Life in Brixham

For the past week I have been living on Jomima in Brixham. Fortunately, she is large enough for life on board to be quite comfortable and it is possible to use her as a ‘house boat’ for an extended period if necessary. Unfortunately, Ann had to visit our son at short notice so I was in residence on my own. It has been over two years since I had last been in Brixham with Jomima so it was interesting to see the changes that have taken place. New gardens have been added, Woolworths is now a new Tesco Metro and some of the boats have changed in the marina. All of the changes seem to be positive and it was extremely pleasant to meet old friends and talk about what they have been doing while we have been travelling.
It is of course high season in Brixham so the walk into Brixham from the marina was crowded with youngsters (or their parents) fishing for crabs off the harbour wall and other children enthusiastically joining in the fun at the local outward bound activity centre. It was great to see so many visitors bringing in vital income to the area.One of the new boats in the marina was ‘Dream of Balkie’ which is a wooden clinker hulled sailing boat built in Scotland. She has been lovingly individually made and varnished on the west coast of Scotland and then sailed down from there to Brixham. It was great to see a new boat that was not just another white fibre glass boat just like all of the others.

Sadly, this will be the last post in Jomima's diary because she has now been sold.  After five years of fun and experiences, in places as far apart as Scotland, Devon and Paris, the ever increasing cost of fuel has meant that we have had to move on to less expensive adventures.  I hope that you enjoyed reading about Jomima's travels and that I may, one day, start another Blog.  So, goodbye from Jomima's Diary.

Single Handed Back to Devon

Unusually, Victoria Marina provides a good WiFi internet connection. So, over the next few days, I spent a lot of time studying weather sites on the web. One of the best ones that I have found is: http://www.passageweather.com/ which supplies predictions of the likely wind and waves to expect during the following few days. It indicated that Friday morning should give me a suitable weather window to get back to Devon. However, to get the tides right through Little Russel, I would have to leave at 6:00 am. The sill at Victoria Marina was only open around midday so I left the comfort of the marina on Thursday ready for an early start on Friday. Handling Jomima on my own (38 feet long and 10 tons) required a lot of planning to make sure that, in particular, I could safely leave a mooring and then arrive at the new pontoon with fenders, ropes etc ready for mooring up as required. I again checked the weather, before turning in for the night, and it seemed as though it should be ok.

I got up at 05:00, cast off at 06:00, and before I left the harbour stowed all of the ropes and fenders. Little Russel was quiet and a one metre swell made its presence felt as I headed across the Channel. Fortunately the autopilot was able to keep to the course that I had programmed in advance, despite the swell. I passed the mid Channel light Vessel and crossed the two large shipping lanes without too many problems. The swell then began to subside as the tide changed and I began to relax and enjoy the 75 mile journey. The conditions allowed me to average 15-16 knots and the English coast appeared as a smudge on the horizon at 09:30. At 11:00 I entered Brixham harbour and, using the VHF radio, asked them for a mooring and checked which side I would have to place the fenders. I then put the engines into neutral and drifted while I set up ropes and fenders. Fortunately the mooring was quite narrow, and there was little wind, so that once I had got Jomima into the mooring she did not drift away while I attached ropes to the pontoon. It was a great relief to get back safely before the weather changed that afternoon.

Flying Home

Early on Saturday morning we attempted to cruise Jomima back to Devon. As we headed up towards the English Channel, between Herm and Guernsey, we entered a passage between the islands known as Little Russel. The charts do not give any indication of potential problems but, afterwards, I found that the sea bed slopes upwards at this point. Unfortunately, when this was combined with an incoming spring tide, the sea was very rough. Green water came over the bow and we were thrown about so violently that many items jumped out of place and onto the floor of the boat. I therefore waited for a gap between the waves and turned Jomima back to St. Peter Port.

Later I checked the weather and could see no let up in the steady flow of depressions coming across the Atlantic. Ann therefore chose to fly home while I remained with the boat in St Peter Port’s Victoria Marina.

Very High Water

Towards the end of the festivities this evening the St. Peter Port Life Boat entered the harbour and moored near the entrance. This coincided with high tide and it was a very high tide. This morning the low tide was at 0.5m and the evening high tide was 9.9m. That is a tidal range of 9.4m. Behind the Life Boat is a floating pontoon which is attached to the inside of the Victoria Marina harbour entrance, which can be seen to the right of the boat. The pontoon is level with the top of the wall and the water is within 1/3 m (1 foot) of the top of the wall. If the sea had been rough it would have been very scary.

Fun & Games

This evening, in Victoria Marina, St. Peter Port, they held an amusing festival. The events included: Ladies Raft Race (hotly contested by many teams), Tug of War (across the harbour entrance with the loosing team being pulled into the water) and a ‘Flying’ display (people dressed up and attempted to fly from a platform across the harbour – with predictable results). The position of our boats gave us a grand stand view of the proceedings and John and Ann on the yacht Tempus can be seen here enjoying the festivities.

A Walk along the Coast

This morning we caught a bus to Sausmarez Manor. Sadly, this was not as interesting as expected so we walked down to the coast where there was a beautiful beach called Fermain Bay. This, as the photograph shows, could have been an exotic location on a tropical island. It was very lovely and we were able to sit in a restaurant, overlooking this view, and enjoy a coffee and a chat to some very friendly locals.

Next, we decided to walk the three miles back to the boat along the coastal path. This proved more challenging than we had expected because of the number of steps that we encountered. However, it was well worth while and nicely worked off the cream tea that I should not have had with the coffee this morning. One amusing incident was it is not only the local people that are friendly. I can only assume that the local wild rabbit population do not have many enemies locally because I was able to walk unusually close to them.

Playing Soldiers

If you are in St Peter Port, Guernsey late morning then it is quite likely you will get a bit of a shock when there is a very loud bang. It sounds very much as though a gas cylinder has exploded. However, it is only the 12:00 O’clock gun firing off. Yes, at midday, from the castle walls, they fire a canon every day. So today we decided to visit Castle Cornet which has stood guard at the entrance to the harbour for nearly eight centuries. The visit took longer than anticipated because there are three excellent museums on the site: The Story of Castle Cornet, Maritime Museum and The 201 Squadron (RAF) Museum.

In the afternoon we returned to the boat where it is safely tucked up with two friendly sailing boats.