A Change of Scenery

We have been happily moored at Burton Waters for three years now and whilst we are very happy with the marina and the lifestyle we have there, it does have to be said that the same old stretch of Fossdyke and Witham that we visit during weekends when time is stretched is starting to wear a little thin. We are considering a temporary change of scenery for a month or two during the warmer summer months.

Boston is high on the list of contenders for our temporary summer mooring. It is close enough that we could easily get the boat there in a weekend but far enough away that we have not yet gotten bored with that particular stretch of river Witham. Boston is also ideally situated for easy access to the sea. The Wash estuary provides lots of options for weekend salty water cruising when the weather and tides will allow. Perhaps the only downside to a temporary mooring in Boston will be the additional forty five minutes travel time on both Friday evening and Monday morning.

We have also considered a temporary mooring on the Trent at either Newark Marina or Farndon Marina. We like spending time on the Trent and this will still be a pleasant change of scenery but it won’t offer the chance of salty water cruising as the Boston option would. The big plus point of a mooring at Newark or Farndon however is the travel time which will not be a deal different to our current journey time to Lincoln.

Naburn Marina, on the Ouse, is also on the list of contenders. We love cruising on the Ouse through York and beyond and although we wouldn’t want to leave the boat there on a permanent basis due to the restrictive weekend cruising, a month or two here would make a pleasant change. Travel time from Sheffield will in theory be a tad quicker than to our current mooring at Lincoln but downside is the more restricted cruising grounds and lack of weekend cruising on salty or tidal waterways.

One last option we are considering for our summer mooring is Fossdyke Yacht Harbour on the Tidal Welland. This option will give us excellent access to the sea and a shorter travelling time than Boston but on the flip side there are of course some downsides. If the weather is foul then there are few inland cruising options and Fossdyke, although a pleasant enough village is small and not exactly happening. Although the newly reopened pub does look nice it could become an expensive summer mooring if we spend every weekend in there due to inclement weather or unsuitable tide timings.

As you can probably see we are still leaving our options open and as yet have no firm plans for the temporary summer mooring. We have met a great group of friends at Burton Waters which has confirmed our decision to keep our mooring on E Pontoon, however they do say that a change is as good as a rest hence the hunt for a temporary summer mooring.

Sea Fishing

Sea fishing, we are not very good at it but as we have a sea boat and we take her to sea for our holidays throughout the year, we do have a try at it. Unsuccessfully so far it does have to be said, but we do try.

Last year on our way back from the Broads we tried our hand at Mackerel fishing but we got it all wrong and didn’t even get a bite. A quick word in the ear of the local sea fishing trip boat operator soon put us right though and hopefully this year we will catch our first sea fish that we will then be able to BBQ later in the day.

Hopefully with the help of the local fishermen we can look forward to some great fresh fish this year. With trips planned to Whitby, Scarborough and Wells next the Sea, all working fishing ports, we have every chance of catching a few free and incredibly fresh meals. What could be fresher or tastier than BBQing you’re freshly caught and filleted fish?

We are going to make some minor modifications to Naughty-Cal to make sea fishing from her a tad easier. We are going to add a pair of stainless steel rod holders to the transom of the boat. The main reason for this is so that we can set up the rods whilst still moored up in harbour, threading line through hooks and rigs whilst the boat is rocking and rolling with the seas motion is incredibly difficult and also quite sea sickness inducing. Having the rigs set up and ready to go will give us more fishing time and much less faffing around at sea.

We also plan to buy a collapsible bucket. On the off chance that we do catch a fish or two then we will need somewhere to put them whilst we have a chance to get back to shore to gut and fillet them. A collapsible bucket will take up very little room whilst stored away, but filled with sea water should prove to be a great catch hold, assuming we manage to catch anything to put in it of course.

