A map to guide the way
Daisy, who lives next door, has heard about our trip and drew us a map. She’s used tea to make it old, and shown us our route to Canada! Kids can be so cool.
Maxism
In a shop today, Max asked ‘what does that sign mean?’ ‘No dogs allowed, except guide dogs’ ‘Yes mummy, no guy dogs, only girls’
Crew Weekend 2 – Eventful…
4 crew. 115 miles. 1 fish. 1 visit to A&E. 23 hours at sea. The second crew weekend was for those who plan to sail from the Canaries to Antigua in November. My dad, Jeremy and Ed came along, Ian lives in Canada so is excused. Friday dawned wet and thundery, with lightening all around […]
Crew weekend 1 – Come rain or shine
With a little over two months to go until we depart for the Canaries, the crew gathered for a weekend get together in order to spend some time on their trusty vessel, with their less trusty but perfectly crusty skipper. Guy and Melissa, however, delayed their arrival by a day due to other commitments – […]
Splash!
Finally, the day has come to put Ty Dewi back in the water. Dad was over to help, and a lot of busy work on board left us almost, but not quite, ready to go in. A boat is never ready, so you just go anyway. At 11am, the travelhoist trundled up to us and […]
Lift out
As the new season approaches, it’s time to get Ty Dewi out of the water for some major inspection and repainting, since it should be the last time she’s ashore for a couple of years. First job is to lift out the rig. Not trivial, as they say, being 60+ feet, 350kg. But the team […]
Home at last
Before leaving the Medway, we spent a very pleasant night anchored in Stanfleet Creek once more. A bit of passage planning made it very clear that the tide would be perfect for a trip home if we left at 4am….. Some lively discussion resulting in a decision to get up early (4:30 was a reluctant […]
Submarines are for small people
Chatham offers the chance to tour one of the navy’s old diesel subs, HMS Ocelot, the last boat built for the Navy here, although they built three more of these subs for the Canadians later. (Selling our old technology to the Canuks, as usual) It’s a long time since I was inside a sub – […]
Ahoy me hearties – tis the pressgang for you
The historic dockyard in Chatham is an amazing place, one of England’s real treasures. Closed in 1984 and since developed into a huge museum, the yard has built all manner of ships including HMS Victory, Nelson’s flagship at the battle of Trafalger. Among many exhibits, they have three ships you can tour, her is HMS […]
Across the wild and lonely ocean
OK, so the Thames estuary is not really an ocean in the generally accepted scheme of things, but is was wild at times, although not very lonely either. We left Brightlingsea with a forecast of force 5-6 with thundery showers and, for a change, the forecast was right. The first few hours were a glorious […]