so much that we lost steerage. Second time we gave up early because we could see that another sailey had already bagged out intended destination of Dungeon Corner. Third time was our unfortunate mud lark on Martham. Our vote is for the day boat option.

Nooo! Keep it special!

Each time we have been up there in July or August the weed machine has been very busy. Last year we distracted them from their work for a while. We had got stuck just outside the channel passing Martham Broad and got stuck on mud. The guys on the weed cutter were great, not only did they pull us off the mud, they also towed us around to Dungeon Corner, the corner with a wild mooring.

Wonderful, thanks for posting! The journal was really interesting and the photos the icing on the cake. I think you’d get arrested nowadays for wearing a ‘certain swimsuit’ that features though. LOL.

Yes, I have led a sheltered life (thankfully), but as a realist I know I some people have always behaved badly. I just think that the pressure to have interesting story lines lead soaps to present what would normally be aberrant behaviour as the norm. Gossip magazines and the way that a lot of ‘celebrities’ behave don’t help. When I was a kid it seemed that good behaviour was upheld as a role model. Given the relentless outpouring of stories focussed on bad models of behaviour, I don’t find it surprising that standards have slipped.

The trouble is that it doesn’t feel very much like a debate any longer.

I think ‘soaps’ have also contributed. They are supposed to reflect life, but are so sensationalised. I’m sure some me silly people take them as a model of how people normally behave. Real life copying fiction.

Well said Warren. Your feelings chime with mine on this. People are being turned off by the constant repetition and regurgitation of the same old. Shame really, as I think those who are interested in keeping the BA accountable are losing potential supporters.

Thanks Jean. Graham though it might be something to do with fishing. Vanessan, yes Caister is generally safe for dog walks. We daren’t allow Seren off the lead anywhere near cars, but once we are out of sight of the Caister car park she’s fine, either on the beach or the dunes to the south of the car park. However, you do need to check whether the lifeboat is out, as they use large tractor type vehicles to launch both lifeboats. I took some pictures of those in November - see a few pages back on this thread. Helen

Oh, and I got a message from the guy who was on MS last week. As I suspected he had forgotten that he needed to book a valet if he didn't want to clean the boat himself. So all good. Sent from the Norfolk Broads Network mobile app

Heater seems to be working fine (cross fingers). Much quieter too. [emoji106] Currently moored at Whitlingham cooking brunch whilst Graham and Seren are out walking. I notice the electric post that was out of action has been fixed, and had 60p credit on it. [emoji3] Sent from the Norfolk Broads Network mobile app

And! The Sun has come out. Yippee!

Well, the heater unit is back in place and seems to be running more smoothly.

Wednesday 12th February A special day today. 42 years since Graham and I started dating (we were still in school 42 years ago). Somehow, this anniversary always seems more significant than our wedding anniversary, maybe because it was over six years before we got married (we went to different Uni’s, so it wasn’t really feasible to get married before that). Anyhow…back to the Broads. The weather forecast for today appeared to be promising the best of the whole week, so we were keen to take the opportunity to cruise somewhere. (Well I was anyway, Graham was quite happy reading his book – or should I say stack of books. The stack has come in handy this week preventing too many drafts through the vent at the back of the sliding roof, whilst still allowing some ventilation.) On the other hand, we really needed to get back to our home-mooring for late afternoon, either to get the heater re-installed, or to rely on the shore power provided with the mooring so that we could run the fan heater this evening. As I mentioned above, we ended up going to Loddon. Mainly because we needed to top up our water. Well, that was the excuse. We both love the journey up the Chet. The trouble with starting off early is having the sun's glare. We had a clear sky. The stretch between the two dykes leading to Rockland Broad must be good for fishing. There were four herons all in fairly close proximity. Seren started to whine before we got to Chet Mouth, and I had an attempt at mooring at Hardley Cross so that we could let her off the boat. However, the wind had picked up again and was blowing us off the mooring, so I aborted that and just carried on until we moored at Loddon Staithe – the only boat there. We spotted an otter along the stretch near Hardley Flood. Loddon Staithe. We put some credit on the lekky point, just so we could use our fan heater (a lucky someone will have found over 60p credit after us) and Graham took Seren out for a walk whilst I started to cook a brunch using the Suffolk bacon that we had picked up at the La Hogue Farm Shop. The thickest rashers I’ve seen for a long time. We set off back down the Chet before 1pm. It was such a lovely sunny day, lighting up the reeds with a golden colour. I really appreciate being able to see the Broads in the different seasons. Today was (naturally) very quiet. We saw no other boats on the river until we were approaching Pye’s Mill, where a sailey under power passed us. He passed us again as we were returning down the Chet. Hardley Flood was pretty full. Even the Chet was choppy. Back on the Yare we only passed two other vessels. We were travelling against the wind most of the way back and it was mostly very choppy, especially along the Cantley stretch where we were having a lot of spray thrown up onto the windscreen. Spray on the windscreen.. Just as choppy near the pub... Flocks of birds near Cantley... Seren relaxed a bit on our journey back. Got back around 3pm. The tide was pretty high again. Had another quiet evening. I called the Broom’s office to tell them we were back on our mooring, but there was no further news about the heating unit. I went to bed really early this evening. Just after 8pm my eyes were dropping, and I’m pretty sure that I was asleep by 8.30. Shame, I missed The Great Pottery Throw Down programme that’s showing on More4 currently.

