As you will remember, our launch date was delayed due to the yard extending the haul out bay to accommodate super yachts. However, they realised that the work was behind schedule so they had brought in a crane to launch us mere mortals. We had agreed with them that we would launch on Tuesday May 31st as we had flights booked for the day before. Imagine our surprise when we received a call at home on Monday lunchtime to say that they were launching n two hours! Ok we said and presumed they would move us round to the marina. We caught a BA flight from Heathrow (long story) that arrived after midnight. We had booked an Airbnb for a couple of nights as we had assumed we would still be on the hard Monday night. We arrived at the house around 1.30am to find our host there to greet us. Bless her.

The next day, with some trepidation, we caught a taxi to the marina having already done a small perishable food shop (we had no idea if the fridge would be working) to find Nimmie in a finger pontoon berth. Wonderful as it is so much easier to get on and off at the side rather than via a gangplank from the stern. The long list of jobs were started but the primary ones were sorting out the sails as we had light winds. The genoa (big flappy thing at the front) needed to be put on and the mainsail (slightly smaller flappy thing in the middle) needed raising and cleaning as birds had nested in it over the last three years! After that it was a question of trying everything to see if it all worked. The boat was a mess with every cupboard emptied so we were glad to be able to go back into town to our Airbnb and have a nice meal. The next day we found out pretty quickly that the aft heads (back toilet) was not working. No water coming in or going out. Long story short, it turns out that the discharge hose was completely blocked. Yes, blocked and you can imagine with what. So, we had to take the hoses off and replace them. These are hoses that haven’t been moved for 24 years so it wasn’t easy and combined with being in a very confined space meant that it took 11 hours all told to fix it. We also found out that the shower drain pump had stopped working so that also had to be replaced.

Yesterday, we finished at 9.30pm, had a shower (both of us smelt like a public lavatory) and just had a light supper before crashing. It feels like we have aged over the last three years and definitely not feeling match fit! We then found out this morning that the bow thruster (it helps us park the boat by moving the front of the boat sideways) had been incorrectly wired when they added more blades back in 2020 so when the joystick was moved to the right, the boat moved to the left. This could have been a nightmare if not fixed as I would bound to forget! Luckily, an electrician came round within an hour and sorted it.

We were planning on leaving today but the list of jobs keeps getting longer and we have missed our weather window. High winds came through today and are due to continue for another couple of days so we may be in port until Sunday. It did mean that we were able to watch some of the Jubilee celebrations via BBC iPlayer.

Still, after three years out of the water, we are fortunate that nothing (touch wood) has gone wrong since launching that we can’t fix ourselves or isn’t covered by the warranty of work done by the yard. We can’t complain. We are sitting on our beloved Nimmie in 30 plus degrees without a cloud in the sky. What’s not to love?