Mariadz has a spacious saloon with a large table meant for many people to eat and socialise around. And Maria and I have done our fair share of that! I expect that will also happen a lot when we go on our travels, if the opinion of John Rodriguez (the yacht broker and round-the-worlder) is anything to go by.

Although there is a sofa on three sides of the saloon table, you need standalone chairs for one of the longer sides if there are a lot of people.

Originally when we first got into boating we bought some cheap and cheerful directors’ chairs with Mariadz on the backs. These are lightly made and don’t stand up to much punishment, or time, particularly. In fact we have gone through a few sets of these as they have fallen apart. Being a bit of a hoarder, I have generally salvaged what I can from the broken chairs to use as spares for future chairs. However we always decided that, before we go, we would splash out on some well made, sturdy chairs that will last.  Unfortunately these cost nearly ten times as much! So that expenditure hadn’t been prioritised….

I am in the fortunate position of having both a mother-in-law and a step mother-in-law who I get on with very well. Jean, Maria’s step-mum, wanted to give us some money at Christmas and we were keen to buy something that would last and was tangibly from her.

Step forward our beautiful new onward trading directors’ chairs. We knew what we wanted and so went to the London Boat Show earlier this year with the intent of finding these chairs.  We rarely do to this show any more because there is hardly anything there, preferring the Southampton boat show, but we were in luck and stumbled across their store. The boat show price was good and we were also able to get Mariadz embroidered on the backs in gold, I’m assuming real gold.  These chairs are built from harder wood which is thicker, feel sturdy and good quality and are light years ahead of the old chairs.  The cushions are very comfortable although we also had other options on these which Maria had to think long and hard about. It means that we spent More than an hour choosing exactly what we wanted, and this also included having to find our friend Dan to give us another opinion! When you consider that we knew exactly what we wanted before we arrived, this sounds even more ridiculous. They are now in pride of place in the saloon.  This has presented me with a couple of problems: Maria now looks at the upholstery in the saloon and wants to change it to match the colour of the seats and they are so nice I am loath to put them into the lazzerette for fear of damaging them. Now I need something to protect them! Maybe another bag….

Finally, and most importantly, thank you my step mother-in-law Jean Smallwood.

Some people laugh at the fact that we take our cats skiing.  But the cats love it! They chill on the motor home while we are out and then go out for a walk in the snow for a while when we return.  The small space in the van means they are always close and so we have found they love their holidays.  Obviously they can’t ski, without thumbs they would struggle to hold the poles and after the trouble with Maria’s ski boots and can’t imagine how we would get Bonnie fitted. But of course they could snowboard!?!  Maybe like their ginger friend…..

Last year for our ski holiday we travelled to St Anton and stayed at a beautiful campsite with a plush adjacent bathroom.  This worked really well as a bathroom, toilet, washing area and drying room.  It also meant that we didn’t have an issue with damp on the van since this was all done in the en-suite.  This was a stroke of luck actually because we had found the tanks had frozen after a few days so the only source of water we had was from our heated outhouse.  This was a little disappointing that the water system froze since we had bought the winter pack for the van, with tank heaters to stop freezing, but these had been reset when the power had gone off for a short period and we hadn’t noticed. The water supply in our bathroom was fine and it therefore wasn’t too inconvenient.

The costs in St Anton were quite reasonable too, with the two weeks costing about €600 for the rental. We did make the mistake of using electricity for our heating though.  This is less efficient than the gas and our electricity bill for the two weeks was about the same again – still a lesson learned. St Anton was great with a short bus ride to the skiing area but while there a couple suggested that we look into Fieberbrunn which is now linked to the Saalbach Hinterglemm ski area. Maria had set about sorting this out and had found a great camp site which is a short ski down from the runs and approximately 50 metres from the lifts.  Like St Anton this one had a heated outhouse but maybe not quite so plush. However, the other facilities were excellent with a heated indoor/outdoor pool and a spa. We knew Maria would want to spend some time in there.

Our traditional route south when we go to Italy takes us mostly through France and we pay a lot in tolls to get there at a good pace.  The suggested routing followed a similar route but cut through to Switzerland and then Austria but for a few minutes longer we could travel through Belgium and Germany avoiding the French tolls. We decided to give this route a go and it looked like it would take about twelve hours at our normal cruising speed. It would also mean no tolls until we got to Austria.

