It's Gone.

7th November 2013
Poole, Dorset.

On Tuesday we completed the sale of No Direction with the handover of the boat at Kings Bromley to the new owner Marcus Murray, we understand that he will be heading back to Macclesfield with it and intends to eventually live on it.

Great Haywood Boat Sales did a good job for us, we're glad we chose them plus the fact that we saved money, whilst the boat was on one of their sales jetties at Kings Bromley we didn't have to pay mooring fee's or licence the boat as it was on "Trade Plates" so 3 months mooring and 6 months (minimum period) licence was saved.

 

No Direction hauled out a couple of weeks ago at Great Haywood Marina for a survey before the completion of the sale.

 

 

With No Direction weighing 22 tons plus a huge trailer you need one of these.

 

 

Well you couldn't expect us to live on the edge of Poole Harbour without owning a boat so this is our latest acquisition, Seajay on her mooring at Lilliput Sailing Club, Jayne say's she won't be coming sailing with me but we've joined the sailing club as joint members so you never know.

 

As we're not "Travelling in No Direction" any longer this is definitely the last blog, (maybe)

 

 So thanks for reading and over and out.

 

 

The End of our Little Adventure.

18th May 2013.
Kings Bromley Marina.

When we sold up in 2007 and moved onto the canals we didn't have any idea how long our liveaboard life was going to last, well we do now, as we've just bought a property on the south coast at Poole in Dorset.

We've been considering our future for the last few months for various reasons and decided to set a strict criteria for any property we would look at thinking it would take most of this year, however last month we found one, made an offer which was accepted and bought it, this all happened a lot quicker than planned.

No Direction is now on brokerage having done a fine job of looking after us for the last five and bit years we've lived on her.

We've enjoyed our liveaboad life on the canals and the years before that on our weekend/ holiday narrowboat April Rose, also a couple of years on our Glass Fibre cruiser in the seventies which we moored at Hockley Heath on the Stratford Canal.

The waterways won't be getting rid of us completely as I'll still be involved with Nutfield and Raymond when time allows so we may still see some of you around.

Obviously with no narrowboat or canal matters to blog about, our blog, which we started in May 2010 will finish when No Direction is sold.

Time for Another Blog.

Thursday, 9th, May 2013.
Kings Bromley Marina.

We're back on No Direction now for a couple of weeks after our May bank holiday weekend doing other things, Jayne visiting relatives in Derbyshire and me sailing.

I've posted a couple of short videos on You Tube taken with my new Contour Roam 2 headcam, it's a small camera, the type cyclists fit to their helmets to film their journey, I fitted a 32gb SD micro card in place of the 4gb which it comes with so have about 2-3 hours of filming available.

 

A Tour of Challenger 4

 

 

The Cevantes Trophy Race.

 

We finished 20th out of 104 starters and 5th in class which is apparently very good for the type of boat we were sailing, the forecast 10 knots of wind turned out to be 20 to 28 knots with gusts up to 37 knots, so much for weather forecasts.

 

The train journey back to Lichfield on Monday evening went fairly smoothly, Portsmouth Harbour to Southamptom Central and then to Birmingham New Street, unfortunately the Cross City train from Birmingham to Lichfield had received a couple of modifications to the seating arrangements.

 

 

Someone been out in the sun all day without a hat on?

 

 

We're Still Here

Wednesday, 1st May 2013.
Kings Bromley Marina.

There hasn't been much going on lately to blog about that would interest canal boaters so that's why blogging's been a bit thin.

Last Fri/Sat/Sunday Jayne was staying with our Daughter in Leeds while I was sailing round the Isle of Wight on Challenger 4, training for the Fastnet Race in August.

Next weekend we have the first of three races we need to complete in order to be allowed to start the Fastnet, this ones from Cowes to Le Harve via marks in the channel.

 

 I've been travelling back and forth to Portsmouth on the train, Lichfield to Birmingham then onto Southampton and finally Portsmouth Harbour and every train has been clean, on time with helpful staff, just how it should be.

A Room With A View.

Saturday, 20th April 2013.
Holiday Inn, Southampton.

We're in Southampton this weekend as I'm attending two training courses at Stormforce Coaching for the sailing trips which I will be on this summer.

 

We were shown how to use different distress flares without setting fire to each other or singeing our eyebrows.

Early this morning whilst it was still very dark I heard a tannoy system outside the hotel but didn't bother looking what it was, when we got up and drew the curtains back we were confronted with a huge floating hotel in the form of "Independence of the Seas".

I wish I'd took the trouble to see what the noise was as the outside wall of our room is all glass and we would have had an excellent view of it coming in.

Amazing to think this huge ship came into the dock and tied up with virtually no noise (apart from the loud speakers), we've had more disturbance from people mooring a narrow boat close to us when were out on the cut.

While I've been in the classroom Jayne's been doing the rounds in the West Quay shopping centre and will probably be back there tomorrow.

It's Now or Never !

Wednesday, 17th  April  2013
Kings Bromley Marina.

I've always fancied being on a large powerful sailing yacht in a good blow, well heeled over with plenty of spray.

I sailed Boards for eight years both long and short, I've been out in a friends dinghy a couple of times and had been contemplating booking a round the island day (Isle of Wight) on an Open 60 racing yacht until my dinghy friend gave me his Royal Yachting Association (RYA) magazine to read, amongst the ads in the back was the answer, crewing on the Fastnet Race aboard a 72 foot ocean going yacht run by the Tall Ships Charity, so after a phone call to Richard at Tall Ships to check if I was eligible I signed up and paid up.
 

The Fastnet Race is a serious business and the organisers have rules to ensure the safety of crews, so later this month I'm off down to Southampton for RYA Sea Survival training and an International Sailing Federation (ISFA) safety course.

The following weekend its Portsmouth for 3 days training on the boat out in the channel.

During the following three months the yacht, skipper and crew have to compete in three qualifying races covering a minimum of 300 nautical miles (nm) before being allowed to start the Fastnet on August 11th.

Jayne takes the opposite view about sailing and certainly won't be joining me, preferring to catch up on visiting relatives instead.

Fortunately these events won't interfere to much with the cruising we had planned for this summer, apart from an trip along the Macclesfield and Peak Forest Canals in April/May which will have to wait. 

Today our Page Views Trebled !!

Wednesday, 10th April 2013.
Kings Bromley Marina.

As we haven't blogged for ten days our page view graph was fairly flat but tonight the hits have trebled and its still going up, why today, why have people been clicking on today, or is it another strange glitch, it's happened before about three months ago, weird.

Anyway back to the real world and tomorrow I am going to use my bus pass for the first time, but not on a bus, as I'm registered in the West Midlands I get free train travel in the Centro area so I'm off into Birmingham on the train, the service is run by London Midland who have been criticised for the poor service they've been providing, hope it,s ok tomorrow.

Cotswold Outdoor and Evans Cycles are on my list, I tell you what goodies I buy next blog.

No pictures this time, I did take a couple of a lorry fire which closed one carriageway of the A5 at Shrewsbury yesterday as we travelled back from visiting my Mother but as I took them on my phone in a hurry they didn't come out to well.