Monday, June 18, 2007

Another weekend around the Marina! Yawn.








The Dregers back into the marina and again and all the boats in the way are sent off around the marina to temporary berths. I took this photo when the tide was pretty high but not the highest tide, which is the eqinoxal tide and its about a meter higher. so you can imagine just how much of the inner breakwater is showing above the water! and what happens if the sea is rough at this time. I have seen the spray coming over the wall to a height of thirty feet or more!
The picture above this one shows the chalk cliff where the Marina was dug down into the sea. There is a true cross section of boats as can be seen too!
The second photo shows the entrance road into the Marina and some of the shops and restaurants along the way! the palm trees have faired well considering they were "planted" only 12 months ago approximately! also note the orange Tuc Tuc whih do a roaring trade much to the discust of the Cabbies, great fun they are too! :o))
I thought it was about time I did a bit of gardening on my pontoon so I spent a couple of hours making some molluscs etc, homeless by hoeing them off the surrounding pontoons! unfortunately the older couple on the boat next to mine are really inferm and haven`t had their boat out and scrubbed for, must be, ten years and the weed growth is a metre long on the bottom which of course effects mine! so Ho hum! I thought that if my pontoons were a little clearer I might just benefit a bit!
last year I "got in" and scrubbed the bottom myself but that was four months after the antifoul had been applied. now ten months on I think I would need a shovel and the marina has a lead time of seven weeks before they could pull me out!! :o(( ( Blo*dy useless disorganised lot) Ah well!
The palm trees I mentioned above are of course artificial! ( but great copies) unlike those that were installed in "port aventura" in Salou Spain, where I tried to disuade them from having real ones which they intended to dig up each fall and transported them to their own fifty foot greenhouse! imagine the cost each year!
I am oftem asked "why Brighton" and "where can you go from brighton" to which I reply "at 24 knots" anywhere! Within a short distance there is the solent newhaven, eastbourne, Facom, a middling distance and there is the whole of the french coast and the english coast and given a long cruising distance, the Scilly Isles and who knows where else? I delivered a gin palace to Jersey on route to Spain via biscay but the weather was too rough, so it sat in Jersey for a month, after which time I was on another delivery and couldn`t finish the trip so I don`t see Brighton as having too much problem with its location unless you are a sail boat and I guess that the solent is where you want to be. I did when I had a sail boat with a berth in the Beauleiu river ! Dartmouth and Brixham! Ah the joys of the powerboat two hours to the solent two days to the scillies! I wish I was back sailing though :o(( I really do.
Something that is worthy of note, it is claimed that Brighton can accomodate a couple of super yachts if they are small, although I wouldn`t like to try to "swerve them around the main wall in a south easterly 5 and up as the entrance needs to be approached with caution when the weather is up! a boat found this out a few weeks ago when they ran aground at the entrance ? the Brighton RNLI inshore lifeboat couldn`t help them, so a larger one came from Shoreham, I believe, and took them to the Solent where their keel finally fell of and they burst into flames. Not entirely the fault of the marina antrance I know but once the chain of events starts, things can happen fast at sea. I felt so sorry for the crew I believe that they had come all the way from the Baltic without incident too.

6 comments:

Margarita Mirasol said...

Cor! It's all happening in your neck of the docks!

rob said...

And yours too! Im really proud of you and your achievements so far! AGs looking really good!

Anonymous said...

Hi Rob

That looks like split two in the background of the first picture, if I'm not mistaken.

Is yours an MDL marina then?

Tim

rob said...

Hi Tim! No its Premier :o(( I used to have a berth (for life) in a MDL marina "Brixham" though. You are right it is Split two, He`s like the rat catcher always leaving a rat in the premises, so he has to come back :o)) they used to be here every couple of years but now it almost every year particularily after a Polish crewed yacht ran aground at the entrance. within a couple of days
there was a posting put up in the toilet blocks advising caution on entry as there was a 1 metre buidup of silt in the entrance?
:o((

Fuff said...

Blimey. They won't forget Brighton in a hurry!

rob said...

Thats for sure Fuff! I am told the local inshore could do nothing and the Shoreham boat came to take them to the hamble somewhere? and then their (the yachts) keel fell off and as they approached their destination they burst into flames! just not their day I guess! :o((