Cheerio Wicor

Sunday 22nd October.... It's time to leave wonderful Wicor Yacht Haven... Royal Clarence Marina is calling! Our summer berth on the river has sadly come to an end, and now Thesee has moved home yet again. We're pleased to be back at just as wonderful Royal Clarence Marina until March 2018.

After yesterday's gale force winds across the country it's much calmer today, but we still managed to get splashed in the dinghy on our way out into the river. We got the dinghy onboard as quickly as possible because it was getting knocked about against Thesee's transom, with the flooding tide and a North Westerly wind. Once we departed the pontoon for the last time we waved goodbye to Wicor and 30 minutes later excitedly arrived at Royal Clarence. We decided to reverse into the berth and it took two attempts and a lot of patience. 

Saying bye bye to Wicor

This is the view from our new berth, HMS Queen Elizabeth

About an hour later, Alan and Yasmine arrived for the weekend as planned and we had a super afternoon and evening playing Tri-ominoes and Scrabble. We didn't get to bed until midnight! 

Seeing off the trifle before the games get started

Monday 23rd October... After breakfast Alan and Yasi drove us to Wicor to pick up the car. Dean headed back to Gosport as he wanted to do some jobs including fitting his new vice bracket, and also refitting the fresh water pump which was leaking. He's fitted some new seals to the pump and now it's working perfect. You're so clever Dean. The rest of us went to Port Solent, where we spent ages in the Chandlery looking for speakers amongst other goodies, and then ages in the Tea Rooms eating the most delicious cherry scones and triple layer victoria sandwich. Thanks for the treat Alan and Yasi. It was almost 5.30pm when we returned and getting dark. 

We love these freshly baked cherry scones

We ate dinner at Arty's in the marina, where they served us lovely food at good prices. We'll be back! Thanks to Alan and Yasi again for treating us. At 10pm we went back to the boat and continued with the Tri-ominoes and Scrabble competition. Well done to the 'Buoys' Team for their win. We made a new scrabble rule which was an extra 5 points if you made a nautical word. Alan came up with the best word of the night.... DAVIT. 

It's starting to get chilly at night, so glad we have electricity now xxx

Post Wedding Weekend

Sunday 8th October.... Arrived early afternoon straight from Bournemouth, having celebrated the very happy occasion of Claire and Matt's Wedding yesterday. 

Here's the very happy new Mr & Mrs

A big day for Thesee, first ever flowers onboard

Thanks for the lovely bouquet C&M

There was no time for chilling out though, and before we knew it Dean began work replacing the pump and base in the forward heads. There were a few hiccups but it's now working perfectly with no more leaks and very little noise. Now we keep spending a penny because it's so amazing. You'll be pleased to know i will not be posting any pictures of this job!


Monday 9th October... It was quite chilly this morning, so we had a lie in. After a late breakfast Dean fitted his new gadget.... an alternator protector. I don't know where he gets all the ideas from. Here it is in situ, nicely affixed inside the engine compartment next to the alternator, of course (not a place Linda gets to stick her head into very often thankfully).

Ready and waiting for wiring connections

We finished off the rest of the Wedding leftovers for lunch and Dean got stuck into job number 3.... fitting the new Anchor Swivel. We've been thinking of buying one for quite a while now, and took advantage of buying one at the boat show to save postage, because it's quite a beast.  Although our anchor raising has been quite successful recently, we do sometimes find that it comes us backwards because of the twist in the chain. Let's hope this will solve the problem and we can be anchor raising Kings and Queens from now on!

My what a big anchor you've got

Ready to swivel away (hopefully)

It's been a very heavily clouded sky today, but the sun did manage to break through this evening and produce this beautiful stormy photograph of Fareham Lake.