Laurence Andrews

Jab 2, done ✅💉

Had a fantastic time in Fowey last night, had some beers and dinner in the Fowey Gallants Sailing Club where we watched some mid-week dinghy sailing. Headed back to the boat for some wine until the sun set. Great day! 😁👍⛵️📸

Morning again from Falmouth, good night last night. Got our passage and pilot planning sorted for the trip to Fowey. Should be a good day 👍📸🌅⛵️

Not having a terrible day! Passing Mevagissey to our port side in gorgeous sunshine. Not a breath of wind though so we’re motoring towards Fowey. ⛵️📸☀️😁

We started the morning after sleeping aboard, not the best sleep ever but got just enough. We went through the workings of a life jacket after breakfast, explaining the mechanism and how the automatic firing works. We then spent some time talking about weather information and where it can be sourced, explaining the Almanac, etc. We covered Diesel engine daily maintenance and learned the WOBBLE mnemonic, water, oil, bilge, belt, lecky, exhaust.

I helmed the boat out of the Marina which went okay although the wheel was locked (whoops) which wasn’t ideal and it took me a little while to figure out! We got out fine though, nice and steady with no issue. We then did some mooring practice under power and got a feel for the boat.

Simon the instructor demonstrated how to use engine wash and walk to turn the boat in a close circle. A very neat trick. Every boat will pull to port or starboard in a certain way depending on the propeller type.

We then worked to put the sails up but had some issues with the cars in the mast track, which seemed to get stuck in the just below the top spreaders. We tried a few things to check what the cause could be, we disconnected the halyard and attached a line to make sure it could run free which it did. And then disconnected one of the cars from the sail to see if it was getting caught. We believed that the newly installed rolling Genoa may have resulted in the mast bending back more than before and the track being slightly pinched as a result.

We motored up the Fal river just before the chain ferry and anchored up for lunch. During lunch we oiled the cars of the sail and successfully pulled the main up.

We pulled the anchor up and motored out of the river a little before putting the sails up and doing some light weather sailing. We practiced identifying marks and talked about points of sail. In the mouth of the River we performed a heave-to manoeuvre to stop the boat while in the wind.

We sailed past the lighthouse at the mouth of the Falmouth and sailed back into the river. With the wind fading we furled the Genoa and motorsailed back to where we were for lunch.

Luckily we found a pontoon to moor up to for the night, I was given helm duty for coming alongside the pontoon which seemed to go quite well. We tied up and called it a day.

We had sausage and mash for dinner and spoke to a full-time sailor called Terry on a boat named the Josephine of Exe who had done some transatlantic crossings. Very interesting character who shared a few bottles of red!

Good morning Falmouth! Good nights’ sleep in the bag. Expecting today we’ll be practicing manoeuvring, anchoring and picking up a Buoy. Time for a shower first though 🚿🌄⛵️📸

Goodnight from the River Fal, after a great day sailing and learning skills. We went out to the mouth of the River Fal in nice calm winds and have moored up on a small pontoon upriver. Beautiful and peaceful. Few glasses of red with a wise old sailor telling us stories! ⛵️☀️😁📸

Exciting day today, heading to Falmouth for my Day Skipper Practical. Five days on board in what looks to be very lovely weather! Just booked a train ticket from St Austell, hoping to get to Falmouth in time to watch at least the start of the British Grand Prix 🤞⛵️

Good night from Yacht Louise in Falmouth Marina. Beautiful sunset after an introduction to the fellow students on the course this week and a spot of food onboard. Looking forward to getting stuck in tomorrow, for now it’s time for bed! ⛵️📷🌅

Having a Kviek IPA this afternoon from Padstow Brewing and Lowlands Brewing. Lovely beer, not had a Kveik before. 6.2% is a bit more than I’m a fan of, but not too heavy. Gorgeous sunshine! ☀️😊🍻👌

