Mayflower Marina

Most of my days have been spent at the marina servicing the engines and carrying out repairs. Most of the service work is now done with oil and diesel filters all changed. Yesterday I managed to get both heads (toilets) working – after totally replacing one pump. Unfortunately, I still have a problem with the instruments not working for one engine. All of the fuses seem alright so I have sent for a new ignition key and, when it arrives, I will see if that cures the problem.

Tomorrow we return home for a couple of weeks.

Twice an hour a little ferry pops backwards and forwards to Cornwall from just acoss the water. There is a slight wake from it but not unpleasant. Long may boats like this continue to ply these waters.

Unloading in Plymouth

Wide loads are not allowed to travel in the centre of Plymouth between 4:00 pm and 6:30 pm. It was therefore after 7:00 pm that we arrived so we had to wait until today to be unloaded. Unfortunately, another job was being given priority today – dismantling an extremely large 130 ton crane. This involved using a fairly large mobile crane to dismantle it and then placing the parts: tracks, weights, cab, jib sections etc on a series of lorries. The delay caused by this process was easily occupied by watching this skilled and fascinating process.

At 8:30 am the travel hoist had lifted Jomima off the lorry so that he could proceed to his next appointment. We were then left in the slings, with Jomima’s keel gently resting on some wooden blocks, to await the area around the launching bay to be clear of crane parts. At 3:30 pm Jomima was lowered into Plymouth harbour and held there while I checked for leaks after her six months out of the water. All was well so, with the help of the friendly Mayflower Marina staff I navigated Jomima to her new home.

On The Move

At last the day has arrived for me to move Jomima, with the help of a large truck, to her new home at Mayflower Marina in Plymouth. The truck arrived at 8:00 am at Newark, where I had stayed overnight on Jomima to avoid an early start and the heavy commuter traffic. I gave that sort of thing up two years ago when I took early retirement.

There was already a boat on the truck when it arrived and that was quickly unloaded and put in the water. Jomima was then lifted out from her home of the last six months and placed carefully on the lorry. While all of the straps were being fitted I took the opportunity to anti-foul the six places where supports had been placed to support Jomima during the winter. I had carefully kept the remains of a tin of paint for this purpose because, if I did not complete this work, we would have been trailing six clumps of weed within a fairly short period of time.

The journey to Plymouth, at a steady 55 mph, was uneventful. However it did rain quite heavily half way down which liberally coated Jomima in dirt and traffic film, some of which remained in the usually covered helm area. After a short wait, outside Plymouth, we met the escort vehicle for our wide load. We then proceeded into the unloading area at the marina to park overnight for unloading tomorrow.