SAT OFF GRID

The learning curve has gone into overdrive in the past week.  Pentargon and her butty "Wavy Rider" went down the Watford Stairs in a howling gale on Friday.  It is a whole new experience to manoeuvre a combination in wind.  I had discovered on the way down from Kilworth that the butty does not tow properly with the sharp end forward so after Crick I turned it around and nailed it to the rear fender button.  Now the combination is unarticulated.

It's been a week of blowy weather with [very] occasional 'calmer' periods and it was a test to get the combo down  to a lower level where winds are always less.  At sea you can always read the wind.  Inland you are at the mercy of  topography.  Watford tested my skill to the limit.  The combo is now 55' long so the prop is now 20' from the 'stern'.

  And it is leaf-mugging time.  But I am now in a the Braunston Summit pound with a dream mooring and the M1 less the than 60m from my tiller.  If you get ... reservoir solid simulations ... you get it.   I survived the first frosts of 2023.  Right now the floor reading in the back cabin is  4.6ºC and the ceiling 5.7ºC but my 'bedroom' is at 13.2º and rising as the Hampshire which was on tick-over during the night kicks in. 

This is the off grid life I have spent twelve years planning and aspiring to ...