A Weekend On Water Rail

[vanessan]

1 hour ago, YnysMon said:

I’m always making plans and then changing them. 

Don’t we all! 😏

[LizG]

6 minutes ago, grendel said:

I think of it more as restoring original function in a fashion sympathetic to the original, and if that means making parts to match the original, then so be it.

I let you into a secret that the remaining original fitting is about 10 years old.  The old aluminum flip like catches were replaced, fitted upside down and three of four broke within the first season - hence the screws!

[grendel]

Well, at least the ones i have made shouldnt break that easy, and if they do, its easy enough to make more.

[JanetAnne]

4 hours ago, w-album said:

 I am so pleased she is being used and enjoyed!  I was sent a photo of her last week out and about on the Waveney!

Liz

It's about time you came and took her out Liz. Rumour has it we are going to get a half decent September which may be worth considering if you get the chance?

[LizG]

11 hours ago, JanetAnne said:

It's about time you came and took her out Liz. Rumour has it we are going to get a half decent September which may be worth considering if you get the chance?

If only but this autumn we are grounded in Hertfordshire!  Long story!

[JanetAnne]

Those ASBO's can be so restrictive.. 

[YnysMon]

Had a delightful cruise this afternoon from Oulton Broad to Brundall Gardens. We were expecting rain, and dark clouds were threatening to the SW as we started off, but we have had mostly sun and very quiet rivers.
We were a couple of hours later than planned starting off, due to a catalogue of delays, starting with son Harry asking for a lift to work just when we were almost ready to go (he was still in his PJs).

Sent from the Norfolk Broads Network mobile app

[SwanR]

Lovely photo. Have a great time. I did hear that the worst of the rain was staying away from the east of Norfolk and Suffolk. Local forecast I saw at lunchtime looked as if you might get some rain overnight tonight and strong northerly winds down the coast tomorrow. 

[YnysMon]

Well, we are back home, having had a lovely weekend despite the rain on Saturday. Highlight of the weekend was this afternoon, on our way back to Oulton Broad. Half way between the bend in Oulton Dyke and the point at which it opens up into the Broad we saw a squirrel swim across the Dyke. Yes...a squirrel!

We didn’t believe our eyes at first, even though we were with feet of it, so I span Water Rail around (as Liz pointed out, she turns on a pin) and we saw the squirrel reach the bank, shake itself and go on its way.

Holiday tale to follow. 

[Chelsea14Ian]

We met you yesterday, nice to have a chat.Lovely boat.

Best wishes  Ian

[YnysMon]

Ian, it was lovely to meet you and Marina. Trust the Breydon crossing was enjoyable.

[Chelsea14Ian]

It was fine only problem fighting  the tide near the YS.

[YnysMon]

I noticed the tide for Reedham on my ‘Aweigh’ app yesterday was about an hour behind the tide table I’d printed off.

[CambridgeCabby]

4 hours ago, YnysMon said:

I noticed the tide for Reedham on my ‘Aweigh’ app yesterday was about an hour behind the tide table I’d printed off.

Which was the more accurate please ?

[YnysMon]

Well, we decided to go through Reedham earlier rather than wait for a later tide, so Im not sure about the tide there. However, high tide in Beccles was later than the tide tables too, so I think the Aweigh app was probably the more accurate. Given that there were strong northerlies blowing down the coast I was expecting the tides n the Broads to be affected in some way. 

[750XL]

Just out of curiosity, which App/Website does everybody use for tide times (ie crossing Breydon)

[ranworthbreeze]

Broads Authority tide-tables for me.

 

[Mouldy]

The Aweigh app is supposed to be real time and should be the most accurate, which is why it only gives seven days tide times when you open it.  It should also give the state of the tide wherever you are on the network.  I find it very useful.

[BroadAmbition]

Just out of curiosity, which App/Website does everybody use for tide times (ie crossing Breydon)

None, Broads Authority Tide tables for me too

Griff

[YnysMon]

I agree with Malcolm. I used to rely on the published tide tables but now that I’ve started using the Aweigh app I’m finding that more accurate.

[YnysMon]

Friday 28th August

Another chance to have a long weekend on Water Rail, courtesy of Dave (JanetAnne).

The plan for today had originally been to try to get to Oulton Broad by about 11am. Low tide at Reedham/St Olaves was forecast to be around 2pm, just nice for an easy passage from the Waveney to the Yare. However, our plan to set off from home by 8am didn’t quite come off, and we had a catalogue of delays after that. Graham had just about finished packing the car when eldest son Harry got up and asked for a lift to work. He had planned to cycle but it was absolutely chucking it down. We took pity on him, but by the time he had washed and dressed and Graham had rearranged the stuff packed in the car it was getting on for 8.30, and we then had a detour to IKEA to drop him off.