Maria likes to start the holiday early and it also helps if you can cut out the two hours on the UK side before checking into the tunnel for the train across the channel.  We have found it takes four hours from home to get to Calais and so we break up the journey with an overnight in the UK and another half way to Austria.

So the day before our holiday, we drive down to the Eurotunnel or more precisely the Drum Inn which is a few minutes away from the entrance. We are both due to be working from home the next day and this allows us to do our jobs, pack up and be on the train nice and early.  The Drum Inn is a pub with camping facilities in one of its gardens.  This includes power, toilet and shower facilities and it isn’t too expensive. Although Maria and I have been successfully dieting for the last few months, we decide to eat in the restaurant. There is a reasonable selection and good quality without being amazing or too expensive, so good pub food.

The next day we are up early and both working away, the traditional rush before you go on holiday.  I have prepared a handover document but unfortunately we have had some problems with a supplier at work and it looks like I will be doing a few calls and meetings while I am away, not ideal but the price you pay if you want to do a good job I guess. The day goes quickly and it is soon time to leave to catch our train.  We are hoping that we can catch an earlier train but that isn’t possible as although we have arrived early, I still have some calls to do. We therefore have some time to consider where we will stay overnight. Maria has always been really good at finding places to stay on holiday, even if some of the motor home destinations have meant us visiting three or four different sites before she is happy. We decide to stop at Cologne in Germany and Maria finds a large hard standing area right on the river that isn’t too far away from the major roads. We will be arriving quite late especially with the extra hour of the time difference but it will leave us a seven hour drive the next day and so Suicide Sam the SatNav is programmed and we are ready to go.

The journey through France is uneventful with limited traffic and good conditions. It seems no time at all before we are in Belgium and approaching Brussels. Now Brussels has a by-pass but I had made the mistake of not checking the map at this point so I was not too suspicious when Sam suggested that the ring road went the wrong way and we should come off and take a short cut that he knew – go into Brussels, its gorgeous! I was a little dubious but we gave it a go…..into the centre of Brussels! I imagine this route is 100 metres shorter than the by-pass but of course with evening rush hour well underway the is a lot of traffic. We are making progress though and so maybe we will just chalk it up to one of Sam’s idiosyncrasies. As you approach the centre of Brussels there is a beautiful building in front of you, the Basilique Nationale de Sacre-Cœur à Koekelberg, which looks magnificent. It guards the entrance to the Tunnel Leopoldo II. It is very pretty, thank you Sam for showing us this……. and then we have a 2.2metre height restriction on the tunnel! Sharp turn left, since that height would take off our heads as well as a lot of the van, and turn around. We had not come too far so we probably only lost 15-20 minutes with the detour before we are back on the by-pass and safely on our way to Cologne.

We arrive in Köln (Cologne) in the dark and find a very full motor home park with excellent facilities right on the River Rhine.  It’s a very nice quiet spot near the bustling city.  It is quiet enough, and late enough, to let the cats have a little bit of time outside the van and they go off and have an explore. To be fair they have been great for the entire journey with Clyde spending a lot of time on Mum’s lap and Bonnie sitting up high keeping an eye on things. Obviously except when she also wants some mummy lap time – they really are awfully big cats to have on your lap for a long time. They are incredible really and never bother the driver, although Maria doesn’t get any rest!

At the site, we’re hooked up for power and even though we will only be there for a few hours we have to pay the price of €12 for 24 price. A quick dinner and early to bed, we have seven hours driving tomorrow to get to Fieberbrunn and it would be good to arrive mid-afternoon.

We are up, fed and ready to go by 6:30 the next morning and excited for the last part of the drive. Our route from Cologne will take us close to Munich and into Austria but we will have to stop for fuel towards the end and also sort out the tolls for Austria.

