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The 4 W's Afloat 2 Sep 23

CeePee1952

By CeePee1952
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CeePee1952

CeePee1952

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Two weeks to go before another week on the Broads starting 2nd Sep! This time we are hoping to take our friends from Devon (Chris and Julie) down to the Southern Broads. Just realised it will be 2 years almost to the day when we took them around the northern broads on Sovereign Light (HW) back in Sep 21! This year we will be on Royale Light 2 (HW) and weather permitting we will cross Breydon early Sunday morning (3rd Sep). I've already spoken to the Yacht station at Yarmouth to get the best advice as when to leave Stracey Arms on the Sunday morning and this week I'll ring Beccles yacht station and book a berth with electric for later that day. Basic plans are PH to Stracey Arms on the Saturday, Stracey Arms to Beccles on the Sunday, Beccles to Oulton Broad on the Monday, Oulton Broad to Loddon on the Tuesday, leave Loddon on the Wednesday morning to go back up North and then it's roll a dice and see where we go from there :default_laugh: Shopping list already written for the obligatory foodstuff etc and Brenda and Julie are already amassing the bottles of Prosecco and rose (wine not the flower!). Fingers crossed for decent weather but if not we will still enjoy every minute!

Chris and Brenda (accompanied by Chris and Julie Wright)

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CeePee1952

CeePee1952

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16 minutes ago, MargeandParge said:

Just enjoy whatever happens. New land lord and lady in The Angel at Loddon very nice people and resource locally. Worth  the walk up the town and another bonus it takes you so close to a good Butchers. 

Kindest Regards Marge and Parge 

Thank you, we normally go to the White Horse in Chedgrave but might give the Angel a visit this time. Has Rosy Lee's cafe now shut down permanently? If so that will be a crying shame.

Chris

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CeePee1952

CeePee1952

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11 hours ago, ruthandjohn said:

Hey there! We're out on the Broads around the same time, two weeks from the 1st in our case, on Sovereign Light.  Thanks for writing up your posts in 2021 on the boat, as I was just reading over them - hope to see you out on the water maybe!

Hi! We enjoyed our time on Sovereign Light- it was a very easy boat to handle. Like most boats there is a tendency for a lot of moisture to accumulate overnight on the saloon windows if you don't have an adequate through flow of air. We used our Karcher window squeegee to suck up any excess when that occurred. We'll give you a wave if we see you :default_biggrin:

Chris and Brenda

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Happy

Happy

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12 hours ago, ruthandjohn said:

Hey there! We're out on the Broads around the same time, two weeks from the 1st in our case, on Sovereign Light.  Thanks for writing up your posts in 2021 on the boat, as I was just reading over them - hope to see you out on the water maybe!

:default_icon_wave:  Hi.  Welcome to the forum.  We are staying in Neatishead for a week fron next Saturday but not on a boat I'm afraid.  If you happen to be in the White Horse there I might buy you a drink!  :default_drinks:  Have a great time.

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ruthandjohn

ruthandjohn

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10 hours ago, Happy said:

We are staying in Neatishead for a week fron next Saturday but not on a boat I'm afraid.  If you happen to be in the White Horse there I might buy you a drink!  :default_drinks:  Have a great time.

Thanks for the welcome! We are thinking we'll head up to Neatishead but not until the second week probably, maybe the 11th or there about.

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YnysMon

YnysMon

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23 hours ago, ruthandjohn said:

Hey there! We're out on the Broads around the same time, two weeks from the 1st in our case, on Sovereign Light.  Thanks for writing up your posts in 2021 on the boat, as I was just reading over them - hope to see you out on the water maybe!

Have a great time, and welcome to the forum. Hope you let us know how you get on. 
:default_welcome:

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CeePee1952

CeePee1952

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Got to HW at 1245 today.Had a bite to eat in the flour and bean and boat was ready for us at 1.15! Leisurely cruise down to Stracey Mill where we are now moored up for the night. Currently sitting up on top and the obligatory Prosecco and beer flowing well! Weather is excellent- a good start to the holiday!

Chris and Brenda

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Karizma

Karizma

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3 hours ago, CeePee1952 said:

Got to HW at 1245 today.Had a bite to eat in the flour and bean and boat was ready for us at 1.15! Leisurely cruise down to Stracey Mill where we are now moored up for the night. Currently sitting up on top and the obligatory Prosecco and beer flowing well! Weather is excellent- a good start to the holiday!

Chris and Brenda

have a great time cruising ...........looks as though you've got some great weather ahead of you.