The first part of the journey was pretty wet with poor visibility, but once we turned on to the A11 things got better and it gradually brightened up. It was along this stretch that Graham commented that we’d forgotten to bring our caffetiere. About half an hour later he remembered that he should have packed pillows as well as pillowcases. We decided to take a detour to a supermarket that had a household section, so instead of turning off the A47 toward Lowestoft we carried on to the Postwick turn-off and went to Sainsbury’s at Thorpe St Andrew. Got both caffetiere and a pack of two pillows at reduced prices, and less than £18 for the lot.

Traffic approaching Oulton Broad was almost at a standstill – more delay!

Once we arrived at Dave’s friend’s house we soon managed to transfer out stuff to Water Rail. However, I couldn’t get her to start. I phoned Dave and he said he’d be with us shortly. In the meantime, it was very pleasant sitting beside the Broad.

Not much traffic on the water, a few day boats, couple of cruisers, some paddle boarders. Dave’s friend arrived home shortly before Dave got to us and had a wonderful welcome from Seren. Dave soon got Water Rail going, having adjusted the cable connecting to the ‘stop engine’ lever. We were soon on our way after that, with a helpful ‘bow thrust’ from Dave.

It was glorious crossing Oulton Broad. It felt very comfortable helming Water Rail again. Seren loved being on board again too.

When we set off dark clouds were looming in the sky the opposite side of the Broad and seemed to be following us as we made our way up Oulton Dyke. We had taken off the side awnings before setting off and I wondered if we should put them up again. The priority though was for Graham to start unpacking our food stores and make some lunch (ham sandwiches) which I ate at the helm. Glad we didn't put the side awnings back up as the rain held off and we had sunshine for much of our journey. Somerlayton swing bridge appeared to open just for us. Not sure why it opened, as we didn’t see any large boats passing us in either direction.

As expected, there was very little traffic on the river, mostly day boats from Waveney River Centre returning down the New Cut after lunch.

We got to the end of the New Cut around 2.45pm, and as the boat slowed down just before that, we think we managed (by luck) to get there just as the tide had turned and was starting to flow up the Yare. Reedham Bridge was open too and Reedham was fairly quiet, with lots of spaces on the BA moorings.

The journey up the Yare was beautiful. The dark clouds seemed to have receded and the day had turned out much sunnier than expected, only clouding over as we nearer Brundall. Just before the dyke leading to Rockland Broad we spotted a gull with a fish in its beak (lucky gull, I thought). It came in to settle on the water just before us and dropped the fish (dozy gull, I thought). It then picked it up and dropped it again before flying off fishless. Maybe it decided the fish was too big.

Passing Hardley Mill

Cantley

Canley BA Moorings and The Vagabond

Beauchamp Arms (I won't comment again on the colour!)

Brundall Gardens BA moorings had lots of space, so we moored up there (another first for overnighting).

I walked up to the Co-op, having decided not to have a ‘dry’ weekend after all (i.e. I got some wine). The boardwalk has suffered a bit since we walked up it a month ago. Three or four of the boards had broken in various places and were marked with hazard warning tape. Most of the boardwalk is still sound though. As I was by myself I took more photos of ‘the swamp’ than I did last time.

I'm glad that they've put in signals on the railway crossing point. I've always been exceptionally nervous around crossing the railway, but then Graham and I both have relatives who worked for BR and who died in accidents at work. 

Once back at the boat I took Seren for a bit of a run along the bank and along an earth path that leads into ‘the swamp’ from near one of the wild moorings. Had to take my shoes off before getting back on board though, as I’d picked up a fair amount of mud.

After a while a Martham’s sailey, Lapwing, came in to moor behind us. He had tried mooring further down on the non-BA stretch, but the trees were overhanding too much there. A short while later a narrow boat came in and took the final space, so we had a real mixed bag of boats on that mooring that evening, the fourth one being a Silverline boat.

We had Thai marinaded salmon fillets for dinner this evening, with new potatoes and allotment veg picked this morning (runner beans, courgette), accompanied by the 1st night of the Proms on the radio (Beethoven, Eroica Symphony). We were fairly late eating our dinner, so settled for the night shortly after.

[Lulu]

lovely photos of that gorgeous boat:) 

Can we only hope that blue on Beauchamp  Arms is an undercoat and not the final colour choice ? 

[YnysMon]

Well we can always hope. I'm not holding my breath though!

