Best laid plans again...........!

Well we had a wonderful time at home, the highlight being the wedding of my nephew Chris to Sammy. As you can see they both looked wonderful and it was a superb wedding full of family and friends.

I also managed to get a quick concert in with band as we were playing at Birstwith Summer Show.

We came back to the boat on Monday and were very organised.
I did a huge Morrisons shop and the fridge I full to bursting. Tuesday again very organised. the  first leg of the journey was just down the River so I did the passage planning for the following day (Harwich to Ramsgate). The tides for Wednesday look brilliant time wise. They are also good for today and we realised that we could go out of the lock on freeflow - bonus.

Engine on, something wasn't quite right with propulsion on the boat. We weren't quite sure what the problem was so decided to drop the mooring and see if things improve when we were underway as opposed to tied on to the pontoon. Once off the pontoon and heading towards the lock we had the throttle full on, something we never do, we only went up to 1200 revs and a speed of 2.1 knots. Something was definitely amiss so we turned round and went back to our berth.

We are not sure what the problem is at the moment, it might that our folding prop is not opening up. The engine looks and sounds fine. so we need to have the boat lifted out of the water, here's the rub. The marine is fully booked for lift outs, the first date is 7th August! So instead of being on our way to Holland via Ramsgate, Dunkerque and Ostend we are in Ipswich for a week.

Watch this space.