kpnut

Happy birthday Carole. That’s an extra special one. Hope you’ve been spoiled!

That mooring in your photos looks delightful. Reading your tale makes me realise I have an awful lot to learn about boating and river conditions. What an excellent holiday you seem to have had, and good family memories.

Home now! It’ll have to wait. 😂

A slow start this morning as we had the electric eel boat at How Hill booked for 11am. After another cooked breakfast, we had a good walk up to Cromes dyke where we spotted some blue damselflies and some frogbit. Our trip on the electric boat went down very well, and was very informative. There was a bit of spare time at the end so the pilot took us downriver a bit, then wishing he hadn’t as Samson the Richardson’s rescue boat came up river with a HW boat in tow. We came in behind him, and waited and watched while he manoeuvred at the HW boat round his towboat and onto the moorings, no doubt to wait for the HW engineer to arrive by van. Interesting little extra for Sam to watch.

That was an interesting discussion stirred up through the simple act of teaching a youngster how to behave responsibly and considerately on a boat. He’s been through all the dials and switches on the dashboard, discussed why the nav lights are different colours and what that means, knows his port from his starboard (he’d heard those words before on some cartoon he’s watched), understood why he shouldn’t waste water or electric on board or flush the wc too much. Knows that yachts need respect as they do wierd things and to pass behind them, and keeps quoting what I told him this morning - ‘one hand for you, one hand for the boat’. He also helped me pull the boat down the quay at How Hill when Luna’s Nook became available and I’ll leave you all to speculate as to whether he had another day at the helm. We started the day bright and sunny with a cooked breakfast treat, followed by a walk up to the church, along the field edge where we talked about what sugar beet is grown for, and along the track leading to Horning Hall where we found a very hairy caterpillar. We didn’t get all the way as we discovered his boots were leaking. Excited to get going, we headed for Fleet dyke where I was very pleased indeed to see two of the newly cut wild moorings being used. We went round the Outer Broad spotting thatched roofs, and ventured a little way into the Inner Broad to spot the terns circling over their island nesting platform. By this time it was raining and getting windier by the minute. We moored up at St Benets for lunch, but opted out of a walk, choosing instead to head for How Hill for a visit to the secret garden (the azaleas and rhododendrons are about finished and there were lots of slugs and snails on the leaves of the flag iris) and Toad Hole cottage. The obligatory icecream was purchased, as well as an ISpy book and an ID chart for ducks, geese and swans. They’ll stay on board for other guests. This experience of having a youngster onboard has got me raring for my little 1yr old grandaughter to be old enough for inquisitive discussions. It’s taken me right back to my years as a childminder when mine were little, 🥰

Because it’s such a faff to be able to prove what % has been used for domestic/propulsion, the various authorities agreed a nominal 40/60 split. If you think you use a different % split, you can ask the supplier to charge it at whatever you declare. It’s up to you, as purchaser, to be able to prove it if HMRC request the info. The supplier is only responsible for providing details of the transaction.

I think their 100% duty free is £1.25. Add the duty to 60% of your purchase and it comes to £1.57 or whatever someone said they’d paid the other day.

I’m quite enjoying it. 😂😂😂 But probably we’ve exhausted the ‘problem’ now.

Thanks all. That bit Dom refers to is what I was told and subsequently read. And there’s a further bit in the bylaw expressly saying about under that age too. All your different interpretations show the rule is a bit naff. He was not allowed to touch the throttle. And he was perfectly understanding of all the stuff he was told as we went along - low wash near moored boats in case someone’s pouring a kettle of boiling water when the boat bounces up and down, sailing boats doing unexpected things and having priority etc etc. He even looked up river to see if anything was coming as we came out of Salhouse Broad, without being told to. We did a big circle at one point and he could see in the reversing camera how much closer the stern gets to the trees than the bow did. He was fascinated by that reversing camera. Learning by doing is always going to be best. But I’ll have to curb it as ‘rules is rules’. We’ll work it out. I learnt to drive a tractor and landrover on the South Downs pre-teen. Most of my friends passed their driving tests in the week of their 17th birthdays.

Wierd how we do that. As I said, clenched teeth, gripping the wheel like it was a gold bar someone was trying to prise from my hand and a sharp intake of breath. No help whatsoever apart from upping the stress levels!

