I needed to do some measuring up on a friends yacht for a new battery control panel I'm making them, Jane had the weekend off and we fancied a couple of nights on board so after Jane caught a few hours post night shift sleep, we headed down the wet and windy A14 / M11 to Essex on Saturday afternoon.
They sometimes include, in a popular saying, an umbrella amongst the most useless things on a boat. I have to disagree as I was pleased to remember there was such an item lurking in the boot of our car (and there are two on the boat for use by crew going ashore). It wasn't to keep the rain off us, it tucked nicely over the bags in the trolley!
All was well aboard Erbas, if rather chilly. It took a good while with the heating going full chat before she properly warmed up but by the time we wandered off up the road to the pub things were reasonably toasty.
Jane enjoyed her minted lamb, my starvation was satisfied with not much more than half my plate of scampi and chips. I find that happens more and more these days, I'm ravenously hungry until I start eating and then I run out of steam half way through the meal. Must be getting old!
We were back aboard pretty early and in bed, fast asleep, not long after! Well, I think Jane was actually asleep before her head hit the pillow, it took me a little longer but not much
Despite the howling wind, the rocking about (due to the howling wind) and the annoying sound of a loose halyard clanging against an alloy mast (there is always one twonk in a marina who doesn't bother frapping his halyards) we slept like logs and woke to a slightly drier but still breezy morning.
A fairly late breakfast of scrambled egg on toast was nicely timed as a text arrived from our friends to say they'd be aboard "Laurin" shortly. This is the boat I'm working on at Burnham so we toddled off down there for a couple of hours of chat and tape measuring.
Whilst there. Pat also very kindly did the countersigning thing on our passport applications and photographs. He even refrained from laughing at the photos, what a gent! It was even kinder as it was his birthday and the family were off for a birthday lunch we were keeping them from. It won't go unrewarded :)
That done, the Laurins headed off for the aforementioned lunch whilst Jane and I went for a wander round the Co-Op for the makings of a meal and a bottle of red. Some beef, a pre-prepared packet of casserole veg and a sachet of stock sorted out the meal and an Oxford Landing Merlot was selected as a suitable accompaniment.
Back aboard Erbas, I sparked up the laptop and fired up BBC i-player to see what there might be worth watching. Unlike the other "on demand" services, the BBC offering allows you to download the programme in advance which is very useful on a slow marina wi-fi as watching streaming video is often an exercise in extreme frustration due to the constant interruptions whilst it buffers the next few minutes of video.
There wasn't much doing in the films section but then I spotted "Wolf Hall", the acclaimed new period drama about Tudor England. We both like period dramas so I set the first episode of that to download.
My mission now was to dig the cockpit tent out of the locker and having done so I was slightly concerned to find it seems to have been suffering a bit of damp. I don't think any harm has been done, it just needs a good scrub come the spring I suspect (as does the sprayhood anyway) but we're going to have to consider clearing out lockers for the winter I think. Storage space is the issue though.
Anyway, it was quick work to get it up and that will allow me to address the issue of the starboard locker lid which is coming apart at the seams. Actually, it's the dummy bit of the lid which extends over the quarter berth so that the lid matches the longer locker on the port side that is coming apart. It needs removing, dismantling, cleaning up, glueing and cramping together again which is a job I can tackle over the coming weeks whilst I'm down working on other boats for money.
Meanwhile, Jane got the beef and stock on the simmer on the stove nice and early then an hour or so later we chucked in the veg. By now, the download was staggering along at about 30kb/s and maybe a third of the way through after getting on for two hours so I sparked up our 3 mi-fi dongle and switched to that. Off it went at a blistering pace and when it had finished I set episode two to download for good measure.
I couldn't help taking the mickey when Jane asked around six if it was too early to open the wine. I pointed out that this was a stupid question as it is never too early to open the wine! The wine was opened. Very nice too. The Australians may be the biggest whingers on the face of the earth (and they have the cheek to call us "whingeing Poms"!) but they do know how to make a decent red whinge, In fact, having come late in life to the grape and it being very much a case of "I don't know much about wine but I know what I like", I do much prefer antipodean wines over anyone elses.
