Plymouth ... Again? - 50°21'46" N 04°10'04" E
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| We find ourselves in a familiar location ... with a purpose |
Plymouth really is a lovely place. We have friends nearby and we know our way into the harbour. In fact, we are SO familiar we even took the shortcut in past Drake's Island!
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| We could have gone around the island, but The Bridge only looks narrow and shallow on the chart. We know otherwise! |
But why are we here again?
Because we have a few things to do.
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| We're certified! |
Get our mail - Life aboard means that when we do need a physical piece of paper, certificate or document it is challenging to tell the postman where to bring it. Most marinas that we plan to go will not accept a piece of mail unless Chinook is in residence there. We don't want to sit anywhere just waiting for a piece of mail. Luckily, our friend and fellow yachtie, Pete Goss, lives very close to Plymouth and has offered to receive mail and hold it for us should we ever need.
He captured and forwarded our Certification cards to the Mayflower Marina. Very handy!
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| A small corner of the offerings at the Scrapstore. |
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| Cotton, Sunbrella, vinyl, neoprene ... |
Visit the Scrapstore - a source for raw material for little creative projects that we do onboard. Custom storage bags that Kate whips up on the sewing machine. Neoprene mats in bins. Grocery tote bags. That sort of stuff. All for £5 per grocery bag-full. Kate had a few projects in mind and wanted to restock on a few materials before we sailed far away from this treasure trove.
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| That backpack contains a dinghy. Very portable! |
Lighten our load - Our dinghy was a bit small for four adults ... which we often end up with onboard Chinook. We really don't have room for multiple runabouts, so the smaller one was destined for a local second-hand marine supply store.
That is, until we were carting it down the pontoon, neatly folded up and in its backpack. We started chatting with another sailor as we went by her boat and she asked about the backpack. One thing led to another and she offered to buy our soon-to-be former dinghy ... on the spot.
We have already purchased a bigger dinghy and were happy to be £200 richer and have one less thing in the forward sail locker.
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| What are all these people doing up at this time of the morning on a Saturday? Park Run! |
Get off the boat once in a while - Travellers, ex-pats and yachties find it challenging to run in new cities. One of those ex-pats decided to organize a 5 km run in whatever city he happened to be in on a Saturday morning. Other ex-pats joined the fray and a movement started. We managed to find a Park Run in Edgcumbe, just across the river from our marina.
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| Successful Park Run done! |
Pick up parts - We have discovered a small leak in the grey water (waste water from sinks and showers) system. Of course, it is in an awkward-to-reach spot.
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| See that black and yellow pump that is beneath the sole (floor) in the aft washroom (head)? That's not the part that needs replacing. The part is forward of that ... under some non-removeable sole. There will be boat yoga required. |
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| This is the part that needs to have all the hoses detached, be unscrewed from the panel it is mounted to, replaced, then remounted (blindly, mind you) ... and it needs to be perfectly level to work properly. First, we have to get the replacement part. |
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| A ferry ride across the River Plym (hence the name of the town - Plym Mouth ... see?) took us to a chandlery that had special ordered the Whale manifold that we needed. While waiting for the ferry back to the other side, we noticed an interesting art installation. It was concrete barriers with different semiphore signal letters and their meanings shown. We thought they were very cool. |
Check out some of the new naval vessels.
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| While tied up at the Mayflower Marina, we noticed some very flashy ships go by, including the HMS Severn, which was sporting what looked like a spiffy new paint job. |
Plan our big, multi-day trip to A Coruña - tides, wind direction and strength, geological hazards (a.k.a. rocks), ships, shipping channels and Traffic Separation Schemes would all factor into crossing the English Channel and entering into what most consider a potentially dangerous body of water - The Bay of Biscay.
But that is another story.
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