Well, how relieved am I that I got under this morning in that case!

Oh dear, oh dear. I’m going to have a very disappointed young man in the morning. I have since been told by a kind soul that under 8’s cannot be at the helm, whether supervised or not, under the bylaws. Very happy that we have a private messaging facility on this forum. I am very grateful to said person for letting me know as I’d hate to be found doing what I shouldn’t. I truly wonder what other bylaws I’ve not adhered to. When I have an hour or so, I’m going to take a close look at them.

Mission pick-up complete. It started raining just as I had to set out to the Salhouse bus stop, but it didn’t last long. The bus was late but it allowed me a few minutes to just sit and watch the world go by, not that there was much going on. Salhouse Broad was very busy with folk enjoying themselves this afternoon. There were lots of day boats, plus the carpark was full. The littl’un did a good job of walking back to the boat with a rucsac of his favourite possessions on his back and was very excited to get on board. We’ve already had a change of clothes from all the mud at Salhouse. After a visit to the play area, he was eager to get underway and we ended up at Horning church mooring, with him driving all the way, most competently I might add. He very quickly grasped the idea of only making small adjustments to the wheel and looking well ahead, and for a lot of the time, I didn’t have to do anything at all. I negotiated Horning and a few yachts coming towards us, but that was it. Duck/goose feeding seems to be a good pastime as does playing with the dog, who thankfully seems extremely tolerant, just rolling on his back for a tummy tickle and allowing Sam to investigate the pads on his paws. I’m not sure who is more tired now - child, adults or dog! And we need the tooth fairy to find us tonight, after rescuing it from going down the plug hole. I’m sure there’s one who patrols the rivers.

Watch some other boats like mine first, and decide it was ok. 😂 I was told not to be timid as they’d gone through weighed down with people and I only had me and Finlay. So I needed to dig in a bit.

That was a day of adventure, some best not repeated.

And of course I’m now pondering as to whether the level would have stayed like that even at high tide this afternoon. Perhaps with all the rain bringing high amounts of water downstream, the tide has no effect at all, with the level dictated solely by the flow going downstream. Does anyone know as it’d be useful for the future in periods of heavy rain.

The height gauge at 7.45 was struggling to show 6’4”, low tide at 10.30ish so I reckoned it’d have dropped a bit more. But by 9.45 it was still showing the same, with boats beginning to fill the moorings having come down from Coltishall. So I rang the pilot to ask was he taking hire boats through. His reply was ‘I’ll be aiming to, with plenty of people ballast on board’. I watched him do a few and looked up their heights and widths in my old Richo’s brochure and decided I’d give it a go. The lowest I’ve ever done it before was with the water at the bottom of the 6’6” line, so with it being only just below the 6’3” line it was a bit hairy, I gritted my teeth for what good that would do and through I went! Phew. I’ll be meeting my friends off the bus at Salhouse, which was always plan B anyway. Now I just need to let them know.

And now I’m dreading looking out at the height gauge! I might just have to go with whatever I find and do a bit of lateral thinking about later in the week! Oops.

Cor, she did well. And there’s us worrying about how the dogs will cope if we mudweight overnight! I’m really enjoying your tale. Thanks.

I went under Wroxham bridge, as life was going to be a lot easier doing the food shop for my friends turning up tomorrow by mooring in Wroxham rather than catching the bus from Salhouse, but Neil’s comment on Rosie’s thread about the recent (ongoing) rain etc is spot-on. I’m keeping a very close eye on the height gauge and if necessary, will go through the other way at dusk tonight rather than waiting for tomorrow when my guests arrive. Hopefully they’re not going to have a limited few days just visiting Coltishall! And I’d have to stay on longer than anticipated (not that I’d complain about that, good excuse not to go home).

Having seen you as you passed Ranworth Island as I was departing for Boulter’s, I must say I was surprised to see you going past again as I left Boulter’s dyke. And that bridge isn’t on my map!

Friday just gone was beautiful too. A very changeable day today. Massive thunderstorm, then sun, now rain with blue sky on its way again. Typical April weather - oh, it’s May.

Wroxham has just had an enormous thundery downpour. But I see blue sky again now.

Got one at last.

What have we done to upset the weather gods? It’s most unfriendly of them.