and he chooses to BRING live mice on
board, much to the amusement of our
two dogs. I’m afraid I shrieked like a
banshee, once, when I felt something
moving under the bedclothes down by
my feet. Horrible. Middle of the bloody
night, absolute pandemonium, wind
howling, dogs howling and there,
revealed under the duvet, sure enough
was a wee, sleekit, cowran, tim’rous
beastie of a mouse.
Whoever said “As quiet as a mouse” has
never stepped on one. Never mind, it was
soon extricated, dropped in a box and
repatriated the following morning, but the
damage to this captain’s reputation has
never been restored.
You’d expect him to at least know his
own boat when returning from hisCRUISING NOTES
Horsey Mere,
Norfolk BroadsJulie Garner with Teddy the Yorkshire
terrier, Theo the cat and Megan the collie
Theo enjoying some leisurely
swan-spotting on the Norfolk BroadsNew guide to The Netherlands standing mast routes
A new guide to the Dutch
standing mast routes has been
produced by the European
Inland Waterways Section of
the Cruising Association (CA).
In last month’s Cruising
Notes, Russell Yardley shared
his ‘unforgettable’ mast-up
voyage across the Netherlands.
Several hundred yachts travel
through the standing mastroutes each year, many en
route to the Kiel Canal and the
Baltic. However, obtaining
accurate, up-to-date advice in
English on the routes has
always been a challenge.
The 48-page Through the
Netherlands via the Standing
Mast Routes, provides detailed
navigational information on 14
different routes by which yachtscan transit the Netherlands.
Written by CA members Andy
Mulholland and James
Littlewood, the guide covers
nearly 1,000km of waterways
from Vlissingen near the
Belgian border to Delfzijl near
Germany’s border.
Available from http://www.theca.
org.uk/catalog and Lulu.com
priced at £10 plus p&p.forays. Wrong. We once took the dogs for
a walk down the towpath at Potter
Heigham, and as is his wont, he trailed on
behind us. Eventually we began to make
our way back and Theo suddenly set off
really quickly to beat us all back on board.
Unfortunately for him, meanwhile, a red
Pegasus 700 had moored up in front of
our red boat. Theo tore up to her and
jumped on. I don’t know who was more
surprised, him at seeing the unknown,
strange crew or them at this startled,
ginger apparition coming, seemingly from
nowhere and landing in their midst. Theo
did a sort of double-take, quickly
scrammed and got on the right boat.
Funnily enough he does recognise when
we’re about to enter our very own marina,
he’s too impatient to wait while we faff
about coming in to moor, so his preferred
disembarkation method is to spring off our
boat onto a moored boat and then
leapfrog onto dry land.
He seems to be a nightmare to have as
crew, no? My wife worries and frets over
him, far more than she does me. Well,
despite all the trials and tribulations he
brings to our sailing, we really, really
wouldn’t have it any other way, he’s family
you see. It’s his DUTY to be as he is.decided to sail back to the marina to
re-provision. After that we’d return.
Well, he must have been watching us
from the long grass because no sooner
had we cast off, then he came careering
across the towpath, and despite our
shouts of, ‘No!’ (well, there was a huge
gap between us and him), he made a leap
of over 10ft and landed with a thump in
the cockpit. He was obviously worried that
we’d leave him behind. Time and tide wait
for no cat, indeed.
Shore-hugging pets
We never take any of our animals to sea
though. Too harsh, too daunting. It’s hard
enough taking care of ourselves, never
mind looking after Theo and his other two
gang members, Megan and Teddy the
faithful hounds. I’m pleased to say though,
they’ve done all the best sailing in the
Lake District: Windermere, Coniston,
Derwent and Ullswater in our second
boat, an Eagle 525 trailer sailer. Plus
several trips to Kielder Water.
Cats, so they say, are excellent mousers.
A great tradition existed in ancient times
for having them on board in order to
control rodents. Unfortunately our Theo
suffers from some sort of crossed wiring
KumarSriskandan/Ala
my