And We Are Off!

Day 1.  Goole to Grimsby

Having enjoyed a lovely run on day 1 and covering 38.4 nautical miles in a NE3, it was nice to return to Moonshine's old stomping ground with the confidence we had arrived with no major issues.

Day 2.  Grimsby to Lowestoft

 

This 2nd leg of our journey is the longest passage with few safe havens. We left Grimsby on glassy seas until Race Bank then a bit of breeze got up and lifted the sea a bit. At Cromer as usual it was a bit lumpy, and we had to be on high alert for crab pots. We had good help from the tide along the Norfolk coast, however the storm clouds were building up upon approach to Caister which meant the last 45 minutes of the trip were quite lumpy with southerly wind against tide and intermittent heavy rain. We eventually arrived at Lowestoft and entered the harbour following the lifeboat after it had saved six people cut off by the tide at Pakefield. Now we have got this 97.8 nautical miles out of the way Moonshine is officially on holiday!

Day 3.  Lowestoft 

 

Day 3 was a day in port to relax after fuelling up in the morning, so the kids and dogs could recover from yesterday's long trip. The seafront in the early evening was overrun by children and young adults following the latest craze that is Pokemon Go... Whatever next!

Day 4.  Lowestoft to Dover

 

 

Huge progress made today having made Dover, logging 92.6 nautical miles within 4 hours 28 minutes. As ever Dover Port Control and Marina staff were very efficient at getting us into port inbetween the busy ferry traffic and providing a berth for us within the tidal basin. It looks like the UK is on high alert as we passed two large UK Border Force Cutters on patrol off the Kent coast.

Day 5.  Dover to Eastbourne

 

The sun is out again today and with calm weather forecast we thought we would cover the 46.5 nautical miles to Eastborne. We enjoyed a good trip until off Hastings when the SW breeze that had been forecast for later in the day arrived early. We then endured an hour of choppy short sharp head seas until safely inside the breakwaters. 

Always looking ahead to see what the weather is forecast, it looks as if it is going to be quite breezy down here until the end of the week, which will unfortunately scupper our plans at visiting the Isle of Wight. In view of this, whilst the weather is calm tomorrow morning we will do the short 20 mile hop to Brighton and that will have to be as far south as we go...unless the weather forecast changes.

The Final Countdown

Last weekend we discovered that the shower discharge pump had failed. We have had no end of trouble with the shower on Moonshine since owning her. We are now on our third float switch, this was sorted several months ago as we now have a Waterwitch Electronic Level Switch, we have also gone through two shower discharge pumps and have now replaced the Rule 800GPH pump for a Whale Gulper 220 diaphragm pump which was one of the first jobs to do this weekend. 

The port engine room camera has been repositioned after the discovery last weekend that the starboard camera had failed. This has been repositioned to view both engines which to be fair is all that is necessary. 

Peter has been also been busy giving Moonshine a good wash and the superstructure a good polishing...I would have offered to help but apparently I don't do the job properly, don't have a dog and bark yourself springs to mind!

So the final countdown begins, a week and a half to go, fingers crossed for good  weather.

On A Mission

Over the last few weekends we have been continuing our mission trying to get to the bottom of why the starboard engine is running warmer than the port engine.

One thing to factor in is that the starboard engine runs the power steering and the hot water system so it will run a bit warmer than the port engine anyway, but we wanted to exhaust all possibilities to try to get it to run a bit cooler than it does at the moment. We have tried several things such as replacing the raw water pump, rodding out the heat exchanger, replacing the recently installed aftermarket impeller for a genuine Volvo Penta one, all of which have made a marked improvement to our recent woes. We now feel confident that unless we really have to push Moonshine to the limit at sea the alarms shouldn't rear their ugly heads. 

However, when we are lifted out in November we plan on having both outdrives overhauled by I.V.S.S Marine in Kent, which could possibly bring other things to light such as mussels in the water intake or exhaust (which can result in back pressure), but this won't become evident until they are stripped down.
 

On Friday we ventured to the low side of Pollington Lock for an overnight stay. The fuel filters were changed ready for our holidays, also the horrible task of cleaning the shower drain box fell to Peter... which has decided to pack up yet again. The Rule 800 bilge/shower pump was replaced back in July 2014 so this hasn't lasted long at all. These seem to be very problematic, so we have had to bite the bullet and have ordered a Whale Gulper 220 12v shower pump from Cactus Navigation who appear to be far cheaper than anywhere else. We actually have one of these in our engine room which we obtained from a friend which has worked faultlessly since the fitting of a new seal kit. Also one of the engine room cameras has decided to pack up, but this is no big deal as the remaining camera can be resited to cover both engines. If in the future this decides to fail we will invest in a better quality unit as this can prove to be invaluable if anything major occurs within the engine bay which can be rectified before things become critical. 

Hopefully nothing else will fail within the next 2 and a half weeks leading up to our summer holidays, of which we have big plans for, that is providing the engines run fine and the weather is kind!