Visited Tavistock, Devon earlier today, River Tavy seen here. A favourite when we visit parents in the Tamar valley. Had a fantastic lunch at a small café enjoyed the gorgeous sunshine and popped in a few shops. Treated ourselves to a few beers on the way back too! 😁🍻☀️

Charlestown, Cornwall has changed a lot in the last few years. There’s now a rum bar in the historic port where Kelly, Owen and I had a quick drink earlier this week (I had a Goslings Dark and Stormy). We made the most of the last of the day’s sun! 📷🍹☀️

Had a great Birthday lunch for mum at the absolutely gorgeous Fowey Harbour Hotel earlier this week. Service was fantastic, food perfect and wine spot on! Oh, and the views were to die for! Such a lovely hotel!🍷📷🎂☀️

Did I mention views in the last post? Yeah, welcome to Fowey, It’s very special! We couldn’t have been luckier with the weather. After lunch we popped over to Polruan on the ferry for a beer in the famous Lugger Inn. ☀️🍻😊🕶📷

It was impossible to not take a photograph of the lift at the Fowey Harbour Hotel, it is absolutely gorgeous. Sharing because all hotel lifts should be like this! 📷🛗😁

Loved visiting Isle of Portland, Dorset earlier this week. Such a unique part of the UK’s south coast. The lighthouse and Bill was great to see up close. 📷🌊🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Treated myself the other day and bought a new power bank. Went for the Anker PowerCore Elite III 60W 25600mAh via Amazon. Charges in no time and can run and charge my MBP. Expect to use it for going away sailing, should hopefully get a week of iPhone and Watch charges out of it.

Moved my MicroBlog over to my domain yesterday, was hesitant but everything seems to be working just fine, including https! Find me now at micro.andrews.io.

Just need to get some customisation going on that home page… But that’s a job for another day!

Come on England! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Friends of Microblog… Had a bit of a break, but I’m back. Twitter cross-posting is disabled this time, full commitment. ☺️

It’s been all systems go here in Andrews HQ for the last week or so, a break in weekend commitments meant it was time to get the nursery decorating done.

We started by getting the carpet sorted, we’d had a man round for a measure the other week and got a quote back for £2,600 for all of the carpet in the house apart from our bedroom. That was a bit more than we had hoped to spend and certainly more than we wanted to spend after having bought new sofas the other week! The colour and style took a little while for us to figure out, but we got there in the end. We left that quote for a while so that we could think about what to do.

This weekend we thought we’d go to Tapi Carpets by Rochester Airport to get a competitive quote and it all seemed to fit into place, we decided on getting a less expensive carpet in the lounge and found some end pieces for the two upstairs rooms which worked out much cheaper and in all. Tapi were more expensive for Underlay, but all in we spent £2,100 so we saved a fair amount and were quite happy. Upstairs will be installed in a couple of weeks and hallway and lounge should hopefully be the last week of July. Very exciting!

With that done, it was decorating time! We ordered a bunch of stuff from tool station and got to work moving all the furniture and junk out of the room. Having now committed to changing the carpet we cut around the skirting board so that we could paint properly. The colour we picked from B&Q was ‘wild mushroom’, a cream colour and ‘new growth’, a pale, fresh green. We decided to paint the ceiling too since we were going for it!

After a lot of sanding, painting, taping, waiting and staying up late we eventually got everything done. It took a little longer than I thought, but we’re really happy with the result. The green is really nice and suits the new furniture really well. We (I) managed to get quite a lot of paint on the old carpet, so the room doesn’t quite finished but it will do once the new one it is. Victoria did a very good job on the glossing for the skirting and door frames, which makes a big difference too. Decorating, done!

