30. July 2012 · 6 comments · Categories: Posts

I have not been able to update my blog because I have been taken captive by pirates!

Yes, that is right, pirates.

These little rascals have nautical nick names.

Run for your life if you see any of those pictured below.

 

The blonde at the front calls himself Sea Squid.  Watch out for his curly stinging tenticals.  He is the mischeivious one, that gets away with it with his million dollar smile.

The ‘serious one’ in the foreground calls himself Captain James.  He seems to want to helm all the time.  I will show you more of him later.

This one’s nautical name in Ginger Bouy.  Everything has to be funny with him.  Funny faces, funny noices and just plain fun.  But don’t be fouled, he is dangerous.  I heard one of his commrades call him the Ginger Ninija.

And lastly the sirens of the group.

These two mermaids have tricked many a sailor with their beautiful looks to their deaths in the deep.

This crew of pirates have not only taken me captive, but also taken over my boat.

And my TOYS!

Their leader is the worst

 

All I can do is stand back and watch.  Not much fun for me.

They are a strange lot, these pirates.

(video of geko bouy to come)

My humans are no help.  They escaped  for coffee.

It is not all bad.  The smallest mermaid is a comfy pillow.

While I am captive it will be hard for me to update you, but I heard something about weather windows for a Bay of Biscay crossing.  I fill you in as I find out more.  For now, stay safe and

WATCH OUT FOR PIRATES!

 

24. July 2012 · 2 comments · Categories: Posts

I am a dog, and even I think the sailing has been great. We are still sailing to wind, the direction and strength has been variable, but who cares when the sea state is slight and it is sunny and warm!

We left beautiful Fowey harbour as the tide turned in our favour in the afternoon and we arrived in Falmouth in the early evening. We decided to anchor off the main town and stock up on provisions before heading up river for cheaper mooring options. We have family coming to see us off on the 27th so we are going to hang around for them. I can’t wait to play with my neice and nephews!

The anchorage was not particularly pretty, sandwiched between the main town, the museum and some industrial docks, but it was a short hop on the dingy to the town centre.

All was well until 8:30pm when, all of a sudden, all hell broke loose on the cargo ship to our port side. Sand blasters, cranes and hammer drills all came to life at the same time. Just when we thought we could not take it any more it all stopped at 9:30pm just as mysteriously as it started?????

In the morning the harbour master came by to tell us we needed to move in closer to land despite the fact it was a spring tide. We planned to leave on the next rising tide, about 4:30pm, anyway to head up to Premier Marina to get our last fill of discounted fuel before heading up river to moor for the week.

A simple day…..when everything starts to go wrong. We started the engine, lifted the hook, motored in closer, dropped the hook and motored back to set it in the mud. Unfortunately it was sliding and we did not want to catch another vessels chain or anchor. Up comes the anchor and we moved in further, dropped the hook and went to motor back…..engine died! They tried to start her….coughed and died again….not good! The anchor seemed to be holding this time so down the engine they go to find the problem. It turns out to be that port tank again. The fuel filter is all blocked up. The rough weather around Portland Bill must have stirred up old slug on the bottom of the tank. There is no way to clean the tank with out removing it, so they decide to shock treat the left over fuel with additive and change the fuel filter regularly until it has all run through. On the phone again to order more fuel filters for the trip.

The human female finally finds the time to take me ashore for a run and, their bad luck still holds, she gets stopped by a man at the gate. He insisted she pay £2 to moor her dingy up and £12.50 if we wanted to stay over night on the anchorage. They obviously did not notice us the night before. She fain’s ignorance, not far off the mark, and says we have only stopped because of engine trouble and will be leaving as soon as it is sorted. The man softens with this news and lets her come ashore for free. We all come back later to get groceries with the requested £2 and are bombarded with questions of how we were able to fix the engine. But we did not have to pay any anchoring charges.

With the rising tide we decided to head up to the shallower reaches of the river to get fuel and then head up to Turo to moor up. Going into unfarmilar shallow rivers it is best if you can do so on a rising tide. If you are unlucky enough to run aground, at least you know the water level will be rising and you can probably get off later. We are still paid up until the end of the month to use any Premier Marinas for free and get discounts on fuel with them (last month of our annual contract). We heard it was impossible to get a berth at Premiers tiny Falmouth Marina, so we were just going to get some fuel before the month was up.

Engine on….running well…on the starboard tank this time. Anchor up…oh,oh! Windlass dies. Human male starts throwing all the sails out of the way to get at the anchor locker. Tries the circuit breaker….and yes the windlass works again and the anchor rises up to the surface….with a great big cable on top of it. Where did that come from and have we just cut off power to half of Falmouth. We throw it back into the sea and headed up river.