Generally a day’s driving in the motor home equates to a need to fill up with fuel and as we leave Cologne, we need to stop and get some fuel having not done it the night before because it was late. We fill up for £1 a litre which is a refreshing change. Sam has a partner in crime on the motor home, Roger the range man, who tells us how many miles of fuel we have left. After filling up Roger is incredibly optimistic “I can take you to the moon and back….”, however after a hundred miles or so he starts to realise that its hard work pulling a motor home and maybe 450 miles is a better guess! When he then gets down to about 30 miles left, he sulks and refuses to give you any more information! It seems to be if you are going to run the fuel down that low then I can’t be bothered to tell you how close you are to running out. Anyway between the two of them, we are kept on our toes.

We are making good progress, despite a few delays, as I drive and Maria either sleeps or keeps up with what is going on in the world, that’ll be a combination of Facebook and the news then.  We are closing on Regensburg which I am reliably informed has family connections on my Aunt’s side, shame we didn’t know earlier, we may have stopped off to say hi.  It’s getting close to lunchtime and we still have several hours left to go.  That is when Sam tells us there is a major problem at Munich, with nearly an hour and a half delay! But it’s ok, he has a plan to get around it that he wants to share….ok…… Sam once more we will trust you as we come off the motorway to find another route South. Sam’s route takes us across country to another motorway heading towards Munich, I guess to get around the roadblock. We join the new motorway and it is all looking good, we’ve only lost twenty minutes or so. However, ten minutes later, Sam hits us with the news of a 101 minute delay on this road…. thanks! More suggested detours but we are getting concerned at the circuitous routes that Sam is now choosing. We have lost two hours though so how bad can it be, especially when this motorway joins up with the last one we were on. We are three hours away and have been that far away for a long time despite covering a number of miles, we agree to give him one more chance. Sam successfully finds another route with no nasty surprises but we have still lost time.

As we approach Austria our original 2pm arrival has turned into 6:30pm and we have lost any chance of arriving in the light. I also have to buy a go box which is how you pay for tolls in Austria when the van weights more than 3.5T. Last year we were stung by this, you pay by the kilometre and due to Sam getting us a little confused we had to go up and down the motorway a couple of times with the box pinging as the credit disappears. It meant that when we left Austria and handed back the box, we got very little money back. This year we stop at the services and I show our certificate of conformance that shows the engine category. I get the go box with a five euro charge and the minimum seventy euro credit, let’s hope that is enough since we have no idea how many motorways we will use to get to Fieberbrunn.

Actually it is surprisingly little as we are soon off the motorway and driving up the very clear mountain roads towards the resort. We’re driving through villages and small mountain towns, you can almost taste how close you are. It is snowy but the roads are very clear and although we have snow chains, there is no need.

After 800 Miles from home, we finally arrive at the Tyrol camp and discover that we have about 45 minutes until the office closes for the night at which time the gates are locked and you can’t get on site. So we had inadvertently cut it quite fine. I turn up the hill followed by a car although the road isn’t as clear of snow as we have found so far. Turning a hairpin corner, the car behind stops and waits, ah that’s kind… we start to head up the last 100 metres to the entrance and stop, spinning wheels on the ice. We’re going sideways on the ice, not good. There is an entrance down on the outside of the hairpin so I gently roll us back down to there, now we know why the car waited! A kindly driver coming down the hill stops to explain that the camp have a tractor since they are used to this and they will tow us in if I pop up to the office. I get the papers and start to head up the hill leaving Maria mostly blocking the entrance and the road but at least there is a way round if people are careful. Let’s hope they are!

I arrive in the office and check us in, getting the keys to our bathroom etc. I ask about the tractor to help us get up the hill and am informed that they use a 4×4 to tow in caravans and no chance that they will try and pull in a 4.25T motorhome! “Do you have snow chains”, “yes”, “well you have 40 minutes to get them on then! ”. I trudge down the hill and explain to Maria that we have to get our new snow chains out and fit them quickly, and this will be our first time.  Fortunately I have a large old cardboard box that I can lay out flat on the floor to provide me some protection against the snow.  We have them out of the box and I vaguely recall how it works from the time we test fitted them onto the land cruiser a few years ago, the instructions are the same but it will take some time.  At this point a very kind Austrian gentleman came down the road we were blocking and seeing our predicament and our confused faces, took control. He had clearly done this many times before.  He had them fitted in minutes and we did some roll forward and back tests before tightening up and we were ready to go. Maria tried to ply him with a very nice bottle of red wine as a thank you but he would not have it and left us with only our gratitude – aren’t the Austrians nice!

