Too busy for blogging!

Gone to Newtown and back, gone to Zermatt and back, gone to Faversham with generator and back, and now winter is approaching fast!

Safely home

From Faversham we sailed round Margate without running aground this time and stopped at Ramsgate where Steve took the train back to Mepal. Next morning early start and with the tide with us (we were doing 9 knots at time - with the help of sails and engine...) we made Brighton just before dark. As both marinas had showers I had 2 showers in 2 days! A record! Early start again on Monday morning with a bit of mist and not much wind. Selsey Bill was passed without trauma and the journey wasn't too eventful except that the exhaust kept overheating and threatening to burn some electrical conduits (!) - we have definitely decided to sav up for a wet exhaust system, and one of the pipes on the engine (water cooling sea water inlet) leaked then burst (!) - John valiantly and skillfully managed to patch it up so it wasn't too drastic... Arrived in Cowes just as a huge sand and gravel container ship was coming out, anchored at the Folly, wonderful!

Tuesday morning, after John took Ian to the Red Jet for his trip back home, we gently made our way back to our mooring. No flags but a police escort accompanying us: they were apparently protecting Blade Runner from protesters...

Back to reality now, putting the sails in the sail locker and other sad but sensible things needing to be done. It is lovely to be home though...

After 5 weeks in Faversham we are off in 1 hour with Steve and Ian Ruffles. Mary and Steve were going to accompany us but all these gales...The wind has at last calmed down! Ramsgate tonight where we'll drop Steve, then maybe Eastbourne or perhaps just go straight home... Wonderful!

A generator

I can't believe it! Yesterday, after nearly a month of battling with the dynamo/alternator problem which involved various train trips to Dover humping the afore mentioned items, countless telephone calls, lenghty discussions with neighbouring barges owners and brain ache, Brendon (who was trying to fit the alternator AND mend the old dynamo) eventually came up with the suggestion of a generator to see us back to the iow until someone can sort out the dynamo (apparently the alternator is a lash-up and a no-no).
Why didn't we think of it before? As it happens Matt was here and he has a generator (like every good sailor should... I have been whining for a generator for the last 2 years...) As he is likely to be working on Raybelle in the next few months eh offered to lend it to us.
So now we are ready to go back! and Steve and Mary are arriving today. So in theory, if weather is favourable (at the moment right direction but too much of it!) we could go on Monday morning tide...

Taking roots

We are still in Faversham, after nearly 3 weeks of drying out hold, puzzling out dynamo/ alternator problem and surviving Ray Harrison. His name should be etched on the "to be avoided list" together with Ian... Ray the Rascal nearly convinced us that our engine was in a really bad way, that it would be unsafe for us to set for the Isle of Wight with it as it was and he proposed he should take our engine out and he would repair it in his workshop. We were devastated. However, we asked around and found that Matt (working nextdoor on his barge Raybelle) had been convinced by Ray to let him repair his engine but now was in the difficult position of having t pay £££ in order to just get his engine back (Ray refusing to quote him a price for the work to be done...) We politely said no thank you to Ray. Narrow escape!(subsequently, Mark, who fitted new injectors and listened carefully to the engine confirmed that there was nothing wrong with it)

So we have caught with jobs, patching up rusty spots on the deck and combing, tarred leeboard, made a shower curtain,painting the hold floor (orange!) once it wsas dry, and enjoyed the various treasures of Faversham: open-air swimming pool, samphire, blackberries, plums, Hop festival, feasting our eyes on the many Thames Sailing Barges around and enjoying peace and quiet.

Lady of the Lea

Life is pleasant and quiet on Standard Quay. We are moored just ahead of Repertor and Henry and behind Raybel where Matt every day patching hull and tarring. He is going to sell his flat in order to pay for the ungoing maintenance. What are we complaining about?

The other day however, Lady of the Lea tried to moor next to Repertor. We were blissfully unaware of the impending impact, sipping a cup of tea with Ray, a Gardner engines expert, trying to extract from him how much he would charge to overhaul our engine, when "Bang!" we were nearly knocked off our seats. Rushing out on deck we found the bow of Lady of the Lea had rammed our port rear quarter! Miraculously, no great damage other than scraped paint. We secretely felt quite smug as we had successfully turned round Wilhelmina only a few minutes earlier.

Faversham

After the race's excitement and celebrations, we discovered the hold was very very squelchy. A leak??

We decided that without a dynamo, we needed to get to some kind of elctric power, sooner rather than later, should our bilge pumps need to start...

So we ambled slowly up Faversham Creek and found a mooring spot behind Sailing Barges Henry and Repertor and not far away from Cumbria who is being restored. The perfect spot for John!