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CeePee1952

CeePee1952

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Well! That was a terrific week afloat on the Broads! We couldn't have asked for better weather and it sort of mirrored the weather that we enjoyed two years ago at around about the same time on Sovereign Light!  I didn't make any daily notes this time so every post I make will be based on memory alone and hopefully I won't get the days muddled up! We had a good evening at Stracey Mill and had a nice chat with the staff which included them telling us why they are leaving Stracey Mill once they have a buyer for the place. We wish them well in their future endeavour.  Having paid our mooring fee for the night (£6) we made our way back to the boat.  (It's worth mentioning that if you wish to pay by card then there is a minimum spend of £15 required otherwise cash is their favourite method of payment.  Luckily we take some cash with us for such moments!).   We also met Luna (their white GSD - our GSD is also called Luna but she goes to our local boarding kennels for her weeks holiday when we are on the Broads!).  Evening meal was spag bol (the bolognese was prepared on the Friday so all we had to do was cook the fresh pasta).  True to form we had made far too much but the remainder would be consumed at a later date. Another couple of beers and a bottle of Prosecco later and we decided to have an early night due to the early start the next morning.  I went to bed praying that there wouldn't be too much river mist in the morning that would delay our departure.  All in all, an excellent first day to start the holiday, boat behaved itself and we looked forward to the next day of crossing Breydon and cruising down to Beccles.  Next instalment will hopefully be tomorrow!

Chris and Brenda accompanied by Chris and Julie

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CeePee1952

CeePee1952

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Sunday 3rd Sep 23.

Having set my alarm for 0530 I was awake at 0500. I quietly ventured up on to the upper helm and saw that apart from still being fairly dark, there was a substantial amount of mist hanging over the water! Groan! Oh well, hopefully the mist would start to burn off before we were due to depart. By now I could hear the others moving around so without further ado, I grabbed our trusty battery operated Karcher window squeegee and started to dry off the upper helm sunpads and seats and table. Remember I said in my last post that the boat behaved itself? Er no!!  The domestic batteries dial was reading 8 volts!!  Now apart from having the radio on, having the saloon led lights on for a couple of hours in the evening, we had not by my reasoning, used an awful lot of electric! Also we had the constant drip drip sound during the night coming again from somewhere in the bilges!  The automatic bilge pump kicked in about 3 times during the night as well and would run for about 20 secs.  I presumed that like we had experienced a couple of years ago on Soveriegn Light, the stern gland was weeping so wasn't worried that we were sinking! As far as the state of the domestic batteries were concerned, I knew that we would be on shore power at Beccles, Oulton Broad and Loddon during the coming days so wasn't too bothered at this point. We were also going to be cruising for about 4-5 hours down to Beccles which would be ample to charge up the batteries again.

Our departure time was 0615 hrs and by then the mist had lifted sufficiently for us to move off. We passed under Vauxhall bridge with about 10 inches clearance and made our way over Breydon, accompanied by a few other boats.  At the end of Breydon we turned left to head up the Waveney and had a nice steady cruise, passing under Somerleyton swingbridge with pleanty of clearance. (To be continued..........)

Chris and Brenda

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CeePee1952

CeePee1952

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continued/.......

(Brenda had dragged me out shopping earlier :default_icon_e_surprised:). So, we arrived at Beccles yacht station at lunchtime and quickly spotted where we had reserved our mooring for the night.  Once moored up and engine switched off, I checked the domestic reading and it was showing 12.5 volts - Hmmm!  Paid for the mooring and electric, hooked up to the shore power and settled down for some lunch (and a beer etc :default_biggrin:). We hadn't yet decided where we were going to have our evening meal so I asked the harbour master for his "unbiased" advice. He suggested a couple of places including the Wine Vaults Bar and restaurant so after lunch we all took a walk up into the town to locate and recce the wine vaults bar.  Unanimous decision - wine vaults it would be so we booked a table for 7.15 pm upstairs.

During the afternoon I noticed that Moonlight Shadow had moored up next to us so being the person that I am, I went over and introduced myself and had a good ol' natter with the occupants :default_biggrin:. I decided to give Oulton Broad a ring and see if I could reserve a stern on mooring with electric for the next day which proved to be the right decision as it was quite full when we got there and it filled up quite quickly afterwards.

Evening approached after a fairly peaceful afternoon watching the antics of various paddleboarders who had turned up to indulge in their pasttime. This included watching a couple on their paddleboards paddling out towards the entrance with no PLP on and more importantly - the chap had his very young son sitting on the front of his paddleboard also without any PLP!!!  OMG! The couple even ignored the harbour master and Rangers' (who was present) advice and they continued out onto the Waveney, returning a good hour or so later.  

That evening we arrived at the Wine Vaults, got shown to our table and checked the menu for the evening. Memory now fading but Julie and I had the lamb on the specials menu and it was absolutely finger licking gob smacking excellent!!  Brenda had the duck and Chris had the fish on the specials menu.  All meals were of the highest standard and washed down with Icebreaker beer and Prosecco. It wasn't an inexpensive meal but well worth what we paid for! Suitably stuffed we returned to the boat, had another couple of drinks, a game of cards and then retired for the night after what had been another glorious day in the sunshine!

Chris and Brenda

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