Sailing to Beaulieu through the Solent – approaching from either the East or the West – is a magical experience, especially if you arrive in the late afternoon as the sun is beginning to fall. There is a bar that restricts arrival time as you don’t want to get stuck in the entrance or wait around for enough water to get over the bar. Once you’ve made it over the bar there’s a clearly marked […]
It’s not a surprise that there’s a lot to do near Yarmouth. The Needles is a well known UK landmark and tourism in some shape or form has been around since Queen Victoria built Osborne House. An open top bus operates frequently and follows a circular route from Yarmouth to Freshwater Bay to the Needles and the amusement park before looping back to Yarmouth. If you’d prefer to stretch your legs then there are plenty […]
Yarmouth punches above its weight where food is concerned. I counted six pubs, two bakers, four cafes, two general stores and at least three ice-cream shops. This is in a town of three streets! The Isle of Wight is developing a reputation for gastronomy and so it wasn’t a surprise to me that there’d be excellent food – cooked and ready to prepare – available. We visited The George Hotel The hotel is under new […]
The sunset was beautiful. We’d sailed West. Sunglasses on as we pointed Trouper towards the last of the sun. The next half hour was dusk and it was dark when we arrived in Yarmouth. We’d pre-booked a berth in the marina though, in October, at the tail end of the season there was plenty of space. The leading lights made the entrance straightforward, even in the dark. You just have to dodge the ferry that […]
Mylor. The last stop on our Summer Cruise of Devon and Cornwall. Our first challenge, finding the channel to enter the marina. This was marked but depth of tide meant that we could only enter +/- 3hours around high tide due to a shallow area in the channel. We found the entrance due to a larger boat ahead of us. They’d slowed down. Presumably they were waiting for more tide to allow them over the shallow […]
London was pouring with rain, a thunder storm had taken out a signal box on the train line, there were no trains and it was the start of our Summer holiday. Luckily we managed to squeeze our way onto the 6:00pm train to Plymouth and only arrived one hour later than planned. Plymouth was still steaming hot. They were still enjoying the last days of the heat wave that had come crashing to a halt […]
The Southampton Boat show is currently running with the last day tomorrow. I haven’t been for years but, of course, now we have Trouper. This time we had an agenda. We wanted to find out more about: boat electronics, alternative energy sources, scout for a boat bargain and look at the new boats. Boat Electronics We looked at the B&G instruments as that would be compatible with what we already have. They had a […]
Salcombe is a playground for all manner of outdoor activities both on and off the water. I left with the impression that pretty much anything is possible. We restricted ourselves to water-related activities this time but I’ve included here things I’d like to do when I next visit. Beaches There are plenty of beaches and coves to play in both in Salcombe, South Pool and up towards Kingsbridge. We went to South Sands and to the coves […]
There are lots of shops in Salcombe. Jack Wills and Quba hail from this town in addition to the yacht shops of Musto, Henry Lloyd and so on. We were fairly busy swimming and sailing and pottering so we didn’t take much advantage of the shops. If it had rained, well that’s another story. Jack Wills, Quba, White Stuff, Musto, Fat Face, Sea salt… all are here with full racks of clothes and the usual […]
Salcombe has a reputation for good food. I was keen to just get some fresh bread and meat as our last shop had been at a cut-price supermarket in Plymouth. Whilst they had done a good line in fruit and veg I wasn’t so keen on their meat, fish and dairy. Over the course of three nights we visited a fair range of foodie places ranging from coffee shops through to fine dining. Here’s the […]
On Land 