In other baby news, Victoria and I both submitted our respective Maternity and Paternity forms to work. Both accepted, which is very good news. With Colliers I am entitled to two weeks full pay which I’m going to take from the 8th November (the Monday after the due date), and take the rest of my annual leave either before, if baby comes early, or after if baby comes late. That’s the plan, anyway… Victoria’s entitlement is far too complicated for the blog, but basically she gets normal pay for a while, then less pay, then even less pay until she goes back to work. We don’t quite know what is the best approach for going back to work (we’ve not had a baby before!) so we will see how we go… All beginning to get very real now!

In non-baby news, England are doing really rather very well in the Euro 2020 championship. Last week we beat Germany 2-0 and over the weekend we beat Ukraine 4-0. This Wednesday is the semi-final against Denmark and if we succeed there then it’s the final on Sunday. Both games are at home with a very strong England crowd, so if it were to happen, there’s never been a better chance.

In F1 it’s been an interesting mixed bag for British fans, Lewis hasn’t been on his usual form with a dominant Max now on a 4-week winning streak, taking his first grand-slam this weekend at Austria. Lando Norris is doing very well indeed though and got himself a podium and his best result this season at Austria.

With travel restrictions beginning to be relaxed, this weekend we committed to a boys trip to Spa-Francorchamps to watch the race in late August. By then we should all be double vaccinated which will hopefully mean we’re all good to go. I am beyond excited and absolutely can’t wait to get there, so pleased to be able to see a race again, and the last of this generation too! The plan is to take the motorhome, catch the ferry and stay on one of the campsites at the circuit. We’ve got great tickets on the start-finish straight so should have a fantastic view….!!

Next week we’re off to Dorset for a few days and then to Cornwall to spend some time with Family. This will most likely be the last Cornwall trip without baby, so it’ll be quite special. Really looking forward to just relaxing and having a nice time. It’ll likely be the last trip to Cornwall for a while too it’ll be difficult to drive that far with the baby in the first year.

Not quite sure how, but an entire month has passed since the last blog post. Well, I do know how, because we’ve been really busy doing things and having a lovely time, but it still seems to have gone very quickly! I may have to recap and fill in some of the details on this at a later date, because there is really rather a lot to cover - but I’ll do my best and try to focus on Dad Blog topics.

We’re now on week 20 and well, the bean is showing! Pregnancy clothes are requirement rather a nicety but both Victoria and the bean are doing really well. The weather has been amazing for most of the past month and gradually getting warmer and warmer, last week was great, hottest of the year so far and the paddling pool was out!

The todo list has been going really well and we’ve ticked most of the major boxes… We’ve booked baby classes with NCT on the advice of a few people with in-person(!) sessions scheduled for September. Not sure we would have booked these if it weren’t for the advice of others but as the weeks have gone by I’ve found myself looking forward to them more and more. Aside from my dad book and conversations with others, there really isn’t any way to know what to do when the baby comes, so I’m looking forward to being told what to do! It’s a step outside of our comfort zone too, which is probably a good thing. Hopefully it’ll also be a good way of getting to know other people who are going through the same experience as us, I think there is a catch up with the group after the baby is born too, which will be interesting.

We have found the pram! Sorry, the ‘travel system’. We decided on the Mamas & Papas Occaro which comes with all sorts of accessories including a lie-flat swivelling car seat which seems quite snazzy. We visited the shop at Lakeside and made sure that everything fits in the boot, which it does, although there isn’t too much room for very much else. It’s in a dark navy material with a gold/bronze (Onyx?) colour metal which seems nice. Appears to be a very sturdy push chair which is big enough without being too big. After a bit of hassle we got a £150 gift voucher too, which was good. It gets delivered in early September, so just in time for baby classes!

The furniture for the nursery is all sorted too, Victoria spotted a bargain online for the Mamas & Papas Keswick furniture 2nd hand from somebody not too far away. After checking it, it was basically brand new and perfect for us. So we got a right steal for that and saved the environment too! We had to stick it on Dad’s trailer to get it home after negotiating the stairs in the house we had to remove it from - bit of a ‘mare, but all fine. Setting it up at home it looks great, the cot/crib converts to a small toddler-sized bed when necessary, so we should last us a little while. Oh, and extra bonus, the bed that was in this room, which we bought brand new before lock down we managed to sell for a few hundred quid, so that helped.