We gently drive the last 100 metres and have 20 minutes before the gate closes. Even with the snow chains on, we’re struggling for grip, I wonder if I would have had more luck if I had reversed up the hill. Obviously with Maria walking ahead of the van…. may be that isn’t such a great idea after all. Anyway we’re in! Now to negotiate the even thinner, snow-covered roads within the site to get to the far corner where our posh pitch is located. I am just about to turn into the very tight blind corner after reception when I see the lights of an oncoming vehicle. It is a four wheel drive BMW with no snow chains on but with winter tyres and he brakes ten metres away, locks up and drifts gently towards us….I think he misses us by inches with nowhere for me to go but it reminds me that the potential for disaster on this trip is far from over even without Sam’s help. A couple more cars drift by with a subset of wheels locked up before we can start to head up the hill.  We find our pitch which is on the edge of the site facing the lifts and slopes, what a perfect spot.

We have parked up and are starting to get ourselves sorted out when the man in the 4×4 pops by. He is clearly very happy that he didn’t have to tow us in but sets about giving us access to electricity and then looking at how he can plumb in the on-site gas supply into our van.  This is amazing. We can’t store enough gas for two weeks solid use in the snow and so being able to be “mains-supplied” is brilliant. We are assured that cost wise it is cheaper than buying the gas canisters, which of course we can’t get in Austria anyway since the UK vans by default have a UK canister.

It isn’t long before we are all settled down, our dinner is cooking away, Clyde is out exploring, Bonnie is refusing to go out because it is too cold and the holiday can begin in earnest! That is another story for another day…. but one thing I will say is in the next 24 hours we had two feet of snow and I genuinely don’t know how we would have got there then!

Mariadz is quite a large yacht and the saloon is a very comfortable area to sit.  We have always been keen to modify her to make this area more comfortable or nicer to look at.  I think you could argue that the saloon table itself is a work of art, but with a large area of wood on the wall behind the seating, we were keen to break this up with something spectacular.  For a number of years we had discussed a piece of art for this wall, inspired by the Moody Mornin’ Gorgeous that we looked at when we bought the Moody 54. In  fact we had previously commissioned a picture from an artist in Long Milford of our last yacht, the Dufour 455. It was amazing as he put together various different elements to form a picture of “our” boat that had never been taken. The picture was good but a few months ago we went to a small exhibition at Ipswich marina of a local artist, Anne Plummer.

Her work was jaw-droppingly good.

We had been lucky to meet Anne and her partner Mark on another friend’s boat relatively recently, Mark from Motion. So we already knew that she was a nice person even if we were unaware of her unbelievable talent.  At the show, we made our decision that Anne was our artist for the signature piece of art for Mariadz.

A few short weeks later we spoke to her about the commission. We have a picture from our first weekend sailing which is a dynamic picture of Mariadz sailing at 8.5knts down the Orwell.  We asked for the enhancements we had made to be included such as the solar panels and the rib.  In response, Anne had said no outboard on the rib… “they’re ugly”, we also discussed whether the water should be “Orwell brown”, perhaps not!

Based on these two pictures, Anne was able to do some initial drawings.

Wow!

it was clear straight away we had made the right decision on our artist. The first sketches showed the power of a yacht and really teased us as to how the art would look. A few short weeks later and the work was done. Anne had deliberately made sure that the painting didn’t look like a photograph and the key to knowing that it is an original Anne Plummer is that there are cat hairs within the painting. More proof that we had the right person!

So then we had to think about framing. In these instances, you have to ask an expert, and so Anne’s opinion was important to us.  After a long discussion, Anne recommended a couple of framers in Ipswich. We visited M F Gallery and Framing, and spoke to Owen.  Anne has work hanging in the gallery and is well known.  We discussed the decor on Mariadz and agreed that the frame should pick up some of the new wood that we had in the saloon, namely the maple. Owen was really helpful and we have heard some good reviews of his work. The maple had to be ordered in but a couple of weeks later it was all done and up on the wall of the saloon.