We sorted out the seating and viewing arrangements, dished up the dinner and set the laptop to play Episode One. The meal was delicious and the drama was really rather good.
The only slight criticism we had of "Wolf Hall" was that, unlike, say, "The White Queen" from last year (which we have the DVD boxed set of, it was that good), if you didn't know the historical back story it was rather hard to follow. The characters just came and went without being introduced or explained either visually or in the dialogue.
As a result, we had a break of quarter of an hour between episodes during which I gave Jane a very abbreviated crash course in the history of Tudor England and the reign of Henry VIII from memory!
Then we watched episode two and I'm sure Jane appreciated it all the more thanks to my educational efforts. Well, she said she did anyway. The telly watched, the wine drunk, the hot water bottles hotted up, it was off to bed in the cosy v-berth and a much quieter night.
I was up at a reasonable hour and, leaving Jane to lie in as long as possible, made myself a coffee and set about updating the chart plotter. My subscription to Navionics update service "Freshest Data" having expired late last year I knew this was going to cost me a few quid but what I didn't expect was to have to download an entirely new set of charts.
This, however, proved to be the case. Our existing Navionics Gold charts are no more and now we have to have Navionics+ charts instead. "What's the difference?" you may ask? None at all as far as I can see. Oh Plus comes with "Sonar Charts", a more detailed set of depth contours based on user supplied soundings, but our Raymarine A50 chart plotter can't display them.
The niggling drawback was that this meant a massive download which all told took a couple of hours. To make matters worse, typically of Navionics, it was not possible to download the entire chart pack in one go, it took several bites at the cherry due to their system not allowing a big enough download to get the lot in one hit.
To add insult to injury, once I'd downloaded the charts I then still had to download the latest "freshest data"! I nearly spat the dummy when the chart plotter refused to load the charts.
That meant yet another download to update the chart plotter firmware to the latest version. Happily, after the update, it did read the chart cartridge and we were away and running again.
It remained only to pack up our gear and close down "Erbas" before making a frosty lunchtime run for home. I'll be back down within the fortnight as soon as the parts are in for the jobs I have on the go.
They sometimes include, in a popular saying, an umbrella amongst the most useless things on a boat. I have to disagree as I was pleased to remember there was such an item lurking in the boot of our car (and there are two on the boat for use by crew going ashore). It wasn't to keep the rain off us, it tucked nicely over the bags in the trolley!
All was well aboard Erbas, if rather chilly. It took a good while with the heating going full chat before she properly warmed up but by the time we wandered off up the road to the pub things were reasonably toasty.
Jane enjoyed her minted lamb, my starvation was satisfied with not much more than half my plate of scampi and chips. I find that happens more and more these days, I'm ravenously hungry until I start eating and then I run out of steam half way through the meal. Must be getting old!
We were back aboard pretty early and in bed, fast asleep, not long after! Well, I think Jane was actually asleep before her head hit the pillow, it took me a little longer but not much
Despite the howling wind, the rocking about (due to the howling wind) and the annoying sound of a loose halyard clanging against an alloy mast (there is always one twonk in a marina who doesn't bother frapping his halyards) we slept like logs and woke to a slightly drier but still breezy morning.
A fairly late breakfast of scrambled egg on toast was nicely timed as a text arrived from our friends to say they'd be aboard "Laurin" shortly. This is the boat I'm working on at Burnham so we toddled off down there for a couple of hours of chat and tape measuring.
Whilst there. Pat also very kindly did the countersigning thing on our passport applications and photographs. He even refrained from laughing at the photos, what a gent! It was even kinder as it was his birthday and the family were off for a birthday lunch we were keeping them from. It won't go unrewarded :)
That done, the Laurins headed off for the aforementioned lunch whilst Jane and I went for a wander round the Co-Op for the makings of a meal and a bottle of red. Some beef, a pre-prepared packet of casserole veg and a sachet of stock sorted out the meal and an Oxford Landing Merlot was selected as a suitable accompaniment.