Elsewhere in the house we’ve been getting things ready. I replaced our shower door with one that folds so that it’s easy to reach into the bath without the door being in the way. We should have done this a long time ago, it is so much better compared to the old door. Wasn’t cheap, £200 is a lot for a lump of glass, but it’s working great.

We also decided to treat ourselves to some new sofas (on the same day as buying the pram!), complete impulse purchase but long story short, Harvey’s at Lakeside were having a liquidation. There was a fabric suite with electric recline, basically exactly what we had been thinking of buying. We paid for them (after taking a load of cash out, because they insisted on a part-cash payment) and some random bloke who seemed to be working for Harvey’s turned up with them the next day (who we also paid in cash). Very odd, but a total steal.

Last house upgrade was installing a Nest thermostat. We’d been toying about getting one for probably about four years and every winter we manage without and by the time we’re sick of not being able to control the heating remotely, it’s spring again. This year we said sod it and had the heating bloke come round with it and set it up. Don’t know how we lived without this before now, absolute game changer. I setup Homebridge on the RaspberryPi and nest is all hooked up with Apple Home too, very good bit of software.

The biggest news for this blog is that we have just today been and done our 20-week scan. This was the first time I’ve been to the hospital with Victoria for anything to do with the baby, so quite a big deal. We visited Medway Hospital in the afternoon, there we put on our masks and had our temperature taken as we went in, at reception I showed my negative covid test and we then sat in the waiting room which had perspex dividers between every chair. A very odd experience! We were called up by the Sonographer/Doctor who took us to one of the ultasound rooms and got strait to the job of jelly’ing up Victoria’s bump!

It was all a bit less fancy than the setup in Maidstone, but perfectly fine. The baby has grown a LOT since I last saw, we could see their spine, feet, fingers, eyes and even the chambers of the heart pumping away. They took measurements of lots of things, to make sure that the baby is growing properly. We saw that baby had it’s thumb in it’s mouth which was very cute indeed! This is the scan where we could have chosen to know the sex and we needed to look away at times so we wouldn’t try and work it out. We were in the room for about 20 minutes of so and at the end Victoria was able to take a short video with the baby’s heartbeat. Very excited, we’re officially half way…!!

It’s been a busy few weeks since the announcement post and I’m pleased to say that Operation Bean is moving forward at full throttle. The biggest news since is that the bean is now ‘showing’ which I understand to be the politically correct terminology, which is very exciting indeed. We have drawn up a baby checklist with the help of our book and ordered them based on urgency.

First on the list was to tidy the loft space and make sure everything is sorted out. We don’t really have that much stuff, but since we’re not moving in the next 6 months but do expect to move in the next few years it’ll mean we will be moving as a family. Sorting out the loft wasn’t the most fun job ever as I was a bit hungover from celebrating my boss’s birthday in London the night before. I soldiered on and we chucked out a lot of junk, took a bunch of stuff to the charity shop and Victoria did an excellent job getting everything organised properly. We just need to take the junk that’s rubbish to the tip, which at present needs to be booked online many days in advance. This is really rather annoying as just turning up at the tip with stuff was in the pre-COVID world, much, much easier, I doubt we’ll ever see a return to that way of operating.

We’ve also been clothes shopping now that the shops are back open again, an odd experience because there are fewer shops open in Bluewater than there were before lockdown. Not that I would really know, but apparently there really aren’t many clothes shops that sell maternity clothes anymore. I’m sure that I remember the bigger shops all having a section, certainly Marks & Spencer who despite having an absolutely enormous shop don’t have any. There was a few in Next and some in Primark. Victoria got a few bits but found more success online as seems to be the way now. I got myself some new trousers as to not feel left out, not from the maternity section.

