Cold nights and sharp frosts contrast with warm evenings and misty mornings creating a confused start to this month.  Winter birds make the most of good feeding ground on the saltings, while a few swans still gaze in hope at empty boats in the marina.  Our familiar noisy oyster catchers are quiet and have been replaced with flocks of starlings, wind whistling though the halyards and foxes barking at night.

Hard standing space is at a premium as more and more boats come ashore for winter storage and neat lines of yachts edge the yard, squeezed together with just enough room for the hoist and crane to manoeuvre. Yard hands have been busy while the travel hoist lifts and shifts its nautical loads.  The need for valuable space ashore has heralded an urge to tidy up. This is not a job for the faint-hearted or weak willed. A few moments rest has been welcome after hours of hand-balling heavy blocks and engine parts. The digger has played it’s part too and now some fresh gravel carpets the area beside the quay creating a fresh new look.

The Bruce Roberts 58′ has left the extendable mobile workshop; she now sits on the quay resplendent in her new coat of paint. The workshop has been swept clean and feels unusually large as it houses small jobs: fitting foam and vinyl to new head-linings, varnishing a mast and housing a diesel fuel injector pump awaiting repair.

High spring tides and strong South-Westerlys have led to flood warnings with one particularly high tide flooding the far end of the quay.