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.

Goodbye to Brixham

They say that patience is a virtue but I know that I am not very patient. However, if you rush to go somewhere in a small boat, when the weather is not ideal, then you may not live to regret it.



The end of April came and went. On the evening of the 15th May we finally saw a potential drop in the high winds that have plagued us for so long. This, we hoped, would enable us to cruise the 85 miles to the Solent. We set off at 7:00 am to catch the tide in the right direction and programed in to the GPS a stop at Weymouth. The weather was not perfect but good enough to keep going. After 20 miles you can't see land in any direction and we had reached the point of no return. It was as close to continue to Wemouth as turn back to Brixham - so we carried on. As we approached Portland Bill we could see a very large ship on our route, but not on the radar. As we got closer we could see that it was a Naval Warship. It did not actually appear on our radar until we were only 4 miles away, by which time we could see it very clearly indeed. I don't know what they paint them with but it makes them look like a small fishing vessel on the radar. We chose to go around it.



The sea had calmed down so we decided to head for the Solent in one hop. Five hours after we left Brixham we were mooring in Lymington; greatly relieved that we had finally managed to travel past Portland Bill without incident. If you have watched the air sea rescue program you will know what I mean.

Brixham

Time for a break now. Jomima is clean, polished and painted ready for the new season. Hopefully the next journey will be to the Solent at the end of April. We are heading back to Nottingham for a rest after all our hard work. However, I managed to get an engineer in to change the oil and filters for the two gear boxes. Everything in power boats seems to be on a large scale. With two 6 litre diesel engines I suppose it has to be to cope with the high torque loads. It will be interesting to see how they perform with everything from a channel crossing to rivers and canals to cope with planned for this season. More news when we begin our next journey.

Leaving Brixham

When we go on holiday in Jomima, we do actually plan where we want to go. However, firstly, the most important thing is safety and secondly we want to enjoy the journey. As a result we rarely actually manage to get to all of the places we plan to visit. This week we plan to travel to the Scilly Isles, from Brixham, in three steps. So far this week we have sat in Brixham waiting for suitable weather and tides. We do not do winds of force four or above and try to avoid white horses. By that, I mean waves that are breaking rather than the four-legged kind although, in my case, I avoid those as well! Today we actually made it, as planned, to the river Yealm East of Plymouth that is straddled by Newton Ferrers & Noss Mayo. We also managed to round Start Point without any excitement. It is a particularly unfriendly piece of rock, which sticks out into the English Channel between Dartmouth and Salcombe. Our worst memory of the sea happened here - before we learnt that the wind blowing against a strong tide leads to the contents of the galley being strewn all over the inside of the boat by the violent motion of the sea. In addition, the pilot and crew tend to look a little ashen on arrival.

Introduction

Six years ago my wife Ann and I bought our first boat - a 20 year old Fairline Corniche called 'Moonlight Lady'. Two and a half years later we swapped her (boats are always female) for 'Take Five' a 12 year old Broom 36. Finally, she was exchanged last year for 'Jomima' (we believe that the previous owner had children called John, Michael & Marion) a six year old Broom 38.