Over the winter Island Girl was hauled out. A number of essential maintenance tasks were carried out. Antifoul was applied, anodes replaced and just after the new year, it was back in the water. A trip up the mast was required as during an inspection Graham made in the Autumn he found a corroded split pin (cotter pin in the US) that needed replacing, these are only 3 years old so really should not have suffered from serious corrosion. It was similar to the one that failed in Ramsgate. This time it was at the top of the mast and out of sight. Fortunately, the old corroded pin came out… Read More
Continue ReadingPreparing for Winter
We have been back in the UK three months now and have decided to spend the winter in Leamington Spa so over the last week we have moved into a flat. We hired a van and filled it, we could not belive that we had so much stuff stored on the boat. We will need to spend some time in Burnham on Crouch as we need to carry out some maintenance and prepare the boat for next years adventures. We spent the first month in Eastbourne, the weather was good and our quarantine passed quickly. We had daily calls from the NHS track and trace team and Graham had a… Read More
Continue ReadingBack in the UK
We have now arrived back in the UK and are having a few days enforced rest (otherwise known as quarantine). We had tentative plans when we left Cascais to cross the channel to the West Country, possibly Falmouth. As we thought about this we felt that it was a little far from the kids and decided that Plymouth would be logistically better for a quick trip to Reading and the Midlands. We knew that berths might be limited as most British boats have stayed at home this year. We contacted some marinas in Plymouth to secure a berth for a month only to be told there were no places and… Read More
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