Finally June 17th 2010

Rose's blog

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Rose
RNLI Supporter
RNLI Supporter
Posts: 16
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2009 3:55 pm
Location: Plymouth, at the moment

Finally June 17th 2010

Post by Rose »

Well it seems that I haven't made a post here for a little while. About 2 months actually! Tsk These days I am mostly living in the 1950's and so my internet access is rather limited. As we are avoiding marinas as much as possible and as Jeff is a little bit "odd" when it comes to running the generator I have been limited to about 5 or 10 minutes each day, sometimes less. I have a wedding to plan and of course facebook and emails to catch up on so that has left me very little time for blogging. I have however been keeping one of those old fashioned pen and paper diaries and as this morning finds us at anchor with the generator on I shall quickly use it to remind me of all that has happened so far and update this blog.

I am not going to go into all the daily details of our trip so far although I easily could. It would take an age and anyway Jeff has many more internet privileges than myself so I know he has been posting regularly. So how to summarize our comings, goings and adventures? Setting off all those weeks ago was rather bizarre; daunting, exciting, worrying and anti-climatic all at once. Let me clarify that the latter feelings were mostly likely due to our previous over excitement and the fact that we spent our first night on our voyage anchored in the very familiar and close to home anchorage just up the river Yealm! A celebratory meal aboard, a bottle of champagne and an early night as before light the next day we were off again to the exotic and distant shore of Salcombe. Whoop! Here, we very quickly settled into a good rhythm of rowing ashore, walking the dog, sampling local food and pubs and I think Jeff even managed to do some proper work. Impressive. Yes looking back Salcombe was full of cold sun, ice cream and crab sandwiches.

Our next destination, after a 7 1/2 hour sail, was Torquay. We decided to skip a few stops as one of my little brothers (not so little at well over 6ft) was heading down to partake in the largest gathering of Young Farmers I have ever seen! It was actually quite a disturbing experience; arriving in an unknown harbour, looking out across the traditional seaside touristy view of the town and then suddenly noticing that the world has been taken over by drunk farmers. About 30000 of them it seemed. Chuck (Charles if he has been naughty) had never visited us on Isabella before so Jeff and I proudly showed him around and gave him the grand tour. Which took about 90 seconds so then we just sat about and caught up. I was glad to be out of familiar territory and I think here was where I really started to feel as though we were under way properly. We had a lovely weekend in Torquay just relaxing and sampling the local ice cream and beer and so on. I do have a guilty secret which I feel I must confess to. Torquay saw my first steps down the road to ruin. Previously I admit I may have been a bit of an ice cream snob. I love the stuff and it has always been the posher the better; real milk, real cream, real fresh berries, local honey, organic even, mutli coloured little scoops of heaven. Not for me the ice cream from the back of dodgy looking van. Then I went to Torquay. I had an actual soft scoop Mr Whippyesque flake included ice cream cone from a random touristy shop. LOVED IT!!! I mention this as since this time I believe I have become a bit of a "whippy" connoisseur. It seems there are good ones and bad ones and I have now experienced both. Good ones in Dartmouth, with actual hundreds and thousands on top and bad ones in Teignmouth that leave you feeling as if you have just sucked on carpet. You have to be careful with you choice of soft scoop!

Anyway I digress and apparently Jeff is kicking me off the net in 10 minutes. Bless him.

After Torquay, although it was a bit against the grain we skipped back along the coast, calling in at Brixham for the beginning of the pirate festival and to sample their effort at crab sandwiches (which were very good) before running from weather and wind to find shelter in Dartmouth. Here we stayed for quite some time, anchoring off the town and spending lazy days up river, having pub lunches and watching DVD'S when it rained, walking through the pretty villages and green countryside. I was so glad to be back in the countryside. I do like out trips out at sea and I do like the little fishing ports and the towns we visit but I guess I am still a farmer's daughter at heat and I really think I was starting to feel a little ungrounded and somewhat sick without my countryside fix. The river Dart sorted that out for me and I loved spending time walking through grass and trees, the greenness of it all almost sang to my eyes. One of the things I enjoy about living on a yacht most is going up river. We even made it as far as Totnes which was quite special for Jeff in particular as that is where his yachting adventure began with the purchase of Genesis. By sheer luck we had timed our visit with the Dartmouth music festival and the arrival of HMS Kent so our last weekend there was spent dancing in the streets and having a tour of the warship. I seem to recall at the end of one nights revelries Jeff chanting out anti war slogans on the loudspeaker PA system we have set up for the radio but as we survived the night and were not taken out by military snipers I can only assume those on board HMS Kent failed to hear him. Big sigh of relief! Oh yes did I mention, good whippy ice creams to be had in Dartmouth.

Where to next? Ah no I am being kicked off. The injustice. I shall return shortly, no really I will, to update our journey at a later and hopefully not too distant time.

:)
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