 |
| I went swimming off this beach! |
We seem to be alternating between town and country marinas on this trip and our next berth kept the pattern going, with a berth at Poole Quay Boat Haven. It used to be possible to moor on the town quay at Poole for a modest fee, if you were very well fendered. Possibly it still is, but most of the quay is now occupied by trip boats and Brownsea Island ferries, and the local authority's preference is for you to use its very expensive (£47 a night) facilities at the relatively new marina. This can take huge superyachts including the Swedish Cygnus Montanus, £30m-worth of Frers-designed, NZ-built family superyacht. However, the marina is not as smart as you would expect for your dosh.
 |
| Cygnus Montanus heading out |
 |
| The old quay looks very uncomfortable |
A stroll on Wednesday afternoon took me much further than I thought, to find Boots (hydrocolloidal plasters for a weeping wound on Sam's leg which I'm a bit worried about) and M&S, where for the first time for many months I walked into a store and bought a pair of trousers!
On Thursday morning I felt I needed a run so headed over the bridge and found Hamworthy park which has a shallow beach. A brief paddle confirmed that the water was as warm as it looked, so I stripped off and had a brief swim. What bliss, even in in 50cm deep water. I had no towel of course, so once again I was running in very wet clothes, this time through the middle of Poole. Goodness knows what people thought.
I was keen to get Sam a shower again so I had thought I'd look at the facilities, which are behind a series of unprepossessing blue doors on the other side of the road, next to Tesco Metro. I couldn't get in to the accessible one so enquired at the marina office, and discovered it had a different code which released the keypad lock but still didn't open the door. After trying it half a dozen times, and being advised that someone was probably using it (for 12 hours?) it transpired on Thursday that you need to put in the code and then rattle the door with the strength of a 20-year-old man, and then it opens. How well thought out. But when we finally got in it was nearly worth the effort, with gallons of very hot water and even sideways jets which went pretty much everywhere but over Sam.
Once clean and dry we went for a pleasant walk and sat and drank a cappuccino in the sun. It was almost like normal life.
No comments:
Post a Comment