Blowing the cobwebs away

It's been really wet and windy for the last couple of weeks but we saw an opportunity and took a couple of days off work to head down to Dartmouth on Wednesday evening. Thursday dawned bright and breezy, though only about 7 degrees, so we headed out for a couple of hours of entertaining sailing. 

The inshore forecast gave W to NW F6-7, Gale 8 later, so, unsurprisingly, we were the only boat out! The National Coastwatch Institute volunteers, based in a WW2 gun battery observation post at Froward Point to the east of the Dart entrance, were reassured when we called them on the radio to tell them that we were out for a play rather than setting off on a passage.

Looking back toward the Dart Estuary. Froward Point is next to the right of the photo

There may be trouble ahead. A rain squall, bringing lots of wind, approaches us from Start Point

Reaching out towards the sun

Beating back in to Dartmouth, lee rail submerged

Maunie is temporarily in residence on a pontoon in the river, rather than on her normal mooring, which allows us the benefit of electricity to run a dehumidifier when we leave her - it make a huge difference as she feels completely dry and free of the dreaded mildew.

The blue made-to-measure cover completely encloses the cockpit to help keep Maunie snug

The ability to run a fan heater comes in handy when we're aboard, particularly as the diesel central heating system has packed up. Graham had a fun couple of hours in the cockpit locker removing the heater (which resembles a mini jet engine - the combustion fumes are exhausted overboard and heated air is ducted around the boat) and we took it ashore for a full clean and service.

It looks as though we'll have much more time on Maunie than we thought this year. Graham's job hasn't worked out as he'd hoped, sadly, and so he's decided that sanity and enjoyment of life should prevail. This means we'll get the opportunity to do a refit of Maunie this summer as well as getting some decent UK and Ireland cruising. We'll update the blog as we go.