When we get to Falmouth Marina we are pleasantly surprised to find out that they can give us a berth and we crash land into a nice little slip, we will never get out of again. Seems their luck is looking up. The Marina is great for me because they have no excuse not to take me for lots of walks and much better for the family to visit. Good for their budget as it will be free until the end of the Month. Lets hope the great weather in the Bay of Biscay holds!!!

They have lots of jobs to get on with before the crossing and I have lots of sunbathing and barking at passing people to do.

If I can be bothered to move.

23. July 2012 · 1 comment · Categories: Posts

Have you ever heard the saying ‘he who dies with the most toys wins’ ?  It is certainly true here in Fowey.

A premier location to visit along the south coast of Cornwall, the Cornish Riviera it is nick named, Fowey does attract the rich and famous.  Their are some great luxury yachts and motor cruisers here of a substantial size.  No bother to me, because I am a dog, but I have seen my human owners jaws drop a little.

 

The only thing I am interested in is going for walks and playing.  They took me for a long walk up to St. Catherine’s Castle on the point.

I suspected they had alterior motives for the walk….and I was right!

The first give away was the empty bottle of vodka they put in the recycling at the beginning of the walk.  Me thinks they are taking the ‘cruising life’ much too much to heart.  ‘Sun downers’ have become too common with these two.

The second give away was them getting the kayaks afloat.  I was sure the walk was a rouse to tire me out so they could go off and have fun.  And I was right.  They let me come with them kayaking in Dartmouth.  But I admit I did have trouble sitting in one place for long.  I suspect they wanted to go a little further this time and thought I was best left behind to have an afternoon siesta.

 

I think I was the smart one to stay behind as they came back a little exhausted.  Seems the river side pub up the estuary was a little too far to make in a day and they had to turn back.  This was primarily because they did not take the tides into account.  They had the flooding tide with them….but they also had the stronger flooding tide against them on the return.  Hard slog back!!!  They had lots of fun anyway and saw some great wild life.

The man human fell out of his kayak trying to prove how shallow one part of the estury was.

As tired as they were upon their return, I had just woken up, and was full of energy.  We all had a lovely evening playing on the boat and I got some of the lamb off the BBQ.

But now it is morning and the boat is a mess.  The guard rails are covered in drying shorts and life jackets.

We do not look at all like the lovely luxury yachts that surround us.  But we have decided….we don’t care.

We have decided to make our own motto:

He who dies having the most fun WINS!

 

21. July 2012 · 7 comments · Categories: Posts

The human’s are happy now!  They finally have the sailing weather they wanted.

After leaving Dartmouth…

We had fair winds out of Dartmouth aiming for Cawsands Bay in Plymouth Harbour.

The day was sunny, but not necessarily warm.  This is supposed to be July????

I did keep the human’s busy catching my dinner.

I personally have gotten very used to this sailing thing.

I usually do my favourite pass time.  Sleeping!

But sometimes I enjoy a little play time.

But then I need to take another nap.

How do these humans find all this energy to sail the boat around.  Although I have noticed an unfair division of labour.  It seems the female human does the ‘multitasking’ steering and attaching lines, while the male human does most of the winching.

They were anouxous to get going from Cawsand Bay and did not take me ashore in the morning for a run.

I got them back by weeing on the man humans towel.  That will show them!

But I can see why as the sailing was GREAT and the tides were fair all the way to Fowey.

We are now in Fowey Harbour.

And I love nothing better then taking the dingy ashore.

And peeing on VERY VERY OLD yew trees.

This run down the south coast has brought up lots more things to repair, as expected.

The toilet valve is failing and flooding on a starboard tack.

A wire has come loose from the wind generator and it is no longer charging.

And there are some holes to fill between the head and saloon.

All I will watch the human’s fix tomorrow as I sun bath.

Keep it real!

 

 

20. July 2012 · 3 comments · Categories: Posts

Boring day yesterday.

All we did was catch up on some sleep.

Do the laundry in town.

And have a snack.      

And yes, I do like fruit, and no Mick, they are not turning me into a Vegitarian!

 

Today we are off to Plymouth.  The tide runs fair from about 12:30 so we thought we would head over to the fisherman’s dock (on their invitation of course) and fill back up with water.  We lost more then we thought when the water hose detached from the engine to the water heater in the rough seas here.

All topped up now and ready to go.

BEST LAID PLANS:

We plan to sail over to plymouth  and anchor up at Cawsands Bay (free).

Perhaps sail over to Fowey tomorrow (expensive) and then up the River Fal in Falmouth to a visiters pontoon we heard about (relatively cheap).

What ever our plans are while the weather is fair and the winds are with us we will not probably have an Internet connection for a while.

We will do our best to send you some text over the SSB, but no pictures.

Until then keep smiling.