Sunlit Horizon 2 - 'Lads Week' 2012 - Day two


 Having packed everything away the previous night it is nice to wake up early to a tidy boat that is already beginning to feel like home.  

Today I was going to head down to Potter Heigham which would be a short trip from the moorings on Womack Dyke, and once in Potter Heigham get a few bits from Lathams and meet up with the two Jewel of Lights that ‘the lads’ would be hiring from Herbert Woods.

Having slipped my mooring at around 8:00am the mist rising from the rivers and over the land made for a study start to the day and as the journey went on along the River Thurne so the combination of mist, bright sunlight and blue sky got better.  It truly was beautiful.

Arriving in Potter Heigham I moored behind fellow forumite ‘Regulo’ – and his boat Sun Bird.  I have to admit I was extra nervous as I tucked in behind just in case I did something stupid like got off leaving the boat in gear and thus crashing into his stern.  Thankfully all went well, and I took things slow.

Off to Lathams which was lovely and quite having only opened at 8:30am so no issues at the tills and all the things I wanted I got, and then some.  Having gone back to the boat I saw there was some space in Herbert Wood’s yard, so left my mooring on the Thurne and mooring stern on in their yard and found the two Jewel of Light boats together – introduced myself to some of those aboard and then waited for the rest of the gang to come along.  We then departed the yard and took it slowly along the river waiting for Broad Ambition to rendezvous with us
– who had come from Stalham.  This eventually happened somewhere along the River Bure as we headed for Acle.
A brief stop was made at the Bridge Inn at Acle where everyone could introduce themselves and drinks could be had.  It was about this time I realised keeping any sort of video blog going was not going to be easy, I was either at the wheel or ashore drinking and the latter made keeping track of what time we would depart and where we would go difficult.  

Communication I thought could be improved if we all could stay in touch – so out came 4 PMR radios – this helped matters somewhat but of course realised on crews to remember to actually turn them on and once on actually answer calls to their boat.  Much fun was heard over the air waves as the day progressed.

Having left Acle around 2pm we were helped down the Bure with the ebb tide, then onward over Breydon – I had some company for this stretch which was nice and it felt good to be in a procession along the river with others and along with the radio traffic we were producing made for a good team spirit and merry feel to the afternoon.

Breydon Water was calm, but the sky was giving a good show of light, impressive cloud formations and yet despite having been on the go since around 8am, we still needed to put in some more hours to make Somerleyton before dusk.  Now I know many of you reading this love the peace of the Southern Rivers, but for me personally going along from the muddy flats of Breydon and on to reed lined rivers was anything but interesting – but perhaps when you are making for a destination, the wind has turned and a chill covers the air it jades ones perception of things.

We arrived at Somerleyton pretty much bang on the time we had planned, and once all moored up up I was invited on Jewel of Light 2 where Griff had mad a lovely Rabbit casserole. I’ve had Rabbit int he past – but he was cheeky in the run up to eating claiming ‘it is Chicken’ – it was actually very lovely, and with some red wine and good conversation certainly was a lovely first evening.

After dinner around 8:30pm we all headed up to the Dukes Head pub, a lovely welcoming pub it is too and much merriment and conversation was had by all, with the usual ‘everything seems so funny’ walk back to the boats.  
It was a long day of cruising, but certainly worth every minute and having met some familiar faces and new, found it nice that the group of us all got on well.

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