After a shop at Tesco in Kettering, we had a fairly frustrating drive down to Fambridge constantly being held up by slower motorists who would NOT move over until there wasn't a vehicle to be seen for the next five miles
Frustration levels increased when a stone thrown up by a particularly ignorant Disco driver chipped the windscreen badly. Oh well, thought I, that'll be a job for the chip repair man. Oh no it won't, a pothole near Maldon turned the chip into a foot long crack.
Oh well, never mind. We'll sort that out next week said I as we pulled into the full car park at the moorings. It was blowing a veritable yachtsmans gale from the South West making the river rather lumpy so we were glad when two big yachts departed from the inside of the pontoon and we could get alongside in the more sheltered water.
The decision to stay put for the night did not require a lot of debate or discussion! In fact, it was a no brainer. Then we learnt that workmen had dug through a power cable this morning and blacked out the entire village.
No power on the pontoon to charge the batteries and worse, the pub was shut - no power for the chillers, pumps ovens etc. A surf of the net elicited the information that emergency generators were on their way and power would be restored late evening with any luck
A leisurely sort out of the kit was followed by some engineering works to temporarily hook up the 5W solar panel Bosun Glen gave me ages ago. I also lashed up the wiring to connect the redundant voltmeter to a spare switch so it can be used to check the panel and/or battery voltage
We dined regally on tinned chicken Korma and boil in the bag rice washed down with coffee and rum. Yum! Then we settled down to watch the first episode of The White Queen on i-player and declared it not half bad.
About half way through, the power came on and I whizzed around plugging everything in to the go go juice before watching the rest of the programme
A walk up to the loos might have been followed by a pint but having opened up when the power came on, the staff at the pub decided to close early and go home despite, apparently, there being plenty of custom (two cars pulled up and drove off again as we got close enough to see that the lights were out so that's three lots of trade including us lost at least). I can't claim that we were desperately bothered but it seems a funny way to run a business in a trade where so many businesses are struggling to survive
Anyway, back on board we had a nightcap and settled down for an early night.
The forecast says we should still have F4 to F5 from the SW and that it will continue to be very breezy all day tomorrow. It's a bit marginal especially given Jane's dislike of the outer Blackwater
Needless to say however that we've got nothing of the sort. The breeze had dropped to no more than F2 at the most, the river has calmed down and conditions are, in fact, nearly perfect. What's the betting they won't be by morning?
Plans are necessarily flexible. I'll get up when I get up and sees what's what. Might be round into the Roach for a night at anchor, might be into BYH for better shelter.
Hopefully conditions will permit our intended pan of getting round into the Blackwater tomorrow in which case it could be anchoring in the Pyefleet or duck into Bradwell for shelter.
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