The plan! We're very happy boaters.

After nearly two hours of driving into the wind, we stopped off twixt bridges 28 and 27. Life was too hot and too windy, we said. We'd have dinner here and move on later.

We're going back to the house on Saturday for three nights, to celebrate Grace's birthday with the kids. It'd be best to be back at the marina as soon as we can to give ourselves more time to "sort out stuff" and "pack".

Nope, change of plan. We'd have dinner and stay the night instead. The mighty, gusty wind was just too strong to bother with. The amazingly reliable weather forecast says that the wind will be lighter tomorrow morning, so we'll leave earlyish.

After dinner, the wind was even worse. I sat outside, drinking a leisurely pint while the hot - HOT, mind - wind blew around me. Then came the rain - big rain. Oh! And thunder! This is going to be fun!

We have a plan. Our experience of the past few days on the cut, travelling no more than about three hours or so away from the marina, have encouraged us to do it again, often. Often enough, in fact, to get all of the repair and maintenance jobs done that we had intended, prior to the Coronavirus, to do over the period of a long cruise. The long cruise is out of the question now. We don't intend to run the risk of becoming ill when we are days, maybe even weeks away from the marina. The likelihood of a second spike increases daily. We'll stay close.

So we'll trip down to Bridge 27 or the Welford Arm, work for a few days, then return to Yelvertoft - the simplest provider of water, waste disposal and shopping facilities. And since, it eventually becomes necessary to run the engine to charge the batteries when we are moored for days, we might as well use that engine running time to take us back to our home berth. And we'll do that weekly until there's no more to do. Time and effort very well spent. We're very happy boaters!

Kantara's Blogography gallery

We were awake by 6:00 and away by 7:00 the next morning.

 The view from our window at 6:00 am

The wind had indeed abated, but the weather was now colder and cloudier, threatening to rain before we arrived back in the marina. It didn't amount to much. Now back in our berth, we have plenty of time to sort ourselves and the boat out, and drive down to St Albans in a leisurely manner.

*******