Five Weeks In!

So here we are, no further forward than we were on the last post, still in lockdown, people still dying of this awful virus and still confined to the house apart from adventuring out for shopping. The country, in fact the world, has stopped!

Can't think of anymore jobs that need doing around the house but can think of a whole pile of work that will need to be done on the boat, when we are finally paroled to attend the marina. In the meantime the skeleton staff on duty there are checking on the boats and making sure all is well for our return, we hope!

I have invested in a new weather station though and replaced the old one on the shed roof at the bottom of the garden. The new one is state of the art, made in Germany and connects continuously to the web via Weathercloud server. Check it out either via the log book or direct at http://https://app.weathercloud.net/d0847460052#profile

So, to all our readers out there, stay in, stay safe and above all else stay sober. 😂😂

Day 14 of Lockdown

Although this is day 14 of official lockdown we have in fact been in this state for 3 weeks now.

To date the list of jobs completed in the house and garden is extensive, I even found a 2 stroke generator in the back of the shed which was a non-runner and I had forgotten about. Took it out into the garden, completely stripped it down, cleaned everything including carburetor jets, rebuilt and got it running on the second pull of the starter, brilliant!

Meanwhile Annette has cleaned so much of the house over & over we are now more sterile than the new temporary hospital at the Excel in London!

Regular walks are a norm now but we also searched around the house, found all the parts of our old wii games machine and found that it still worked, except that we hadn't got any hand controllers! Must have given them to the grandchildren years ago. Not to be defeated two replacements were ordered from Amazon and duly arrived a few days later. Now I can play a round of golf, go for a run in the park and pay a visit to the bowling alley in comfort and safety. 😅

The marina is closed and no-one is allowed to visit which means we haven't visited and checked the boat for a few weeks. I did ring the marina and got them to visit the boat and do a stern gland check for me which was good and Rod, our berthing neighbour, who lives unofficially on his boat also keeps an eye on her and has offered to wash it down for us.

And so this situation continues, we aren't out of the woods yet, not even sure if we are near the peak of the virus outbreak but we are coping well but boy do we need to see our family and friends and get life back to normal.

Will it ever be normal as we know it, who knows?

The Nightmare Continues

So, the clock have gone forward and we are now in British Summer Time, not that that has made any difference to the state of affairs the national, no the world, finds itself. 

With the virus gaining strength and the death toll rising looks like we will be in lockdown for some time yet. The marina is effectively closed and we are not allowed out except for food shopping or medications. A skeleton staff are still on duty and keeping an eye on the boats in marina but no one is mentioning the people that actually live on their boats within the marina. The official line is that the marina is not licenced as residential but there are a handful who use their boat as their home, we hope they are safe.

One of these people is our berthing neighbour who has told us he will keep an eye on Kevayling during our enforced isolation away. Hope anyone who is still in situ there is safe.

In the meantime the boat is ready to take to the open water, the garden at home has never loved lovelier, the house is spotless (as always) and we are finding things to do to pass the time.

Anyone reading this during the national lockdown, stay safe and mores the point STAY IN DOORS!   

Best Laid Plans and all that.

Well what a start to the season, everything is ready, the boat prepared, a new on-line log book, the weather seems at last to be turning into something acceptable and along come a nasty little virus to put a damper on everything. And in this case I really mean EVERYTHING!

ConVid19, born in China and about to screw the world, more to the point our boating plans! As you all know by now this virus is in the process of changing everything we take for granted, what we do, how we associate, how we travel and more to the point how we live our daily lives with family and friends.

It would appear that the government, with our best interest at heart I'm sure, are going quarantine the over 70's for quite a long period. Not sure how that is going to turn out but at the moment it gives me 3 months to continue to enjoy life to the full, it's my 70th birthday on 22 June, one I had planned to enjoy full on but now looks like its me and the wife huddled around a cup cake (if they haven't all disappeared due to panic buying) with a glass of Prosecco watching endless news on the items on the BBC about the state of the world. 😞

In the meantime the plan is get down to the boat, get her out and enjoy the sea air, sunshine (hopefully) and the pure joy of being on the water. The best way to be quarantined in my book.

To all our family, friends and boating buddies, stay safe, keep calm and no more chinese takeaways, that'll teach them!! 😄😷

New Log Book Address

The Kevayling online log book has a new redirect address, this is
http://mvkevayling.uk

So, the log book can now be accessed via
www.kevayling.uk (redirected)
www.kevayling.co.uk (redirected)
www.electricfilofax.co.uk (redirected)

The choice is yours. 😀

March 2020

Without doubt one of the windiest, wettest winters on record!

Kevayling currently sits with eight mooring ropes holding her fast to the pontoon thanks to my mooring neighbours, who live aboard their boats, and have been keeping a close eye on things in Chatham. Hopefully we will get out on the first shakedown cruise in the next few weeks, so looking forward to getting back on the water.