Back aboard Erbas, I sparked up the laptop and fired up BBC i-player to see what there might be worth watching. Unlike the other "on demand" services, the BBC offering allows you to download the programme in advance which is very useful on a slow marina wi-fi as watching streaming video is often an exercise in extreme frustration due to the constant interruptions whilst it buffers the next few minutes of video.
There wasn't much doing in the films section but then I spotted "Wolf Hall", the acclaimed new period drama about Tudor England. We both like period dramas so I set the first episode of that to download.
My mission now was to dig the cockpit tent out of the locker and having done so I was slightly concerned to find it seems to have been suffering a bit of damp. I don't think any harm has been done, it just needs a good scrub come the spring I suspect (as does the sprayhood anyway) but we're going to have to consider clearing out lockers for the winter I think. Storage space is the issue though.
Anyway, it was quick work to get it up and that will allow me to address the issue of the starboard locker lid which is coming apart at the seams. Actually, it's the dummy bit of the lid which extends over the quarter berth so that the lid matches the longer locker on the port side that is coming apart. It needs removing, dismantling, cleaning up, glueing and cramping together again which is a job I can tackle over the coming weeks whilst I'm down working on other boats for money.
Meanwhile, Jane got the beef and stock on the simmer on the stove nice and early then an hour or so later we chucked in the veg. By now, the download was staggering along at about 30kb/s and maybe a third of the way through after getting on for two hours so I sparked up our 3 mi-fi dongle and switched to that. Off it went at a blistering pace and when it had finished I set episode two to download for good measure.
I couldn't help taking the mickey when Jane asked around six if it was too early to open the wine. I pointed out that this was a stupid question as it is never too early to open the wine! The wine was opened. Very nice too. The Australians may be the biggest whingers on the face of the earth (and they have the cheek to call us "whingeing Poms"!) but they do know how to make a decent red whinge, In fact, having come late in life to the grape and it being very much a case of "I don't know much about wine but I know what I like", I do much prefer antipodean wines over anyone elses.
We sorted out the seating and viewing arrangements, dished up the dinner and set the laptop to play Episode One. The meal was delicious and the drama was really rather good.
The only slight criticism we had of "Wolf Hall" was that, unlike, say, "The White Queen" from last year (which we have the DVD boxed set of, it was that good), if you didn't know the historical back story it was rather hard to follow. The characters just came and went without being introduced or explained either visually or in the dialogue.
As a result, we had a break of quarter of an hour between episodes during which I gave Jane a very abbreviated crash course in the history of Tudor England and the reign of Henry VIII from memory!
Then we watched episode two and I'm sure Jane appreciated it all the more thanks to my educational efforts. Well, she said she did anyway. The telly watched, the wine drunk, the hot water bottles hotted up, it was off to bed in the cosy v-berth and a much quieter night.
I was up at a reasonable hour and, leaving Jane to lie in as long as possible, made myself a coffee and set about updating the chart plotter. My subscription to Navionics update service "Freshest Data" having expired late last year I knew this was going to cost me a few quid but what I didn't expect was to have to download an entirely new set of charts.
This, however, proved to be the case. Our existing Navionics Gold charts are no more and now we have to have Navionics+ charts instead. "What's the difference?" you may ask? None at all as far as I can see. Oh Plus comes with "Sonar Charts", a more detailed set of depth contours based on user supplied soundings, but our Raymarine A50 chart plotter can't display them.
The niggling drawback was that this meant a massive download which all told took a couple of hours. To make matters worse, typically of Navionics, it was not possible to download the entire chart pack in one go, it took several bites at the cherry due to their system not allowing a big enough download to get the lot in one hit.
To add insult to injury, once I'd downloaded the charts I then still had to download the latest "freshest data"! I nearly spat the dummy when the chart plotter refused to load the charts.
That meant yet another download to update the chart plotter firmware to the latest version. Happily, after the update, it did read the chart cartridge and we were away and running again.
It remained only to pack up our gear and close down "Erbas" before making a frosty lunchtime run for home. I'll be back down within the fortnight as soon as the parts are in for the jobs I have on the go.
 |
| Sun, sea and .... ice???? |
Alright for some, I guess. All I get to play with is sanders and paintbrushes at the moment. But the framework is now in place for the wind vane...
ReplyDelete