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| Our dirty brown home waters |
This text was first posted on Facebook and all the links go to FB pages.
Just adding up the numbers on our summer cruise with the wonderful Westerly Owners' Association, and back. Sam and I spent 59 nights on board in 20 different ports (some visited twice). We had seven different crew members and covered a total of 914 nautical miles. That feels like an achievement!
- Number of marinas where we got Sam straight off the boat and into an accessible shower: one (Brighton Marina - Premier Marinas, but the rest of the marina was an accessibility nightmare with some of the steepest ramps I have ever tried to use).
- One where a staff member had to unlock a back gate to get us to the ramp (Dover Marina).
- Various locations where Sam didn't get off or having a shower was not practicable.
- One where there were no accessible facilities in the nearest shower block (Chichester Marina).
- One where the shower was ok and there were ramps everywhere outside, but the main entrance door was too narrow for the wheelchair, so Sam had to walk in (Gosport Marina).
- One needing a special code *and* a staff member to violently shake the door before it opened (Poole Quay Boat Haven & Port of Poole Marina).
- One where the disabled shower room outside door had been broken and not fixed (Portland Marina).
- One with no actual accessible facilities. but one shower out of six had enough room for a wheelchair (Plymouth Mayflower Marina - it did have a bath though!).
- One where only berthholders with a tag could get into the accessible shower, but fortunately a staff member unlocked it for us (Darthaven Marina).
- One which needed a separate code but was otherwise ok (Shepards Marina, Cowes), hooray!
- And one where I have never found out how to get into the accessible shower: our own home marina, Suffolk Yacht Harbour.
Thank you so much to our crew David Jibb, Ben Brown and Anne Chiu, Lucilla Herrmann and Mark Edwards, Alex Hanford and David Gibbons and to all the wonderful organisers especially Gill Clare and Ian Bartlett.
