Where do I sign?

Sun! and plenty of it !!

Who needs to go to Europe even if we could..

I had a great day helping a friend load a 6 metre RIB onto a trailer. This involved mooring briefly against an empty pontoon whilst the trailer was brought round to the slipway – a wait of perhaps 15 minutes.

However the pontoon was owned by Eastney Cruising Association and within the 15 minutes of waiting I was challenged twice with comments like ‘I can see you’re not a member’ and ‘have you run out of petrol, is that why you’re here’ all the while suffering the confrontational glare of a fat man in a motorboat who stood like a Troll guarding his bridge.

Hardly the last word in friendliness and as it’s a scrappy collection of boats that sit on the mud for half the day, I’m not sure why the weapons-grade security and general attitude is called for.

It reminded me of the quote that I wouldn’t join any club that would have me as a member.. of course, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t want me as a member – so where do I sign??

After some fun watching a couple launch a small motorboat from the slipway and getting the boat sideways across the trailer … it was all the wife’s fault according to the husband who was doing the driving 🙂

It was an interesting situation as he couldn’t go deeper into the water as his car was already over the axle and couldn’t pull out without damaging the boat. No photos I’m afraid as I felt it might trigger a ‘domestic’ and then the slipway wouldn’t be cleared until after the forensic team had visited.

For our part, we retrieved the RIB without incident, which was just as well as there were no culpable wives available.

The next day we had use of a lovely RIB with 200hp and an essential sun-dodging bimini.

Lovely flat water so a fast trip to explore the Needles – this is the closest I’ve ever been..

Then off for an inspection of the recent damage to Hurst Castle and round the corner to check out anchorages in the entrance to Keyhaven. It certainly is shallow in there and you really need some local knowledge as the buoyage is rather misleading.

After that it was lunch in Yarmouth and then we headed back home.

The third member of the crew was rather more Covid Wary than I am. I presume it was him we brought back after lunch.

I was going to ask his permission to use this photo but there didn’t seem much point.

A quick call to Newtown Creek showed it to be just as full as expected.

So it all took just a few hours to do what would have taken me two days in my boat 🙂

But then the fuel bill for the day was £100.

In the last two weeks my boat has used less than £10 …. I almost feel like an environmentalist.. perhaps I can get a grant or some sort of discount at McDonalds.