So now we have an original Anne Plummer! I have to admit I am in awe of people with genuine talent like Anne and I can’t help keep looking at the picture and the detail she has put into it.

So it’s the time of year when we hunker down for the winter and I am keen to make sure that we have a stress free winter so there are some more essential preventative maintenance jobs that need to be addressed.

First is the grey water box, of which we have two on Mariadz. These combine the waste from the sinks and showers into a single accumulator box for feeding into the grey water pump for pumping overboard. During our ownership, we have had a number of issues with this system. Firstly, the pump was taking an age to pump out a relatively small amount of water. We changed the whale gulper pump to a larger capacity pump (Whale Gulper 220 to Whale Gulper 320 for those that know the pumps). As part of this the pipe work to the pump was changed to a wider bore. This made a difference but performance degraded quite quickly and it was taking a minute to pump out. The 320 we had was also very noisy and occasionally seemed to jam. I then investigated the pipework to the hull and discovered at the right angle joint prior to the skin fitting that two plastic screw head covers had become wedged which acted as a very effective valve limiting the output from the pump. This returned the system to “ten second bob”.

However we were still unhappy with the noise level of the pump. I spoke to whale who offered to review the pump since it was still in warranty. Fortunately i had a spare 220 pump that could act as a replacement. The difference was amazing. Prior to the swap, you could hear the pump anywhere on the boat and it was a conversation stopper in the saloon. Afterwards, it was so quiet that you have to listen out for it! Whale diagnosed the problem with the 320 which was a manufacturing defect around the screw area that driove the pump and provided a new replacement, good customer service. I haven’t fitted it yet because the 220 is doing such a marvelous job.

I digress. The main gray water problem we have on the boat is caused by two people showering on board every day. The soap and shampoo gathers in the accumulator and solidifies into fatty lumps. These clog up the float switch and eventually it stops working causing smelly grey water to seep into the bilge.  Cue clean up, complaints about smell and lots of stress for me.

The solution for us is to give the grey water box a clean out every three months. I can remove the white deposits and floating lumps and clean up the box, ensuring no smells, and a happy Maria (very important). This isn’t officially classified as a “blue job”.  Doing this has worked very successfully for the last few years with no unfortunate accidents.

Next up are the valves for the through hulls below the water line. You will recall that all of these were changed as part of the summer refit. Now our job is to keep them in peak condition. To do this we make sure that they do not jam. So my job throughout the year is to open and close the valves on all twenty through hulls below the waterline. We do this every three months or so and check for stiffness in the valve.  They are also thoroughly serviced as part of our summer haul out.  All of the valves closed and reopened easily so again we have hopefully not got any issues there.

The next task is not traditional regular maintenance but has gone wrong twice in two years so maybe it is becoming regular 🙂 .  Our hot water heater is used constantly since we have two showers a day and washing up every day.  A few weeks ago our earth connection on the electricity tripped.  By switching off parts of our electrical system this was traced to the hot water heater. On investigation there was water in the top of the heating elements signifying some kind of leak.  I switched off and carefully dried out the electrics and this worked well.  But a few days later it happened again and the water had returned around the electrical connections. We decided to replace the heating elements which is a relatively low cost solution but while we waited I decided to dry it all again.  It took a while to get the part source down and also coordinate Ollie from Seapower with my diary so that I could be there, i will be able to address this in future rather than just diagnosing.  We swapped the element and electrical control.  All seemed well but a couple of days later we didn’t have any hot water….. when I pulled the cap from the electrical area, I noticed that the reset hadn’t been pushed so we hadn’t probably been heating our tank for a couple of days and hadn’t noticed that it wasn’t reheating.  We need to keep an eye on it to make sure it isn’t a problem with the cutout or the tank getting too hot but at the moment we are back to piping hot water.

