Wednesday 22 March
After enjoying a little early sunshine in the cockpit during coffee and lunch, with the help of the new porch shelter, Mate rigged the washing line and spread the fruits of yesterday’s toil all around me to dry in the breeze. It proved a good opportunity to air thoroughly my interior – there’s few enough of those when my crew live aboard all winter.
We were visited by a dory apparently steered by a spaniel, the human in which, with unnecessarily bad grace, demanded £15 for overnight use of one of their (several) unoccupied mooring buoys. He didn’t have the courtesy to offer us a receipt for said fees, and we declined a second night of such hospitality, electing to move maybe three cables (half a kilometre) downstream to anchor off Church Creek for free.
Supper was a steak for Skipper and a ready-made gluten free vegetarian pie for Mate, with roasted Charlotte potatoes and green beans. My crew were careful to keep lights to a minimum as there was no wind to keep the wind generator rotating to give us power in the batteries. They did remember to switch on my anchor light, so any vessels passing in the night know I’m here.