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Quintet

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Limehouse 29th June

Yacht Quintet
Limehouse Basin
East London

29th June, 2005

Thank you everybody who has sent us kind wishes of good luck and bon voyage. And thank you for the kind complements on our website. I would point out that although Clive and I provide the material (which takes as long to write as the sailing which it records), Dave Williamson is responsible for putting it together and making it so attractive. Our thanks to David.

We have been taking a breather in Limehouse for a few days, doing the washing and buying charts for those parts of the coast which were missing from our chart collection or for which our charts are so old that glaciation and tectonic plate movement have outdated them since they were printed.

I have had to spend time on business correspondence and do the quarterly VAT return for ZoneHaven Limited.

Apart from that we have been visited by Tone, the painter, and Denise from Hull (which means that I should obviously refer to them as 'Tern' and Denise) and Brian came over and bought us a beer at the Cruising Association bar.

We have taken the opportunity to visit the beautiful maritime museum at Greenwich and to see the famous Harrison's clocks. They are wonderful. We have walked the West End in search of courtesy flags for France and the Republic of Ireland (successful) and for a new connection plug for the VHF aerial (unsuccessful).

We had a pleasant lunch in the Lamb and Flag in Covent Garden, superb roast beef sandwich and a very pleasant couple of pints of Archers' bitter and we had a few excellent beers, Fullers' London Pride, and a meal not entirely to our liking in the very pretty pub the Grapes, in Narrow Street just round the corner from the marina.

We have yet to provision the essential stores such as beer, rice, pasta, beer, canned tomatoes, beer and, of course, beer. The local branch of Waitrose will provide all these things tomorrow morning. And we may even pick up some fish at Billingsgate fish market.

Departure was originally planned for tomorrow morning but two things have changed that. Firstly we have decided that the relocation of ballast has had a detrimental effect on the way that the boat sits on her lines. Therefore we have re-relocated the ballast slightly further forward hoping to level her a little. Having spent a good part of a day in this exercise, we have decided that the effect is minimal, possibly even imperceptible. There you go!

Secondly the forecast is for rain tomorrow! Well, we are old and frail. Friday looks good though, sunshine and light winds for the trip down the Thames.

Our itinerary as far as we have considered it is: (probably)

or something like that. Then over the following few days, Weymouth, Lulworth Cove, Dartmouth, Salcombe, Plymouth, Fowey, Mevagissy, Falmouth, and anywhere else that looks good on the charts. So we might be in the Scillies in about two weeks and Ireland in three. Then again, if it rains again...

We will be taking on some wine and beer in France but more importantly we need to stock up on meths for the spirit stove. The French product is cheaper than meths available in UK and unlike the British 'blue' stuff it doesn't seem to soot up the pans. I wonder what the supermarket will say when we attempt to buy 50 litres of the stuff. And where can we store it safely?

So don't expect to see another report before Saturday, and don 't assume that we've sunk just because we are a little tardy in posting updates. Sometimes we are a bit tired at the end of a sailing day and don't get to write up the notes straight away. For example, after our run from Harwich to Southend, we were both as tired as newts!!!!

If you have any comments, critical or complementary, please drop us a line. Email to les@2oldgitsinaboat.co.uk or clive@2oldgitsinaboat.co.uk. We would love to hear from you. We don't promise to reply but we might take notice of constructive comments. Then again... It would certainly be interesting to know who is reading our little travelogue.

Now I must get that VAT return done.

Les Sutcliffe