Buckler's Hard

A rest day in the historic setting of Buckler's Hard, the magical place where some of Nelson's war-ships (including Agamemnon) were built using ancient oaks from the surrounding forests. We pottered around the museum and walked down the green sward where there are still two giant depressions, the shallow docks where the shipwrights would have assembled the men-of-war. It seems amazing they could have floated these giants off and down the Beaulieu river, since these days it is so very shallow.

'A night passage to Beaulieu' is a phrase that may cause Yachtmaster exam candidates to blench. It's a tricky, bendy channel even in daylight and many have ended up on the mud. One infeasibly large visitor who made it today, was a catamaran with young people on board which waited for half an hour near our pontoon, just stemming the tide, until a space could be found in another part of the marina. 

Lunch in the cockpit, a read and a doze in the sun. It's all go. The big news of the day for us is that the oystercatcher we've been watching on the pole near our mooring (see yesterday's blog for the picture) is in fact two birds, parents who work shifts to guard their nest. We were most concerned when we saw the nest deserted, as a noisy boat slid into its berth just below the pole. But five minutes later Mr (or Mrs) Oystercatcher was back, calling plaintively and checking the eggs before settling down and fluffing out feathers.

Sirena IV on her day off

We actually did some work, replacing a badly-worn halyard (a rope we might use for raising a sail, person or dinghy) This involved attaching the new one to the old to pass it up to the top of the mast and back, and then 'seizing' one end of the rope to a metal eye with tough twine to make a stout fastening. That burst of activity over with, we're now blogging and passage-planning for tomorrow while the sun shines, the clouds drift and the oystercatchers come and go. Days like this make us realise how very lucky we are to be able to sail our boat to the loveliest parts of Britain.       

another oystercatcher pose