Cruise 2010 – Day 7

A reasonably dry night surprised us all at Coltishall, 4 drips overall we reckon can be considered reasonably dry!

We motored in the rain (surprise!) downstream to Wroxham, taking the shortcut through Bridge Broad. This is a stretch of the navigation which can be overlooked – did you know there’s an Alpine landscape next to the river?

At Wroxham, some replacement waterproof trousers were needed (don’t ask) – an unfortunately due to a stocking issue, the entire crew of ‘Corsair’ can now wear these poxy trousers at the same time!!

Given the now torrential rain, we all clambered aboard ‘HB’ & found ourselves moved quite briskly downriver to Horning, ready to make sail again (after all, this is a sailing boat – Skipper’s grumble).

Maybe it was an omen, but we found ourselves in the sunshine (for the 2nd time that week, AND with a favourable breeze it felt like maybe it could be an actual holiday! This was Jacob’s 1st venture into yachting, so typically we launched ourselves straight into the path of an oncoming wherry (Albion)!

At the mouth of the Ant, we cut short our yachting & joined the procession of jolly sailor types heading from Barton Open Regatta. En-route we passed the film crew of ‘Jam Today’ again – and by How Hill we’d set 1st reef & middle jib for some more yachting.

Out on Barton we were glad of the reef – storming about adjacent to ‘HB’ – causing chaos in the cabin,

Energetic sailing doesn’t pay!

although we did get some spectacular photo’s of the old girl. Our antics were carefully watched by ‘Jenny’ – a fully reefed hire boat from Martham who disapproved.

Eventually, ‘HB’ towed us to Sutton Staithe, where we moored in the rain (how familiar) & spent the evening BBQ’ing… after all we are on holiday!

Night.

The trousers.

Cruise 2010 – Day 6

We survived. A bland & mediocre offering but nonetheless sufficient.
Much like rationing.

It is strange to start a day’s log talking about events that happened yesterday however some things are worthy of note… as ‘Vintage Broadsman’ appeared on Salhouse Broad last night, blasting out a cheesy disco soundtrack, it was promptly drowned out by the Mozart from HB’s sound-system. How proper.

We can also report that the ‘Fur & Feathers’ is still a fine establishment serving much tasty ale… In fact the only fly in the ointment is that there was a troupe of Morris dancers outside who asked for requests; apparently ‘piss off’ wasn’t the correct answer. So we left swiftly after clearing that misunderstanding up!

Evening at Salhouse

Besides ensuring that we stayed until we had used all of our £6 mooring fee, there was little available to keep us at Salhouse so we headed for Wroxham amid more rain (lovely!) – in fact it was so unpleasant that we lowered the mast & motored the whole way as quickly as possible.

Wroxham itself had a variety of temptation to offer us, mostly fish & chips, some overly large waterproof trousers and an exceedingly flamboyant umbrella for the skipper. Also, there was a whistle-stop tour of Roy’s food department.

The world’s largest trousers…


And, for no reason at all, its worth nothing that when you throw the mudweight overboard, ALWAYS check if it is on a short line, and whether or not it’s only on a small cleat with short screws… I mention this for no reason.

Post fish & chips, we departed the moorings & motored under Hoveton viaduct toward Belaugh. Despite HB taking a shortcut through bridge broad – ‘Corsair’ maintained the lead.

It was the 1st time ‘Corsair’ had been to Coltishall in my ownership & despite the weather (torrential rain) the navigation was very pretty. I saw a Kingfisher & several shoals of fish in the very clear water.

I might add, those weren’t the only highlights of the trip. ‘HB’ had the sliding roof open going through Wroxham bridge, soaking the Judas aboard… Sadly it was nothing to the sogginess of ‘Corsair’ – the awning was laid over the cabin, the umbrella was up… not a jot of bloody difference it made!

We spotted the ‘Death & Glory’ and ‘Troutbridge’ moored at Belaugh. No loveable Lesley however.

Much later, we found ourselves at Coltishall with the Tilley lamp valiantly drying out the contents of our cabin, with our new crew member languishing aboard ‘HB’ in the saloon. Weakness of character if you ask me!

Night

‘Summer’