The last part of maintenance that we attempt is to make sure that the filter for the raw water feed for the toilet is cleaned out.  The jabsco pump has an unusual locking mechanism with a black clip that’s holds the pipe into the pump.  This took some time to work out when I first had a blocked filter!  The Jabsco Inline Filter is also connected using this mechanism but the cap just needs unscrewing and the filter inside cleaned out.  It’s a good idea to make sure that the through hull is closed when this is done or the bilge will get a quantity of sea water while you frantically try and close the valve.  The key when putting it all back together Ian to be v Ray carful with the o-ring or you will get a leak.  To be fair a replacement isn’t difficult or expensive but it is annoying to have to do this because of a trapped o ring. And nobody likes a trapped o ring!

Finally, we have always had a small pool of fresh water under the floorboards near to Maria’s side of the bed, and adjacent to the heads. This had defied investigation for a long time and we had tried many things. Was it a lea from the lazarette? Was it a leak from a deck drain? Was it condensation from the kitchen extractor fan pushing hot air through a cold void? In the end we noticed a slight leak from the water fittings in the sink.  Having sorted this with PTFE tape, we now have no water in that space.  Of course we later found a similar leak in the galley sink but hopefully we have addressed these leaks. My standard approach with these kind of leaks is to leave toilet paper around the area so that we can check if the leak returns, at least for a little while. So far so good!

Maria has traditionally been a bit of a Bah humbug over Christmas. She is very generous around presents and giving but on the day just can’t be bothered. For the last few years, with us going away skiing at Christmas, Maria has even refused to have any decorations out.

This year is a little different. We have delayed our ski holiday until the end of January, hoping to have better conditions.  So we are around at Christmas and this time I have put my foot down! (After asking permission of course!) 🙂 Part of the problem with Christmas, is that the cats are quite playful and anything hanging from the tree is fair game, in fact the tree itself is fair game – and we all know how much Bonnie and Clyde like to climb a tree…. so our tree options are limited to say the least.

We had to get more imaginative. Maria, like my family, like a big tree and so we decided to have the biggest tree in Ipswich! In fact our tree is 20 metres tall. 🙂

Firstly, we had to search the internet for a suitable set of outside lights. With a twenty metre mast to dress up as a tree, we would need a lot more than 50 metres of lights, the maximum we found in shops, and so we went with a 100 metre length off the Internet.  This would allow us to use the mast and spreaders to give the appearance of a big Christmas tree with the mast pulpits being the bucket at the bottom, also suitably dressed.

This was the first time I had been up the mast and so we enlisted the help of a friend of ours, Rob from Warisha. I had planned to form a set of triangles using the spreaders and the mast with the lights dropping down the mast to the next set of spreaders.  We started this late on a Sunday but realistically how long can it take…..

i was hoisted up the mast in the bosun’s chair on the passarelle line with Maria controlling the spinnaker halyard connected to me directly as my safety line. I was attaching the lines to the spreaders and strategic places on the mast using cable ties, hopefully these will be easy to cut when the time comes.  It was probably half way up the mast that I remembered that I was afraid of heights… still too late to go back so suck it up and don’t look down. Actually the view was very good from the top of the mast and I was fine as long as I limited my looking down to the next spreader rather than the deck or water level.

I went up and down between the mast and each set of the spreaders several times, not least of all because I didn’t get my carefully thought through plan right at the first attempt. But once we got into a rhythm it went well.

I may have mentioned that Maria was on the safety line, and those who know us will know that Maria is very protective of me, so there was no way that the safety line wasn’t going to do what it needed to do.  Unfortunately, Maria’s enthusiasm for keeping the safety line tight extended to a little “over-tightening”, this had the effect of slightly lifting me out of the bosuns chair with all of my weight going through my genitalia. At these points, I would loudly squeak that she should ease the tension in the safety line please! I know she is trying to look after me, but it took a few minutes for me to retrieve my private parts from my rib cage!

Rob and I used the remainder of the lights to wrap around the mast pulpits like a decorated bucket that the “tree” I saw sitting in. Meanwhile Maria decorated a steps with a second set of lights.  Finally a couple of Christmas wreaths for the step show and the bow and the outside of the boat was decorated. If I’m honest the switch on ceremony was a quiet affair accompanied by a couple of hot drinks rather than champagne and no real crowd of onlookers ;).  It was really quite cold, which had also not helped with the genitalia retrieval earlier and the hot drink was very welcome.

Finally a video of the finished product and we are ready for Christmas!