The leak wasn't atrocious but it needed investigating, we still had to wait for our dynamo to be repaired and after so much excitement for over 2 weeks, we both needed to breathe. Diccon said goodbye as he had to go back to Belgium for the birthday of his baby boy, we bought a train ticket back to Cowes for Ian and ... peace at last!

We made it!

What a memorable day yesterday was as well as being John's birthday! It started with a grey drizzle. At 8 o'clock John rowed across to Harty Ferry to pick up Stefan and Julie. At 9.35, there was a 10 min gun for our race and we hadn't got the anchor up, the rigging was in disarray, no charts out, no strategy for the crew. At the 5 min gun, to add insult to injury we went aground on a falling tide and expected to remain there for the rest of the race. Nicole heaved a sigh of relief that we wouldn't break anything and have a quiet day, sipping coffee watching the barges race through binoculars. At this stage, Stefan, who had been quietly in the background, decided that now was the time to take control. He took the tiller from Ian and used the tide to move us off the mudbank. By this time, our main competitor Vechtlust was already far ahead. Stefan clearly and firmly organised the crew into a working team, poled out the staysail and took full advantage of the following wind. We started to race along, doing more than 7 knots and closing the gap between us and Vechtlust although Daybreak was coming close behind us. We cut the corner at Pollard Spit and continued with the wind behind us until we reached Whitstable Street Buoy, left it to port, tacked but went aground. Stefan managed to gybe ourselves out of it, Then our jib fell in the water, slowing us down considerably until we managed to hoist it out. We watched Vechtlust sail on in the distance. By this time, the Thames Sailing Barges were on their way back and the real fun began. The wind was coming straight from Receptive, the finishing buoy, and as the channel narrows until there we were all tacking fast. Great big barges and small smacks were whizzing by, port, starboard, ahead, everywhere, but Stefan was in total control and old Wilhelmina was singing along. She picked up her skirts and ran. After what seemed ages, the finishing buoy came closer and we made it through, dizzy with excitement and exhaustion.

What a day!

Ready to race!

Here we are, race starting in 20 minutes... Stefan and Julie have come to re-inforce our crew. Should be interesting. Wind force 4-5 rather windy for my liking... must gooooooooooooooo!

The Swale

Diccon from Belgium arrived Tuesday just before lunch time and we left Sandwich amidst many cheers. Sandwich good town people had come en masse to wave good bye to the "Viking ship with wings". The tide was flooding in so it wass relatively easy to motor down the river Stour. Saw at least a dozen seals basking in the sunshine and we were off, past Ramsgate and put the sails up. We were going so well, we even ate my boatmade pizza whilst sailing. However, our blissfully unaware delight was cut short when we suddenly ran aground on a sandbank off Margate... Ian and I waited until midnight for the water to come up so we coulod drop the anchor, had a short night sleep and set off early next morning whilst we still had water. We motored slowly against tide and wind past Whitstable and our spirits perked up when we saw Tony's Humber Barge "Daybreak" in the distance. She was sailing. this sight was enough to get the men hoist the sails and the rest of the afternoon was spent sailing at great speed (6+ knots!) back and forth along the Kentish Flats Wind Farm. John was ecstatic!
We are now safely anchored in the Swale and I am savouring a few hours peace and space whilst John, Ian and Diccon are sailing on Daybreak. Bliss!

The elephant

No trace of the elephant landed here on the Quay in 1255 (gift from the French to Henry III) who was walked to the King's zoo at the Tower of London. Just as well as it seems it was quite an aggressive beast: a bull in a field adjacent to the roadside took umbrage at the big elephant and attacked it. In one move the poor bull was thrown by the great beast and killed outright...

But we have seen a coconut husk caught in the debris floating alongside us. It very likely travelled all the way from some exotic location.

After 3 days hard work the leeboard is now repaired and put back and today Sunday has been a very welcome rest, strolling through the mediaeval streets, visiting secret gardens and enjoying... a cream tea!

The solar pannels are a great success, keeping the leisure batteries topped up enough for the fridge to work and laptop to get recharged. Solar shower has also been wonderfully effective, warm and plentiful, and by hoisting the staysail, a bathroom was created, screening us from curious gazes from the quay.