We spent some more time thinking about the buggy (aka Travel System) and have begun to narrow down our choice a little. We’ve decided to spend some of our savings on the buggy as it feels like quite a special thing. The number of options available and considerations for which is best is really quite outstanding, but I think we’re getting close, once we’ve found the one we will probably keep an eye on deals and prices since we have a little while yet. As I type this there is a not completely unrealistic concern of a third lockdown, some parts of the UK have been forced into localised lockdowns again, despite national cases being low and vaccinations continuing (I’m still waiting).

On the house front we made a few changes, today I moved my office back to the previous configuration, with my desk now on the wall nearest the hallway. I was finding that I was getting a sore right shoulder which I think is caused by me twisting because I have the wall and window on my right side. We’ll see if this makes any difference, it’s less of an ideal layout but if it helps then great. Having my whiteboard above my desk so far seems to be a winner, I can no longer escape my to-do list. Victoria has been working on sorting out the guest bedroom which will become the nursery, we will need to put most of her craft things into the office so will need some more storage.

The other house change is the need for us to replace the shower screen in the bathroom. We currently have a single pane screen which works great but is kind of restrictive when you need to access the taps while not actually in the bath. It’s not too much of a problem when we use the bath to wash the dog because we can reach around and then position the screen over the bath, blocking the taps, but this is really not ideal for when there’s a baby in the bath! I managed to find a screen online that’s the same length but folds in the middle, which should hopefully mean the outer flap can swing over the bath and give us access to the taps. It was a bit of purchase at £200 odd quid, but not really one we could avoid.

Next week we’re off to Cornwall to see family, it properly feels like we haven’t been in absolute ages so can’t wait to get down. The first stop is Charlestown, with dinner planned in one of my favourite restaurants, The Longstore before heading back to the Tamar Valley with another dinner planned in the gorgeous Ship Inn, Noss Mayo. Later in the week Victoria and I are off for a postponed birthday dinner in Thackeray’s in Tunbridge Wells, a very special restaurant. Then it’s three days of sailing in the Medway Keelboat Regatta, which I absolutely can’t wait for! If that wasn’t enough, the first weekend it’s the return of the Monaco Grand Prix which was cancelled last year. Certainly set to be a fun-packed week. Let’s hope Boris holds firm with relaxing the rules or we’re going to be in big trouble!

Dadblog out.

A quiet, sporty and wet race this week. It was going well right from the start, we had plenty of beer as we boarded Astral with both Andy and I bringing beer, in addition to a big crate of Stella already on board. We slipped the berth for the 9am lock and were joined with Elite Sailing’s Spirit and Lightning. Lock out took a little while and with low tide approaching we only had half a meter below the keel. The three boats in Class 1 were already in the river, where we had around 11 knots of SW wind, much more than last week. We were racing course 26, with the other boats racing course 38 (rounding the wreck and back). Small drama as we got going, while hoisting the main a snagged reefing line tore the sail cover - not ideal. The start was otherwise sensible and calm, despite being surrounded by cadets in Toppers and Optomists!

We made good progress off the line and along short reach, for a while we even overtook ‘The Works’, a Projection 762 in Class 1. They closely hugged our starboard aft until we passed round Hoo Island into Gillingham Reach where they then got away from us very quickly! We watched the other boats disappear into the distance from here, as they put up their big sails. We were having a gentle sail, passing Folly point then running down to our first mark, 23. Then on to mark 15, passing Kingsnorth Power Station and it’s jetties. Easing round into another run we put the genoa out on the pole, doing about 7 knots we passed Kethole Reach and the West Bulwark mark.

I didn’t know until recently that the West and East Bulwark marks are named for the wreck that lies here. The explosion of HMS Bulwark was a very significant naval incident, 741 men lost their lives in 1914, the single biggest loss of life in naval history at the time. This was later exceeded by the much more known, explosion of HMS Vanguard while at anchor in Scapa Flow in 1917.