We do like to do a spot of fishing, be it at sea or on the river. We are not very good at it but it does provide a relaxing way to spend the day on or by the water. As with anything you can make fishing as cheap or as expensive as you please. We don’t spend a lot of money on fishing gear but that doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy it just as much as those who spend thousands on their gear and fish every week come rain or shine.

A Humble Jumble

Well what a disappointing boat jumble it was this year. The quality of the stalls fell well short of our expectations and the majority of traders were not willing to haggle or barter on their prices. We didn’t buy anything from our shopping list but we did pick up a few items we will use throughout the year, so all was not completely lost.

First up we bought a pair of oars for the dinghy from the Burton Waters stall. When we bought Asbo, our dinghy, one of the oars was missing, so we removed the one remaining one. Now that we have a pair we can paddle around as well as using the engine. We will also be able to get back to safety should the outboard engine decide to breakdown at any time. For £7 it was rude not to buy them when we really did need a pair. They will need some slight modifications to make them fit the integral rowlocks on the dinghy but that isn’t going to be too difficult a job, so come some better weather we will modify them and fit them.

Our next purchase was some new sea fishing gear. I needed a new rod and Liam’s rod was getting a little shabby and beaten up so we bought a new pair of rods and a new reel for my rod grabbing a great deal with the two rods and one reel coming in at just £25, less than the ticket price on the reel. We didn’t even feel the need to haggle with this chap, he did it all for us. We expect he didn’t want to take all of his stock back home with him. The rods are heavy enough to tackle some sea fish but also light enough for everyday use on the river catching pike and other larger coarse fish. We also bought some new feathers and lures so the fishing tackle box is restocked and ready for the coming season. Now we just need to catch the fish, not always as easy as it sounds.

We also stumbled into some new and old friends throughout the morning and had a chance meet with Simon, our narrow boating friend who accompanied us on our trip to West Stockwith last November. This was a great chance meeting as we have bought his 3kW inverter which he no longer needs or uses. We have been after a larger inverter to power the kettle and toaster so this was high on our list of this year’s jobs to do. Our original plan had been to buy a 2kW version but this one has come up at the right price and at the right time so we will have this one which will give us a little extra in reserve should we buy any higher powered electrical goods. We now just need to pick it up next weekend and install it in time for our Easter holiday at the beginning of April. More jobs to tackle in the next few weekends.

This may not have been our most successful visit to the Boat Jumble but we did still walk away with some good bargains and some useful items. The items we were looking to buy will have to be bought from elsewhere, most probably Morton Boats, who always have as good deal for us anyway.

Haggling Time

It is that time of year again where we need to get our haggling heads on and drive some hard bargains at the Newark Boat Jumble. Each year we attend this jumble and it usually proves to be a successful and worthwhile Sunday morning of bargaining.

This year we have a few items on our list of wants, needs and must haves, including 30-40m of 12mm navy blue Marlow braid on braid mooring rope. We currently have a set of four 10m long lines on Naughty-Cal but we need a pair of slightly longer lines for rafting up in sea ports, often two, three or four boats abreast. It is courteous to send your own lines ashore to take the strain from the inner boats lines so long lines are a must have item on board. Last year we bought 40m of rope for £23.50 so we are aiming for about the same sort of price again.

On the rope subject we are also after some matching navy rope for the grab line and mooring rope on the dinghy. This can be a smaller diameter 10mm braid on braid line which will then match Naughty-Cal’s mooring rope and fender rope. Hopefully as we are buying so much rope we should get a decent deal on 10m or so of 10mm line.

We are also looking for a couple of crew bags for our clothing and other assorted weekend and holiday gear. Our current suitcases have had three years of weekly use and are starting to show signs of their age. A nice pair of new crew bags will hopefully fit the bill and do the job just fine and again as we are buying a pair of them we hope to be able to do a good deal on the price.

No doubt there will be other stuff that we end up buying as well, there usually is. But we always end up walking away feeling as though we have done some good deals. Let’s hope that this year is as good as the last three have proven to be for grabbing bargains and great value purchases.