[YnysMon]

Saturday 29th August

Wow, we had some rain during the night! I was awake quite a long time listening to it lashing down on the boat with some force, even though we were sheltered from the worst of the northerly wind. Goodness knows what it would have been like had we been on an exposed mooring. I did wonder if we might have some leaks, but meanwhile was very cosy in my sleeping bag. The new pillows that we had bought were beautifully comfortable too. We had decided to use the forward cabin for the night, having dithered about which bedding to bring: single sheets and mattress covers for the forward cabin or doubles for the galley bed. In the end we brought both (just ‘cos we could). In the morning, although we were perfectly dry, we did find that the upper outward edges of the mattresses were a bit wet, mine only slightly (probably from condensation), Graham’s a bit more so. On the whole though, we thought Water Rail had held up to the onslaught remarkably well.

We woke around 7am, got up and started off around 8am to take advantage on the incoming tide to take us up to Norwich.

Although it was a bit gloomy to start, it was a pleasant morning with lots of rowers on the river, so care was needed. I was really chuffed when one of the rowers called over ‘thanks for going slowly’ on the stretch before Bramerton. The closer I got to Thorpe, the more complicated it got, with rowers passing to port and canoeists passing to starboard. Wits about me time!

Water levels looked pretty high, so we were very careful approaching Trowse Railway Bridge. We had left the roof up, so Graham kept a look-out along the roof line and reported that we had about 1’ to spare.

Unsurprisingly, the Yacht Station was very quiet. We went to the far end hoping to use the shore power. We had a search for the shore power cable. No luck. I phoned Dave (poor Dave, I think we are being a bit ‘high maintenance’ this trip) who pointed out (with much laughter) that we had unplugged the shore power cable on her home mooring and left the cable there. Aren’t we a couple of numpties! Anyway, Dave said he was planning to travel into Norwich in a couple of hours’ time and offered to bring the shore power cable with him.

We had a nice chat with the Yacht Station Harbour Master, who was very much admiring Water Rail. He was reflecting on how there are a lot more ‘newbies’ on the Broads this year post-lockdown. I think that's really good news. I hope that a good proportion of them catch-the-Broads-bug. Inevitably, a very small minority seem to have turned up completely unprepared, including one guy who had just picked up a boat from a Brundall yard who seemed to think he could access the rest of the Broads via Bishop Bridge and was most put out by the no hire boats sign.

I went off to Morrison’s to get (apart from other things) dried dog food (another thing that we managed to leave at home - Graham had ticked it off the packing list and then left it out for Seren's breakfast - doh!). Back on the boat I started making a fry up – sliced new potatoes, bacon, black pud, mushrooms, egg and (for me) tomato. Dave turned up with the shore power cable as I was cooking and dashed off again. (Thanks Dave!) I had hoped to take Water Rail under Bishop's Bridge and up to New Mills, but given the height of the tide and the amount of rain that we'd had I thought it might be better not to on this occasion.

We had planned to fill up with water, but as it was so wet we skipped that and got on our way (we were later to regret this decision). Grendel had reported a leak in the starboard water tank when he was on Water Rail a couple of weeks ago. However, last time we were on Water Rail there was a fair amount of water in the bilges, so we assumed that we just hadn’t noticed the leak. On that occasion we managed the whole weekend without topping up the water.

By the time we left Norwich there was more air-draft under the bridges, but just after Trowse Bridge we encountered a couple of canoes paddled by some inexperienced canoeists. It didn’t help that visibility wasn’t great. A few beeps of the horn were necessary to persuade them not to spread themselves out right across both sides of the river.

The rain got more persistent in the afternoon. Seren spent a lot of the journey peeking out of the side awnings.

She also decided at one stage that she wasn't getting enough attention.

The river was (inevitably) pretty quiet again. It looked like a fishing match was just finishing as we passed the stretch between Beauchamp Arms and Langley Dyke, with some fishermen packing up for the day.

We finally moored up at the Hardley Mill pontoon around 5pm. There were three boats there already, but there was a small Water Rail size space on one end.

There was 37p on one of the electric posts, so we plugged in the shore power cable and charged our phones.

We also ran out of water. Doh! Wish we’d filled up in Norwich! I asked the ladies on a Pacific Cruiser’s boat moored in front of us if they would fill our kettle, which they kindly did. We had some bottled water with us, so we managed okay. Just left the washing up until the morning.

Dinner this evening was baked potatoes and Sainsbury’s ‘Easy Cook’ Beef Bourguignonne. The only snag was that the instructions said to cover the dish with foil, which we didn’t have. I improvised and used a small roasting dish to cover it instead, which worked fine.

