I confess, these storms are all my fault!

Wow what wild and windy couple of weeks we have had. Having got over ex Hurricane Abigail without too much problem her partner, Barney, hit us full force on the Tuesday evening grabbing hold of AmyJo and shaking and rocking her. The wind from Barney was so strong it sent our Satellite dish sliding across the roof despite its strong magnet. Chris's folding bike, in it's bag, would have been blown off the roof completely had it not been padlocked to the boarding plank support. I took the bike down and stored it temporarily in the cratch with the satellite dish for now.

The whole experience was somewhat sobering so I do so hope everyone has stayed safe, AmyJo was being battered in the wind, and we have the relative shelter of the marina! We could not help thinking of those moored on-line and/or on pins, we hope all were OK. The wind was so bad we even had white caps on the waves in the marina and these smashed into AmyJo's stern making booming noises as they hit. We were not too concerned about that but we did get a nice rhythm going occasionally :-) I checked the engine bay before retiring to bed and the draught coming in through the air vents was quite strong. There was a little water in the bilge that I can only assume was caused by either the wind carrying water in through the vents or, the heavy downpours of rain over filling the stern deck drainage channels. At least we know a good air flow reaches the engine.

I did wimp out and took the precaution of lashing down our new top box and was so glad I did. One or two of the other boaters woke up on Wednesday morning to find their wooden roof boxes had been blown off. I'm sure ours, being plastic, would have gone the same way had it not been tied down. To be fair the box stays put in fairly strong winds but Tuesday night's wind was so strong you could easily be blown of the jetty yourself in the gusts.

Today storm Clodagh is hitting us just as hard as Barney. As I type half of Chester is without water due to electrical failure caused by power lines being brought down at the water plant. Once again we have lashed everything down and hunkered down for yet another bumpy night. South-westerly winds are expected to reach speeds of 60-80km/h (37-49mph) with gusts of 100-130km/h (62-80mph) on the coasts hereabouts sthough slightly less in land it is still very still squirley out there none the less. I do hope you are all OK and safe.  You know things are getting worst as the UK met office has now taken to naming storms here in the UK as well!

On the differant note, last weekend Chris and I visited Fernwood Boats workshop once more to lend support at their now annual open day.   They had excellent support from many of the boat owners like us but more importantly plenty of prospective customers visiting. 

There seemed to be more prospective live aboard's this year and Chris was kept busy answering the usual questions new boaters tend to ask, and yes the proverbial loo type questions included.  She had thought to include photos of inside AmyJo as it is usually,  and this greatly helped them see what it's really like below deck of a live aboard narrow boat (she had tidied up for the photos I must add).

Some of the many visitor, including Jim Sparks from Alexander Boats on the Left (light blue jumper)

 It was great to see the Fernwood team and to meet other Fernwood boat owners once more.  This year was especially good as we got to meet Del and Al from Derwent 6 again who help to start us off on our dream.  We were also delighted to meet Carl and his wife again whose boat, WiFry, is in build at Ferwoods at the moment.  Carl took great pride showing me around her.  They came and visited us on AmyJo while we were at Crick during the show and have kept in touch ever since.  |It was obvious he was as excited as we were when AmyJo was in build.  We'll be seeing more of WiFry later.  We wish them all the best with their build.

An impressive buffet was laid on including this very detailed cake made by Peter's wife. Very tasty it was too!

 This year Steve and his wife from Willow Wren Training had a stall present and they were kept busy answering questions and even got some bookings for their helmsman's courses.  It was great to see Steve again too as he ran the helmsman's course Chris an I attended.  Steve showed me his photographs of the latest developments at their new training site.  They are presently excavating the old cement works arm alongside their training centre that will eventually be home to new moorings.  A serious amount of soil has been now been removed uncovering the old canal sides almost in tact.  When finished it will all be quite impressive.

More customers with Willow Wren stall left and Andy Munro himself on the far right.

 So now back to the title of the post.  

Yes the storms are really my fault.  You see, for a combined birthday and Christmas present, Chris allowed me to buy I bought a professional camera drone a few weeks back.  I've managed to fly it barely twice since because of the winds.  Once, when I got it and once whilst staying in a B&B at the weekend of Fernwood's open day.  Since then it been blowing a hooey nearly every day and the drone has had to stay in its box, so there it is, I own up to the storms being my fault.  

I'm hoping to use the drone to take ariel photos of places we cruise to giving a new perspective of the areas we visit.  On the bright side I did get this cracking photo of the marina with it on its first flight.

Drone photo of the marina.