Monday 10th August 2020 - Jobs day and plans

Today was about catching up on sleep and jobs, and making plans for the next few days.The engine hadn't been starting quite as quickly as normal (unusual as we re-engined in 2015 and have been enjoying the reliability) and when we decided to move quickly due to anchor chaos in the Walton Backwaters she definitely took long enough to make me wonder if she was actually going to start at all. The obvious place to start looking was battery power and we contemplated swapping in one of our domestic bank to confirm our suspicions. However, on reflection we realised that although we replaced our domestic bank last year, the engine starter battery has been on the boat since we bought her 9 years ago so clearly didn't owe us anything. Time was tight for finding a replacement so we decided to go online shopping for a next day delivery. At this point, David our new friend from the Yacht Free Wheel rang up offering to take Patrick for petrol (we had used nearly all ours on our multiple outboard journeys at Stone Point). Shotley is Free Wheel's home port so David had his car there and on hearing our need for a battery, very kindly offered to take Patrick battery shopping too! 

Marika, David's wife offered to take the kids for a walk/skate and so I was left alone to deal with the huge pile of laundry we seemed to have generated. Unfortunately the laundry was only open during Shipwreck opening hours and so at 10am I pushed a trolley load full of washing the length of the marina to start my washing marathon only to be told they wouldn't be opening the laundry until 11 as they were too busy unloading beer!

Eventually the laundry was done, battery was fitted and we started to finalise plans for the next few days. Free Wheel was keen to try Brightlingsea (particularly given the north winds forecast) but we had just come from there and I was hoping for heading north... perhaps Aldborough as AJ loves swimming in waves. In the end the forecast had changed slightly to put enought east in the wind to facilitate heading north and David was quite keen to get to Lowestoft. It has a good beach and seemed to have a few poor weather options for the kids if the forecast thunderstorms materialised later in the week. We all agreed that it would be the best place to get stuck for a few days if the weather did turn so planned a 4:30am lock out to make the best of the tide.

That sorted we had a little more time for boat jobs before meeting up for a BBQ on the small beach. The kids enjoyed playing whilst the adults chatted (and I was somewhat amused by the COBB logo imprinted on the halloumi). All too soon it was time to pack up and prepare for the Tesco delivery I had managed to arrange at short notice and we were all pleased that it arrived early. We quickly sorted it out into trolleys for the respective boats and headed back to stow the goodies and get to bed ready for our early start.