Gesina: 2013

Monday, 16 December 2013

Winter in Heybridge

We went exploring in Tollesbury.

Low tide in/on the salt marshes.

Which way to go?

Restored ships lofts, Tollesbury.

Nigel's mother, Margery Fisher, was born and raised in Tollesbury, so we just had to go and have a look at the village. After some research on the internet he discovered that there were historic connections to ancestors having been involved in fishing and landlords of public houses. No surprises there then!

We arranged to housesit for some friends we made while cruising in 2012. They were going to Australia for a few months to visit their children, so with us there the house wasn't left empty, and it gave us a base to host Christmas for our family. So all round mutual benefits.

This pink house in Heybridge had an unusual notice on the side gates. Just couldn't resist taking a picture of this!

Thursday, 5 December 2013

Adapting to life in Good Old Blighty

Supermarket club cards and other mysteries of life.

As I was in England on my own and without a car, and no longer had a Tesco loyalty card, I had to reapply for one, so that I could have groceries delivered. Actually this was a much quicker process than I had feared, and the delivery person even carried the groceries into the kitchen. This made things much easier for me, as I had to get 'Christmas' ready before Ni joined my on 19th December.

So I managed to buy most of the family Chrismas presents, disappointingly quite a few online as the local shops didnt have what I/others wanted, all before Ni arrived to enjoy Christmas.

I soon got to grips with the local buses, having paid out for a taxi to and from Maldon just to find my way around. Though I did have to take a taxi to get the 6' Christmas tree back to the house!

There were lots of good walks around Heybridge, and Tashi enjoyed exploring, although on reflection it seems she was quite unsettled. We hadnt realised this until we retuned to our boat when she lept onboard, and settled down into her own little corner.

Friday, 29 November 2013

Hosting a Family Christmas

It seemed there was plenty of food for all!

But Harry thought he would fool us by coming 'in disguise' and so did Marina!

Wednesday, 13 November 2013

Gesina: The End of another Season

Briare, winter mooring 2013/14

Gesina: The End of another Season:

Well Gesina made it to Briare, via an unexpected route, meeting some interesting people, and seeing beautiful scenery.

A picture of concentration, passing spectators, photographers and strong winds didn't put the skipper off his course!

A beautifl autumnal day enhanced our walking around the now disused canals around Briare.

A very smart visitor came to lunch!

Some locks we encountered on our summer cruise. Some are pretty and some are just pretty awful!


Geraniums on the gates on the lock at le Guetin


Coming off the Saone onto the Canal du Centre

Thursday, 16 May 2013

In the Beginning

It all started in 2008 on the Greek island of Lipsi. "We could sail around the Mediterranean in Chantal", the 27' yacht we had moored back in Poole Harbour, says Nigel. For some strange reason I didn't agree. However, we did come to a very English compremise - a Dutch barge around Europe.

So, how to go about it? Well first of all we rented a Locaboat in Loosedrecht, an area we later came to know well. This was to see if we thought we could cope with handling a boat through locks and bridges. All went fine and so we booked ourselves onto Di and Tam Murell's ICC course in France aboard their boat Friesland.

Having looked at various boats for sale on the internet, while we were in France we travelled to several boat yards to look at actual boats, and then up to the Netherlands, where we found our dream boat - Gesina.

The following year we went again to Holland, Haarlem in fact, to join Roger van Dyken aboard his barge Vertrouwen, to spend a week with him, his wife Marlene and two other Americans Shelley and Ken Smithson. The object of this week was to learn all aspects of skippering a 65 ton barge, and was the most beneficial thing we did.

Wednesday, 15 May 2013

Auxerre, winter mooring 2012/13

Well here we go, a new blog.

Here we are snug in our winter mooring at Societe Aquarelle, Port de Plaisance, Auxerre, on a beautiful sunny day on October, 2012.

This was the scene here in Auxerre on 5th December 2012. The snow didn't last very long, but made the city very picturesque.

St. Etienne Cathedral

We made several new friends with other 'live-aboards' and enjoyed their company thoughout our long period of enforced mooring.

A Progressive dinner, New Years Eve, Auxerre 2012

Charlyn & Lizzie

All together for Christmas Day 2012

We were lucky enough to be able to go and join our family, and extended Spanish family, for Christmas thanks to the kindness of Simon and Charlyn Anderson having Tashi on their boat while we flew to the Uk.
We had several sociable gatherings, before during and after Christmas, and a Progressive Dinner on New Years Eve.

Wednesday evenings kept us amused with a film showing onboard Simon and Charlyns boat, Joli Coeur, along with other social events such as a ladies afternoon playing the domino game of Mexican Trains, eating out, and shopping trips. Somehow we managed to keep ourselves amused.

Daisy meets Tashi, 6 March 2013

Auxerre is a fantastic city, with many wonderful medieval buildings, museums and art galleries to visit, and restaurants and cafes to suit all tastes and purses. The city itself is obviously quite wealthy with extensive sports facilites, football grounds, sports centres, swimming pool and beautifully laid out park lands. The horticultural team has obviously given a lot of time and care in choosing the planting of these parks, and many unusual trees and shrubs can be seen. We also gained a lot of pleasure from watching the many birds that came close to, and in some cases onboard, our boat. We have never been so close to swallows, swifts and martins, and never before seen sparrows diving close to the water to catch flying insects.

Rue Sous Murs, Auxerre

Lissie and John were the first to leave in their boat on a grey day in April.

Puddle Stone leaving Auxerre

Now in May 2013 this is the time of the year when its 'change of clothes' four times a day. First is for talking our dog, Tashi, out for her early morning walk. So I just throw on something casual, perhaps warm. Then its a quick change into something more respectable to go shopping. During the day it might be old clothes to do painting, or other mucky jobs around the boat, then tidier clothes to walk Tashi after lunch. In the evening it might be a change of clothes again to go out for a meal. Who says you don't need many clothes onboard a boat!

Tuesday, 14 May 2013

The beginning of our journey in Holland

We bought our wonderful Dutch Tjalk Gronigen Bol Ship in Delfzyl, and did wonder if we were going to get all our 'necessaries' onto the boat!

We met some wonderfully kind people who gave us insight into their Dutch culture, and festivities, and some of these images are shown below. (With apologies to Blog 'experts' as the photos are not in chronological order, and I cant seem to fix this!)