Special Places

As you travel around the system you often come across a place that is so special that you have to revisit again. We have come across a lot of places special to us along the way both local and much further afield and we hope to visit all of them again in the near future.

Below is a selection of pictures showing just a few of the places we love dearly. In just three short years we have travelled far and wide and in this our fourth year with Naughty-Cal we hope to find yet more special places to add to our ever growing list.

Newark, the jewel in the River Trent’s crown.

West Stockwith at the start of the Chesterfield canal.


Wells next the Sea, the first place we visited by sea and what a way to start our salty water cruising careers.

York on the River Ouse, a historic city with plenty to keep you occupied.

Blakeney Bay. A tranquil spot to while away a few hours on the hook.

Much A To Do About Nothing - Part 2

Hot on the back of last week’s topic about tidal waterways and the fear they tend to generate, here are a few pictures of Naughty-Cal and ourselves cruising on our local tidal waterways. Hopefully they will show the wide variety of scenery and the different character of the many different tidal waterways local to us, all within easy reach of our home mooring just outside Lincoln.

Without cruising on these tidal waterways we would be restricted to cruising on the Fossdyke and River Witham. As much as we like both the Fossdyke and the Witham we also like to explore new waterways and discover new places.

It may seem like a giant leap of faith for some to venture off of familiar and benign waterways and into the unknown of the tidal reaches beyond, but if we never take the opportunity and embrace the experience then there will be so many places that we will never see or go to. We have been extremely lucky with the places we have been and seen so early on in our boating careers but only because we have grasped the opportunities as they have arisen. Go on, get out there and explore, there are so many special places just waiting to be discovered.

Trent Falls

Tidal Trent at Keadby

Tidal River Witham, Boston

Tidal Ouse

The mighty River Humber

Much A To Do About Nothing

For some people the mere mention of tidal waterways sends them into a frenzy. They panic, they fret and they generally work themselves up into a dithering state. Why?

I’m not entirely sure what all of the fuss is about. Yes you need to do a little bit more planning and your journeys are dictated by tide times but that needn’t be a worry. If you plan your trip with the help of someone knowledgeable (we find the lock keepers a great source of local information) and have the correct charts for the area in which you will cruise and know how to read them then there is little to worry about.

If you hang around any marina or mooring place for long enough you will start to gather together a whole series of horror stories about the local tidal waterways. Burton Waters is a great case of this. We have moored there for three years now and have heard a great deal of myth relating to the River Trent, the tamest and smallest of the tidal waterways in the area. More often than not these tales come from people who have never dared to venture out onto the river; they are passing on stories third and fourth hand. The problem with these stories is that if people new to boating get wind of them it puts them off the tidal rivers and they never explore them for themselves, they never get to make up their own mind and continue to plod along on the same old stretch of non tidal water too scared to venture to pastures new.

We chose to ignore these stories of which we heard plenty and made our own minds up about the local rivers. Within a couple of months of buying Cal we had ventured out onto the Trent visiting Newark and West Stockwith before taking on the task of heading down the Trent to Trent Falls and heading back up the mighty Ouse to York and Ripon beyond. A trip that most boat owners at Burton Waters will fail to undertake in their time at the marina which is a great shame. The Trent is a much feared river and in all reality it is a lovely place to spend some time afloat and opens up doors to many great and varied cruising grounds.

It is a great shame that people generate this fear and hatred of tidal waterways. They have a character and a feeling all of their own, quite unlike the gentle waters of the non tidal rivers and canals. With a little extra planning and thought trips out onto tidal waterways can be rewarding and fun, a far cry from the bleak picture painted by some.

My one piece of advice would be to make up your own mind. Don’t let others make it up for you but do prepare and do stay safe out there. Accidents and incidents can and do happen, but they also happen on relatively benign waterways as well. Enjoy your time on tidal waterways, they are a gateway to cruising grounds far and wide reaching and should be treated with the respect that they deserve.