Rounding west Bulwark we briefly tacked back upriver to round mark 16. It was clear to us here that the weather was coming in! We got geared up as it came over the horizon. The wind picked up significantly, we were showing 24 knots and as the rain hit everything got a bit hairy. Getting round 16 was a relief and as the same weather pushed us back downriver towards West Bulwark for a second time we furled some genoa to keep things under control!

Heading out to the furthest mark, Stangate Spit we put in a mainsail reef anticipating the need to tack back in reasonable wind. We saw the Elite Sailing boats around here, practising man overboard drills. Gybing round Stangate Spit we still had a good amount of wind and were making an easy 7 knots over ground. Heading home we were tacking all the way, with no course marks left to significantly alter our journey. As we did the weather came back once more, although we’d barely dried of from last time!

Mark 22 provided us with a little entertainment, despite only keeping a small amount of shore between us and the mark we got stuck on the mud! If it hadn’t been on the course we probably would have avoided it, but we didn’t have too much choise. Luckily the tide was coming in so we weren’t there too long, a few gusts of wind and close-hauled sails got us going again. As we made our last tack into Gillingham reach we could see the Class 1 boats steaming back into sight. We had a sensible amount of wind to take us over the line, expertly skippered by yours truly.

A fantastic race today, where enough was going on to not need any competition! The few beers went down very nicely, as did the coffee and walnut cake. Afraid there won’t be a race report next week, we’re off to Cornwall. Expect more from the Regatta the weekend following.

With the first race of the shortened 2021 Keelboat Spring Series abandoned due to lack of wind, this was the first real race. A 10am start with five boats, fewer than usual with many still on the hard due to COVID mixing things up. There were five boats racing, two in class 3 ‘white sails’ and three in IRC, class 1. With so few boats a start from the club line was announced, with both classes to start simultaneously. Class 1 were racing course 20, in Class 3 we were running course 15. On Upnor Reach there was reasonable wind, but three faster boats jostling for a good start meant that we struggled to get away well. We were squeezed on the line by Reefer forcing us into the main part of the river.

Our only class competitor, Muskrat Ramble got away calmly, hugging the club shore away from the rising tide. With that advantage, they took and held the lead for the rest of the race. As all boats headed towards Short Reach the IRC fleet stayed in the main channel, initialling struggling for speed until bearing away past Hoo Ness. We made some ground once we passed mark 31 but were forced into a tack at Hoo Ness to avoid getting stuck. The SSW wind picked up in Gillingham reach and put us in a healthy broad reach past mark 25 (Folly), leaving it to port. We watched the rest of the fleet take off, with us tailing Muskrat where we ran through Pinup pulling in to a beam reach through Long Reach to mark 15 and 16, leaving them both to starboard.

Heading back up river we left mark 18 to starboard, passing MYC 4 to port before heading home. An easy close-hauled sail back toward to club with some good speed in places. There were plenty of small craft out by now, with the club’s new Musto Skiff fleet and plenty of cruisers heading out to Stangate Creek and Queenborough. We were chased by Mercury but who despite being on a much longer course caught us as we passed Upnor Line with their Asymmetrical showing the difference a big sail can make! We weren’t bothered, we had beers in-hand and smiles on our faces.

The cadet Topper and Laser fleets surrounded us as we finished with an easy cruise past the line. The wind picked up a lot as we waited for the lock, which had been closed since we left for a 10k running event. The tide was full by now so we were in the marina before we knew it.

With us back earlier than expected I went up the mast to fix a guide line between the fixed rigging and the radome, which had come off in the race before last. In lighter winds the guide line makes a big difference in helping the genoa shift from either tack, it caught several times today. I took the opportunity to clean the bottom of the spreaders which were green with algae! We had a few beers and packed up. Home in time for the grand prix!

Despite the excitement, we managed to get a short video crossing the line. Will try to get some more in future, it’s trickier than it seems!