Daniel was ashore visiting Angela as the family stayed with me in Ely and we serviced the Paxton Princess and tender and prepared for or forthcoming trip out of King Lynn to Grimsby. A nice lunch in Bonnets and then the girls went swimming as I caught up with my logs and journal.
The weather had made a real improvement today, with the sun coming out again. I reckoned we might have sufficient fine weather for our trip to Grimsby on Saturday
Another satisfactory night moored up on the newly refurbished public moorings at Ely. This was despite being near to the railway bridge. Ten or fifteen years ago, the railway used to be a terrible disturbance but now the reduced services mean that you hardly notice it at all. Then we all got on with some chores this morning. Yesterday we had got both holding tanks pumped out which pleased Diana and today we changed an empty gas cylinder and then filled up the outboard motors with 2-stroke fuel. I also did some greasing on the propeller shafts and rigged up the manual double-action bilge pump with nearly ten metres of hose pipe. Diana took the girls up into the town and Debbie went to the library whilst Della went round the shops with her.
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I stayed on the Paxton Princess and did some course planning; establishing that the trip to Grimsby from Kings Lynn would take approximately 7 hours and that we would have first to get through Denver Sluice either the night before or early the same day. I made calls to the lockkeeper and also phoned home to make sure that the gardener was not still struggling with the alarm. It was also time for a precautionary service ahead of our sea trip. We all went to Bonnets for a nice lunch and were hoping that Daniel would be back in time to join us, but he was just too late. After lunch, Daniel helped me service our two outboard engines and we greased all of the lubrication points and drained and re-filled the gear-cases which was a job well done. Then we all walked back up to town to go swimming at the "Paradise Poo" (It should have been signed the Paradise Pool, but they had lost the "l" on the facia!) This was a good swimming session which all of the children including Daniel thoroughly enjoyed.
It was mid-evening before we got back to the boat and we just had tea and then settled down for the night. I caught up with my journals and logs and the children watched TV before going to bed. The weather had made a real improvement today, with the sun coming out again. I reckoned we might have sufficient fine weather for our trip to Grimsby on Saturday. A little problem at home as our internal alarm went off but Daniel was there to switch it off and I gave the code number to the gardener in case it happened again.