A few things planned service wise this spring, I have a tin of off white yacht paint which I need to slightly colour match with the saloon roof and then airbrush out a few small marks & chips. The airbrush was a Christmas present. Also going to look at the wheelhouse woodwork and give that a revamp as we did with the saloon woodwork last summer.

One thing about this winter is a low electricity bill as it's really not been the cold enough to use the engine bay heaters. Every (rain)cloud has a silver lining! 😄

Review of 2019

Well here we are in the middle of November and just had our coldest night of this time of year, -3.5c. Kevayling is already prepared for the winter months and unlikely to be cruising again until the Spring 2020, but you never know. 😉

As far as 2019 has gone we haven't completed as many trips on Kevayling as we usually do but that doesn't mean we haven't been on the water as much. In fact we have spent a lot of time crewing other vessels or just cruising on other vessels (19 trips 288 nms), which we have got to say has been great fun, thanks to all our friends who have welcomed us aboard.

Maintenance wise we have a busy year, as couple of minor technical issues, quickly resolved, a lot of wood work undertaken in the saloon, decks recoated with a plastic coating, bilges repainted and regular servicing. Also two very nice new helm & navigator seat installed in the wheelhouse.

Looking forward to 2020 and all that it may bring. 😃

New Boat in the Family

The start of the 2019 boating season welcomes Cymantha & Stewart, our daughter and son-in-law, to the world of inshore boating.

Having spent the winter months completely overhauling their newly acquired Sealine 19 Weekender they have now secured moorings at Queenborough Harbour, down river from our home marina in Chatham. They have done an excellent job on the boat and she handles beautifully with a completely refurbished interior.

Fun days ahead as they 'learn the ropes' of inshore cruising.

Improvement to Log Book

Came across a lovely little app a week on so ago called 'Blue Boat Log'. I had tried it over a year ago but it didn't fit our need or provide any additional features to the main Kevayling log book.

Now the author has been busy and produced an upgraded version of the app which is really good.

In essence it provides a track of your trip with date, distance and time data as well as an ability to add a story of your trip with photos. Embedding this into the Kevayling log it now means we can record all trips on the water in our boat or crewing someone else's.

Blue Boat Log - worth a look.

Early Start to 2019

With the spring like weather that we have suddenly had in February we decided to get to and prepare Kevayling for the 2019 season. So here we are on 16th February and already we have serviced both engines, washed her down and fitted our two new berth mattresses in the aft cabin, things that we normally undertake in March.

Just a few tidying things to do inside and we are ready to cruise!

So looking forward to cruising with with friends and family this year, with Cymantha & Stewart, our daughter and son-in-law, having their first boat moored in Queenborough Harbour, an hours run down river, plus Rochester Cruising Club.

New Cruise Log

I am forever looking at ways to improve our on-line log book and make it a more interesting read and as such I have taken a step forward in the way it's presented.

Using the same format as this blog page I have developed a similar page to display all the entries in Kevayling's log. Using this format we can now index the log book, reproduce the log in an easier way to read and add photos & videos to the log entries.

Currently I am working my way through the entries and adding them to the new cruise log book, there are a lot so it will take a few days to complete. Comments on each trip are open (keep them clean please :-) and the 'View Trip' links are active.

With the plan closure of my Facebook page by the end of the year this will be the new way to stay in touch.

www.kevayling.co.uk

https://kevayling.blogspot.com/

Windy Weekend

Planned social BBQ at Rochester Cruising Club this weekend and decided to take the boat around so that we could stay the night. Quite windy on Saturday when we left Chatham but moored up with no problem. Being that the wind was against the tide it made for a gently rocking boat all afternoon.

BBQ was a great success with the family joining us in the evening, plenty to eat, and drink, with good company.

During the night the wind dropped but increased about 06:00 am. By the time we had got up it was blowing quite strong once again, actually stronger than the previous day. With this in mind we decided to depart Rochester early and left at 08:34 am. With a receding tide and a stern wind we actually made the trip back to Chatham in only 23 minutes, fastest recorded yet.

Turning against the tide to enter the lock at Chatham made for a wet approach, especially for Annette out on the bow ready to moor! Entered briskly on a tight approach and settled on the port side pontoon with ease.

Moored on our home berth in Chatham bow-on as not possible to reverse in the wind.

Great Fun!

Wine Resupply

Summer batch of white & red wine completed ready for Christmas. Will have to get the spare wine racks out of the garage to store this lot, not sure where as there isn't anywhere cool at the moment.

Away Days

Just had a fantastic two days with our three younger grandchildren at the Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway and a return trip to Chatham Historical Dockyard. I put together a short video of our two days packed into 4 minutes as a keepsake, so here's a copy.

Antifoul Removal

As 'Kevayling' has reached the magic 50 year mark it's about time all the old anti-foul on the bottom is removed and the hull inspected for the next 50 years.

First thing is to source how and where.

Let work commence.

Selfies

A new selfie stick so here's a few to get started.