Tuesday 11th February We didn’t rush away this morning. We were experiencing problems with the heating. It had suddenly cut out a couple of times leaving a strong diesel smell, and the flashing indicator suggested it was overheating. I emailed BCBM to ask about reporting it, within a minute my email had been forwarded to Brooms, and in another 5 minutes a couple of engineers turned up. That was quick! They took the heating unit out (I’ve now realised that one of the pre-requisites for being a boat engineer is not to suffer from claustrophobia) and said they would take it to the dealers to get it fixed, and hopefully would be able to reinstall it later in the day. Graham and I took ourselves and Seren off to Caister-on-Sea (we seem to have settled on Caister as our favourite place to walk Seren). We had a lovely walk, but the wind was bitterly cold. Anyone know what sort of vessel this is? I liked the indications that Caister still has a small fishing industry. We had spotted a bakery with tea rooms as we had passed through Caister, so popped in there after our walk. Disappointed to find that they had closed the tea rooms, as they had scaled up their ‘commercial work’. Well it’s a shame they couldn’t have taken the sign down, or painted over the ‘tea rooms’ bit! We drove down the road to Tesco’s and picked up sandwiches there instead, as it was getting on for 2pm. Before we set off back to the boat, I checked out where the nearest Aldi was, as Graham recalled seeing fan heaters in their offers for this week. It turned out there was one in Gt Yarmouth, just on our route home, so that was handy, and the heater was only £9.95, so we have some ‘insurance’ this evening in case we don’t get our heater back on the boat. When we got back an engineer was already on board re-installing the heating unit. When he had done so he did a test run. Initially it was fine, but then started making a really peculiar noise and packed up again, again with a diesel smell. So, it ended up being taken away again to the dealers. Oh well. Hopefully it will be back and up and running in time for Jay’s stint on the boat next week. In the meantime, our little fan heater worked really well. We had sausage, mash and veg this evening with instant gravy – an easy option. There wasn’t much on telly to interest us, so we spent a quiet night reading. I’m currently reading Lindsey Davies’ ‘The Ides of April’, crime fiction set in ancient Rome. By the way, when I was writing up Sunday’s blog, I forgot to mention something that made us laugh. As we were leaving the Surlingham Ferry I put on the Satnav to guide us back to Brundall. ‘Shirley’ as usual told us to go to the highlighted route – which was the lane the other side of the river. LOL.

Poor heater...that’s some time spent heating people! Well, we’ve been to Loddon and back today. Its still pretty breezy though. Coming back against the wind was interesting, especially the bit past Cantley which was more like a choppy Breydon crossing than anything. Graham is currently occupied - cleaning all the spray off the windows.

Oh, I should have mentioned that Brooms did offer to lend us some heaters. We just though it a good idea to take advantage of the Aldi offer.

We are warm this evening...despite continuing gusts of wind, low temperatures and a problem with the heating. In fact, the Webasto unit is not currently on board as we sent an email this morning reporting that it was cutting out due to overheating. Very impressed how quickly Brooms engineers arrived, literally with minutes of BCBM forwarding my email. Luckily, Graham had checked out Aldi’s deals for this week and knew they included various heaters. We picked up a fan heater for £9.99 at their Gt Yarmouth store. They also had very reasonably priced convector heaters and oil filled radiators.

Welcome! I do envy people who have been hiring Broads boats for that length of time, as Graham and I are relatively newbies at this Norfolk Broads boating lark, our first hire being 5 years ago. We have well and truly caught the bug though!

Monday 10th February It was still pretty windy this morning. Unlike yesterday evening, the water levels were pretty high, with high tide not due until lunch time. The forecast was for a sunny morning and rainy afternoon, so we set off shortly after 9am, making our way to the north coast, but stopping off initially at Walsingham. Little Walsingham is quite quaint. The priority was coffee and cake, which we had in the Norton’s Café in the Anglican Shrine. Very nice cakes they had too. Graham had something called Norfolk shortcake, which seemed to be a cross between a shortcake and a scone. I had lemon cake. We had a look around the shine. It was very ‘high church’, unless you were paying attention you would think it was a Catholic church. I had also wanted to see around the grounds of the ruined Abbey, as I’d read that they have a good show of snowdrops this time of the year. However, it was now after 11am, it was £5.50 entry per person and we still hadn’t yet taken Seren for a walk. We decided to make our way to Wells-next-the-Sea instead. Once we’d found a parking spot in Wells we walked from the harbour along the dyke that leads to the beach. It was a lovely walk but, as Graham had only paid for two hours parking, we couldn’t stay long at the beach once we got there. I loved the beach huts, especially the variety of designs and colours. This one was particularly lovely. Seren enjoyed herself. As the seafood restaurant that we had fancied visiting in Wells was shut on Mondays, we thought of going to Cromer for lunch instead. That didn’t quite work out either, as we found the coast road to Cromer was closed half way through Stiffkey, so we had to turn around (with difficulty). We had just passed a pub anyway, The Red Lion, so we had our lunch there instead: Graham had a very nice fish and chips with minty mushy peas and I had a crab salad. The sky was looking pretty gloomy when we left the pub, so we just drove back to the boat. Just as well as it rained most of the rest of the afternoon. The water level was even higher when we got back to the boat, and it was quite a step up to get on board. Shortly before sunset the sky turned really black, we had some thunder and then a really heavy hail storm. The ‘scum’ on the water in the picture below is hail. It felt a lot colder this evening, I hadn’t needed a hot water bottle last night, but did this night. It’s cosy in the cabin with thick duvet, water bottle and dimplex heater.