Sandwich

After a 32 hours passage we eventually anchored off Deal, just after Dover. I am afraid I didn't appreciate fully the beauty of the south coast nor the magic of sailing by moonlight as I was sea sick most of the way! After a relatively quiet night the wind got up over tide and the boat started rolling again. I was sick again, so John and Ian in their kindness changed the original plan which was to go to Brightlingsea and decided to head for the nearest port: Sandwich. After lifting the anchor, we motored across the tidal stream with the windward leeboard still down despite John asking Ian to lift it. It broke! We motored to Sandwich, negotiating the entry into the river Stour, which is quite tricky and followed the narrow channel winding through the marshes, seeing some seals on the way. By the town quay, with the tide in full flood it was very difficult to keep control of the boat. Had it not been for Colin, the friendly helpful harbourmaster, we surely would have found ourselves swept onto the low bridge futher upstream!
All was well though and we have been spending a very happy time here, John and Ian working hard on repairing the leeboard and Nicole recovering gently from her seasickness.
Also had our first solar shower today!

We're off!

Left last night at last, in the dark and drizzle, anchored off in the river off Island Harbour and woke up with the loveliest sunshine and perfect breeze. Ian and John have been lacing the mainsail on the gaff whilst I have been scrubbing the mat - somehow spilt some (double) cream on it last night and found a sticky mess this morning. Never mind! It is nearly clean now and the sun dried it all.
I can hear the mainsail being hoisted, better go and get the lunch ready and supper if I can, before we start or I shall be stuck in the galley and be sea sick. Ian wants to go as far as we can. Dover??

Sailing away soon

Today was to be the departure day to the Swale but so many jobs (maybe one day when I am bored I will recopy the endless list), so many set backs (engine had to be taken apart and put together again just to name one...) and of course lovely Sarah from Switzerland (Sylvette's daughter), who stayed valliantly amidst the chaos but distracted me from my tasks, meant that today we are not at all ready.

Maybe tomorrow?

The rudder

From old to new. It took nearly 5 months of hard work but it was worth it!

Well... I never thought I would be going to the Isle of Wight Festival! Had a good time litter picking and earnt £99 towards paying Terry to help make a box for our anchor chain.

My birthday has come and gone, I can't believe it! Summer came for a week but went again... but we did manage to go to London and sail Daybreak on the Thames. Wonderful!

Moazzam Begg

Just finished reading "Enemy Combatant" by Moazzam Begg. Both the book and the man made a deep impression on me and made me think about justice, fear, ignorance, compassion, truth, God, no-God and Buddhism

M B, softly spoken, calm, modest, highly articulate and unenbittered despite being imprisonned 3 years without charge or trial, talked at the Apollo theatre at the beginning of the month . He spoke of his harrowing experiences in Bagram detention centre in Afghanistan and in Guantanamo (mostly in solitary confinement) and remarkably has positive words about some of the US guards he met in Guantanamo. When asked about how he was able to express himself so well, he said that before his incarceration he was not a confident public speaker so he wanted to thank the CIA, MI5, FBI and the US military for giving him the confidence and experience after over 300 interrogations to perfect his style!

So where from now?

John and I have decided to hold a coffee morning soon to help raise funds to send a lorry with supplies to Gaza. Thank you Rachel from "Friends of Palestine" for all your hard work!

Lucius Seneca

"It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested" Seneca

After Easter Day's break in, my little 2CV is back on the road, or nearly... after straightening the driver's door, fitting a new steering column, sorting out the dangling wires, fitting a new exhaust ... and welding the very rusty rear windows and repairing a puncture, I have just realised the MOT is very overdue! Oops!

From Conyer Creek to Sunbury-on-Thames

We are back home again after a pleasant but not uneventful voyage on Vechtlust II "the one who likes to fight".

Everybody got on very well, Jack, psychotherapist amongst other professions, good cook and champion rope thrower, Diccon who had travelled from Brussels, socialist, cheerful and reliable, and us two very happy to be moving on the water again.

Sunshine and calm most of the week end but a welcome brise enabled us to hoist the sails 2 or 3 times. Record of 8.2 knots in the Thames was recorded!
However, tragedy struck in the form of the mast crashing down! Whilst moored in South Docks Marina, the men decided to take the mast down to enable us to get under Tower Bridge. Thankfully I decided to go to have a shower. When I came back, the mast was down indeed but crashed too! Jack, John and Diccon all overlooked the fact they had taken off the pin at the bootom of the mast while they were untangling the wiers at the winch... the mast apparently came down noiselessly but broke when it hit the roof of the cabin...

Apart from this catastrophe (which could have been worse had I popped my head out of the cabin whilst the mast was coming down) motoring on the Thames was extremely enjoyable andwe felt like "tourists with a difference".

I particularly like mooring on a buoy for lunch near Battersea Park, a few yards from the "London Peace Pagoda", built in 1985 by monks and nuns of the Japanese Buddhist Order Nipponzan Myohoji