Awesome day. I got me a WIFE!
Married!
Lloyds, The Matthew, M-Shed, Arnolfini
It’s interesting how much more you are aware (or at least try to be aware) of your surroundings when you know you’re only going to be there for a short while longer. I guess that’s why travelling – moving from place to place constantly – is what it is. Everywhere you stop you’re a visitor passing through, so your eyes and ears are open to everything around you. Now that we have a pretty firm date planned for moving on from Bristol, I’m soaking up the area more than ever before.
I’m taking my camera everywhere now, capturing snapshots of the things that I hope to look back on as a reminder of my time here. They are by no means great photos, but they will be good memories. Last it night was sunny (again!) and I met Rose and Ant down at the Arnolfini for a drink and then some food. The Matthew was moored up alongside the cranes outside the M-Shed and looked good in the evening light, even though she’s getting well tatty now. With Lloyds amphitheatre stage left and the M-shed cheekily squeezing in at right, it’s a typical scene of the Bristol docks.
The usual crowd was out sitting on the wall at the Arnolfini, soaking up the sun and unwinding, with a Caribbean fella playing his steel guitar nearby. Good times.
Dashing back for the pub
Here’s a shot taken at mach 2 on our way back from the regular Tuesday night ride in Ashton court / Leigh woods. The GoPro can’t quite get enough light in at that speed, this late in the day – but it’s still quite an evocative shot; the Clifton suspension bridge at dusk providing a gateway back into the city, as a squad of bikers dash to make it back to The Cottage Inn in time for last food orders…
Fresh weekend at Freshwater West
Just some photos for now …
Liveaboard!
Woo hoo! Today we got an email from the marina saying we had a liveaboard slip if we wanted. Yes please! Whilst we would have been OK with a standard slip, where we would have been “sneak-aboards”, we’d much rather play by the book on this one and have the security of a permanent place to rest our heads. It also makes long term parking more legit for the van we’re no doubt going to need to use as a shed, and makes it easier when we’re having guests over … the list goes on.
This ups the monthly cost of the slip of course, and further commits us to this move, but who am I kidding, we’re already committed, it’s just a bit scary sometimes thinking about the big changes just around the corner.
We’re looking forward to meeting the other liveaboards in the marina, should be an interesting crowd.
A blustery day
David sheltering his coffee from the morning drizzle.
On Friday we made a last minute decision to head down to Plymouth and suggested mum and David came along. After spending some wicked time with Shaya and Laurie we headed off. On Friday I picked up the van, hoping that they had finally got to the bottom of the power problem that has been plaguing us for a year. Yes! Back up to max power. Awesome. So we arrived at Mayflower marina at 9pm, just in time for last meal orders at Jolly Jack’s restaurant. We stayed aboard on Saturday night; it was windy and the dock lines were too short so it was a bit noisy and bumpy. Heading out to sea, the heavens opened. An hour or so towards Cawsand and back was enough for the day. Enjoyed the fresh air though!
Llanboidy weekend
Busted over to see Tom, Teresa and Harry who have just moved out of Bristol to a wee village in Pembrokeshire called Llanboidy.
Sausalito sunset
We have a tradition to drink a rum n coke in the cockpit when the sun’s going down. When we live on a boat, are we going to become alcoholics?
This is the first post with a video; you’ll see more on my YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1jvEhzYumFBc0PeCL1ZlGQ
The bear went over the mountain …
.. to see what he could see. And in a similar way, I climbed the mast “to see what was at the top”. Last time it was dark I flicked the switch on the dashboard labelled “anchor light”, and didn’t see the expected white light from the top of the rig. Something was up. I’d forgotten to ask Jeff the surveyor to take some photos for me whilst he was up there back in April, so it was up to me to check it out.
I’d brought my climbing harness over but had forgotten any karabiners… I managed to scrounge together enough bits of tat and tape to sort out a decent enough prussik setup. I pulled a static line to the masthead with the main halyard and hauled myself up it. Turns out that there is an anchor light, so I gave it a wiggle to clean the connections. That sorted it. There’s also the VHF aerial (I don’t know if that’s working since the radio itself is kaput), there’s a stick that looks like it was part of a windex in its youth, and that’s it. There is a messenger line poking out (just!) so I can pull another wire up when I fit a tri-color masthead light. Later I found the bottom end of the same line poking out of the bottom of the mast inside, which is good.
Whilst we’re just cruising around the bay area, we’ll be fine with just the anchor light, but for longer offshore trips at night we’ll definitely want a masthead tricolor – one that you can see from a long way away regardless of the sea state. I’ll probably replace the anchor light with an LED tricolor + all-round white.
Stowaway!
So I’m back in San Francisco for a few days for a meeting – this time however I’m staying on the boat, which I’m really looking forward to. I stepped aboard, scaring a couple of small birds who flew across to the neighbouring boat, chirping angrily. I soon discovered a nest in the folds of the sail! There were no eggs in it so I guess they were either preparing for a family or have already had their birdlets “fly the nest”. Rose tells me they are Rosefinches, a common household bird around here. The bloke definitely looks da man with his bright coral-red plumage. After about half an hour of hanging around trying to figure out where his home had just gone, he and his lady friend moved on.
Time for me to start working on our new home; as usual with any new boat there’s a long list of things to sort out. In fact two lists; domestic and, let’s say “nautical”. The former is fortunately a lot shorter than the latter, considering the first thing we’d planning to do is move aboard to live. Having bought the boat back in April and then being in the UK ever since, I was a little apprehensive of what I would return to. Would there be a couple of inches of water in the bottom? Would everything be damp? Would the boat still be afloat?! As it happens everything was in great shape. I’d left the 12v electrics on for the automatic bilge pump [which, checking later, I discovered will still run without the 12v main power on]. One of the two batteries was completely flat, and the other was fine. Must be a power leak somewhere, or else 3 months of running the automatic bilge pump flattens the battery. Everything on board is dry, bar a couple of small water marks under one of the cabin ports where it had dripped. The toilet (heads, in nautical terms) is a bit stinky; I need to get to the bottom of this; it might “just” need new pipes.
On the nautical front I need to sort out the anchor chain – rusted away to almost nothing, go up the mast to see what’s on the top, check diesel, oil, tighten alternator belt, inspect the electrics, check seacocks and hoses and make sure I get familiar with all the inner workings of this new machine. It’s a bit like a cross between a car and a house, with all the complicated parts of each, squeezed into a small space. Engine and propulsion, sails and rigging, steering, 12v and 110v electrics, plumbing, gas, kitchen (galley), toilet and shower (heads), hot and cold pressure water, fridge… The great thing is it’s all stuff I can work on myself; unlike the van back in the UK which is all electronic. Fun times!
One pleasant discovery was the way that my 3 large bags of stuff disappeared very easily into the stowage on board. Rose and I have been thinking a lot about how much we can bring over when we come later this year. 3 bags each? How many books? Paintings? How many clothes? We’d been planning to just bring what we could carry with standard baggage, a bike and one excess bag (all full to the gunwales of course) … it’s good to know we can fit more; but should we? I’m working through a new book; “The Voyager’s Handbook – The essential guide to blue water cruising“, which says;
“In narrowing down the list of what you will bring, you will help define your new self, this person who is about to embark on a great adventure and a totally new way of life. In moving aboard and living with fewer possessions, you will begin to separate your many wants from your fewer needs. The possessions you carry will mean more, and you’ll realize how little most of what you gave up mattered to you.”
I’m looking forward to taking a step further in simplifying life.
Road and Ocean 