After dinner we listened to the radio for a while and then read/did crosswords. We put some more electricity on the electric post and put our fan heater on until bedtime to make the galley nice and cosy. Settled down for an early night on the double galley bed after Seren’s evening walk. The berth in the galley proved very comfortable. Plenty of room for the two of us.

[YnysMon]

Sunday 30th August

It didn’t exactly dawn fair this morning, or bright. A bit gloomy really, but at least it wasn’t raining.

We set off shortly after 8am in search of water. We thought Loddon might be a good option. Turned up the Chet and had a lovely quiet cruise, only passing three boats (which didn’t really bode well for finding mooring spots).

The one we passed just before the Hardley Flood stretch was in the middle of the river on a bend, but he was trying to pass a canoe and as that bit of the river is all bends he clearly didn’t have an alternative. I slowed down and it wasn’t a problem. On the next stretch we passed Malcolm on Norfolk Lady and exchanged waves.

Hit a bit of a snag approaching the staithe basin. A Sanderson’s bathtub had found the staithe full and was making his way back out of the basin. Unfortunately, seeing me approach they stopped and drifted sideways across the channel. I just reversed a bit to give them more room until they had straightened themselves out. Once I got into the basin I did have a twinge of guilt when a Silverline boat decided to leave just as I turned around. That’s just the luck of timing, so I guess I shouldn't have felt guilty. We slotted nicely into the gap. My first stern mooring on Water Rail. She handled beautifully.

After getting Seren off the boat (she didn’t at all like being stern moored and having to walk down the side of the gunnel to get off), the priority was to fill with water. Whilst Graham was filling up I spotted Sweet Kingfisher moored a few boats down from us, and Ian and Marina returning to their boat. I introduced myself and we had a bit of a chat. It was lovely to meet them.

After Graham had finished filling up, we took Seren for a walk. We went up the High Street, turned down the footpath just beyond the King’s Head toward Pye’s Mill but turned right toward the church.

Back on the boat, I made us another brunch (same as yesterday’s). We left Loddon shortly after we’d eaten that.

According to the tide table low water at Reedham was supposed to be around 4.30pm, but the Aweigh App was telling me that it was going to be about an hour later, so we decided to get on our way earlier than planned and not worry about punching against the tide on the Waveney.

Just before we got to the New Cut a day boat appeared to be manouvering themselves to pass to starboard. I moved slightly nearer the bank to discourage them. That worked as they pulled out to pass me on my port side, going at what looked like full revs (stern dug well in and lots of wash) so I slowed down to let them pass. Lo and behold, once we got onto the New Cut they slowed down to tickover. Okay, we were now against the tide, but they were down to around 2.5mph. I had to keep going into neutral. There was another boat approaching, so there wasn’t much I could do apart from trying to hold back a good distance from the day boat. Once the other boat had passed they speeded up. That's good, I thought. Then they started weaving from side to side and slowed down again. Then they speeded up again, only to slow down again. I was getting a bit fed up of their erratic’ness by this time, so next time they slowed down I decided to pass them, as there was nothing coming the other way and I was able to pass them without going faster than 5mph anyway.

We continued up the Waveney.

We could have moored at Somerlayton, but a day boat took the last space by the electric points as we were passing, and as the wind was still pretty strong we decided to seek somewhere more sheltered.

It's unusual to see this many boats together on the Waveney.

After that there weren’t any other mooring opportunities until Beccles, other than the Waveney River Centre which has put up their mooring fees since we were last there. It’s got a bit too expensive for us.

As we got nearer to Beccles the sun came out.

A few bends after passing Aldeby Hall moorings and the old bridge piers I spotted an otter.

The Beccles BA moorings under the road bridge were free, but we didn’t fancy stopping there. There were several spaces on the north side of the Yacht Station, despite it being after 5pm by the time we got there. There was a family on the private boat on our port side, most of whom found Seren really cute.

We had a pleasant relaxing evening. It was reasonably warm now that we were in a sheltered position, so we didn’t miss having electric. Dinner this evening was Sainsbury’s ‘Easy Cook’ Pork Belly with Apple Sauce, mashed spuds and runner beans. It was tasty enough, but more like pulled pork in texture. We had some pork left over as there would have been plenty for three people.

Although I do find being in the Yacht Station very convenient, and the Beccles one is very handy for taking Seren out for a walk before bed, we find it a bit noisy sometimes. We tend to go to bed quite early when on the Broads, and there was still quite a lot of noise, including disco type music from across the river, as we settled down for the night.