Britannia Royal Naval College

High on a hill above Dartmouth, Britannia Royal Naval College has been training Royal Naval officers on this site since 1905. In fact, naval officers' training in Dartmouth goes back to 1863, when the old wooden wall HMS Britannia was first moored in the River Dart. The job has always been the same and is now encapsulated, as you might expect, in a mission statement:

“To deliver courageous leaders with the spirit to fight and win”

The Queen met Prince Phillip here during a visit made by the very young Princes Elizabeth. He was then a dashing young Naval Cadet: Phillip of Greece.

The whole place was steeped in history and obviously still provides excellent training for the cadets that are lucky enough to be able to attend courses here. The view, out to sea past Dartmouth, from the parade ground, was magnificent.

Dartmouth

The weather forecast was not good so we decided to move on to Dartmouth where we knew we should be able to get a marina mooring. If it is going to rain then it is better to have electricity and be able to get off the boat without a very wet ride in the tender.
There is always plenty to do in Dartmouth and once the rain stopped then the light was wonderful and I was able to take some great photographs of the view from the boat. We actually moored in Kingswear which is on the other side of the river to Dartmouth. This has advantages because it means that you can look at Dartmouth in the sun in the morning and then enjoy the sun shining on Kingswear in the afternoon.

The Start of the Season

We had intended to move Jomima to Dartmouth, for her spring refit, on Saturday or Sunday. Unfortunately, the weather had other ideas. With waves crashing over the harbour wall at Brixham, we decided too stay put in our nice cosy birth. I watched the tides and wind and we finally ventured out at about 6:00 pm on Monday. We travelled relatively slowly at about 10-12 knots. That was enough to stop most of the rolling, caused by the easterly wind hitting us on the port side, but not so fast that we would crash into the waves. We finally surfed into Dartmouth at 7:30 pm and had a relaxing bottle of wine. Fortunately, nothing was broken and we were ready for a lift out the following day. As you will see from the photograph (right), all is calm in Dartmouth. Outside the estuary, it was a different story all together.

Dittisham, Dartmouth

One of our favourite places to moor, which is fairly close to our permanent mooring in Brixham, is Dittisham near Dartmouth. This is a very pleasant place to stop overnight. The river here, like time itself, passes faily slowly. Little has changed for many years. There is peace and quite with the only disturbances being the visits from the River Dart swans and the small local ferry taking people to Greenway - the one time home of Agatha Christie.