Mini Cruise

Today was another very mild day for mid February, in fact it was so nice that we went for a mini cruise.

As we were getting ready to set sail, our resident swan turned up for his breaky.  I had nothing to give him so the bugger started eating my foam chain covers!

Our first stop was the fuel wharf, where we took 206 litres of diesel ... the tank hold 226 litres ...

Exiting the marina ...

The boat won't go round the exit onto the main canal without a quick bit of reverse and a couple of seconds on the bow thruster ...

We were off in the blazing sunshine, oh it was lovely ...

A couple of hundred metres later we turning into the marina entrance ...

It is a nice, spacious marina with plenty of room to manoeuvre ...

Now, where is our berth?  It was here 30 mins ago ...

... and that was our (expensive) mini cruise over!

We then got cracking on smartening up the boat.  I sanded back and primed some small rust patches in the cratch whilst Elaine gave the interior of the boat a good clean, plus made up a mega veggie stew for dinner ... none of this 5 a day nonsense, more like 25 a day!  She also cooked a chook for the furry ones but I was allowed to have the good bits to add to my stew.

We then moved on to the motorhome.  Elaine made a start on moving a few things from the boat to the van, sorting out the beds and giving it a good clean whilst I fitted and checked out the waste pipe fittings and gas fittings purchased yesterday.  We also cranked out the awning for the first time ... it is pretty impressive and should give us plenty of shade from the hot southern European sun.  

Before we head off to Europe we have a few excursions planned in the motorhome.  We are off to darkest Luton in a couple of weeks to catch up with my family, then we are off to a remote farmhouse near Hadrian's wall with a few of the the Aston Marina boaters.  Finally we will be visiting London, coz we like it there, before crossing the Channel hopefully early April.