DON'T PANIC

Well what a wierd and wonderful few days i have had. Now if you have been following my blogs , you will know that Petra met her brother Johan in Hellevoetsluis[ pronounced Helli voet slous] to bring back Mark and Lal. That happened and we all went out for an indian to celebrate . Johan was to get the ferry back and "tada"  plan executed to perfection and brought to a successful end. But this is us , so no. Not to plan. Silly [ and i am being polite ] Johan s Dutch ID card was out of date, and he knew. The dutch customs also knew and were perfectly fine with it. Fill in a form get anew one" ta dum." Stena don't like out of date ID cards and wont let you on the ferry with one. Contact  Dutch embassy and yes no bother new ID card in 4 to 8 weeks.or take him back the way he came in.. NOOOOoOOOOoooo. Well he has a job and a life . So Petra borrowed a boat from lovely Sarah, called Palmera . Its a Westerly [33ft i think]. Very nice , lovely boat. And seeing

Petra and her brother Johan with Bosun on her beautiful dutch barge. Considering they have just sailed 19 hours across the North sea and through the bitterly cold night, they look brilliant. Lal getting some attention from Mark. Salt washed off and sails out to dry.. Nice to have her home again. Petra Johan, Mark me and Concrete Steve headed in to Walton for a lovely indian and then to the club for a few drinks and a good chat. It was a lovely night and Mark and i really felt glad to be back in Walton with such lovely people. looking forward to spending the winter. Lots to do on the boat to make her just right. Now we have spent some time actually working her , there is some adjustments needing done . Tom and Patch are back where they belong. Patch in her box and Tom on his shelf. Patch has been brilliant , taking everything in her stride and being a lovely cat. Tom on the other hand has been a complete and utter woose. He woke me up one night on Petras barge , not for water

short blog. Just to say Lal and Mark with the amazing wonderwoman Petra and her lovely brother at the healm have made it to Titchmarsh. Did it in an amazingly fast time. Dutch customs met and boarded them leaving holland. Looking for drugs and guns Neither found and left to go on their way. We shall be moving the boat to Walton this afternoon when the tides are right. My continued gratitude goes to Petra , Jayne and Petras brother for all the help we have had . cats now on board Lal, and Petra can get some well deserved rest in peace on her barges Shall speak to you soon.

 Steak night at Walton and Frinton yacht club. Brilliant .good food , good company in a lovely friendly place.  Creative art workshops. looks great fun . Email the Twizzle gallery  if you  are interested  at admin@thetwizzlegallery.co.uk  Richard at the helm of his beautiful work boat . Had a lovely run to Titchmarsh. Nice to smell the salt again.  Well you know who this is, She has a busy couple of days ahead . Going on the ferry and getting Lal and Mark back. All hail Petra . This wee beauty is for sale. Have seen this running about , Sounds good has full years MOT has done about 70.000 miles . Its plate says it a 96  If it is it is looking brilliant for age [ could be personilised plate] Carefull owner. and a very nice price at £1850 tiny bit of work on the hood needing done and a wee scratch on the door hood is watertight had the lovely honour of seeing a lotus elan.. Being done up  by owner to a very high spec. .I managed to not drool on it. Even when i did take

 Hi everybody . I am now back in Walton on the Naze. I was worried about the ferry crossing from Hoek Van Holland to Harwich, mainly because i don't do well on ferries and i had the cats to worry about. Jan Pieter saved me a horrendous journey on public transport and got me to the ferry on time and the cats were fine and settled. Took  abit of getting used to seeing all the cars on the other side of the road driving and the roundabouts were abit odd. We drove past the flood barrier at the ferry port. An amazing bit of engineering and beautiful too. I had a wee while to wait to check in and there was a sigh of relief when the pet passports went through ok. First time we have travelled with pets so was nervous that something would go wrong. . There was a worrying moment when the check in supervisor had to put the scanner over the cats backs to check for the chip. I knew they had them but had visions of 2 cats running riot through the terminal as it was done in the waiting area.

 Hi everybody. Bit nervous about the ferry tomorrow and i wanted to get the harbourmeester wife some flowers for offering her help yesterday. So i went a wander around Hellevoetsuis. I met a local man who has a scottish wife.And his father in law lives in Kilmarnock. Well he told me to go and find the lighthouse ship and the minesweeper. So I did The first picture is the ship that deploys the many bouys in the channel here and brings them in for painting and the big black and white one does many duties but it also moves the lighthouse ship about. The lighthouse ship called the Noord Hinder was built in 1963 following many varying designs and ships in the past. She was active in many places North sea , Zeeland. .These ships were vital to warn large ships of shifting sandbanks. This one  served till 1994 when it became obselete due to ships having there own gps. They used to be manned with a crew but in 1984 they became automated. It was a very dangerous job as these ships h

hi everybody hope you have had a good day. Now people who know the Netherlands will be wondering why if we are heading for Belgium we are here in Hellevoetsluis. We have come to a decision. It has not been an easy one because the Netherlands are lovely and the dutch people are just amazing. some of you may know that on the way across the channel to reach here we had a problem with our engine. Mark and Petra did an amazing in the middle of the channel repair job. But on closer inspection in Ijmoiden , it was going to be an ongoing problem because of a design fault. Thanks to some great websites on BCM engines Mark got a better pulley system  and up graded it. But it still isn't " sweet" and he doesn't trust it. Breaking down in a commercial canal in the Netherlands is not a good idea. You can't just pull up get out and fix it. So we are heading back to Walton. Petra is coming to get Mark and Lal. I shall be getting the ferry from the Hoek Van Holland to Harwic

 Hi this was us on our way to Hellevoetsluis. Now i may have went on about mooring places being scarce. Now can you see what i mean. If anything happens to our engine we are buggered. The animals in the Netherlands look always content non more so than these cows in the wood, We saw Buzzards and Brent geese , canada geese , graylag comerants and shags on our way down. Grebes , many many grebes.  Big water or just the start of it. It got quite choppy later.  Lal at Hellevoetsluis . We had moored up in a nother Marina but couldn't find  anybody and the mooring system was wierd . The poles again and metal hooks with ropes along the length of the boats both sides from the poles to the main pontoon.. Most of the boats had springs amongst the ropes . We decided against it and more sleepless nights that these type of mooring systems give us. Finger pontoons are really alot better. There are umpteen Marinas here and it is often hard to tell which one you are in as they all j

This is in Dordrect. Not a good piccy sorry , Very beautiful. And Dordrect seems very nice , but we were waiting on a bridge with a time so no chance to go explore. It has been not nice this past few days  Affects of Storm Aileen are still very much happening , We had a break in the weather today and made a dash for it. However the weather got bad quick and the first Marina we had on our plan if things got worse was really only for small boats and very exposed. We weren't even sure if it had the depth we needed. So we motored on and got here Wvs Zwijndrect. Wet tired and not much further on. Little Lal is safely tucked up but if we get a break in the weather we shall move her further in to the marina to get abit more protection from the weather. We got to this bridge on time but it would not open probably because there was only us. We had to wait another hour dancing about in the canal till the next opening time. Luckily 3 yachts joined us in our dance and we were let t