Myself and Mar decided that we deserve to get out for a pint.
Well before we go out for a night out we have to do a few chores. And that means washing
the boat down because next weekend is Patrick's weekend and hopefully we're going to head
out for the weekend.
Lovely job I'm doing, god I hate washing the boat.
I've a very busy job as well in fairness now, I have to hold a whole camera phone all to
myself here! And as you can see Marion is doing a better job of washing her suede boots
than washing the boat! We're taking the boat out for its first spin of the season and this
is Driftwood here on the lefthand side, it's the second boat in. The current is coming
from the right hand side and we've to bring the boat forward and kind of crab it sideways.
It's not the easiest of manoeuvres to do. The plan is that my buddy Hugh going to come
along with me and he'll give me a bit of a dig out. It's always good to have a second
pair of hands with you when you're doing an awkward job. There's Hugh, he came armed with
a boat hook so he must have reckoned that my driving was going to be really really bad!
Now the plan was that we would take the boat out here, we'd put the GoPro on to get this
bit of footage here and Mar would put the drone up. And with the Drone we'd get an nice
aerial shot. And that would show the manoeuvre all pretty pretty well. Now while the weather
was quite good, there wasn't much of a wind out, the light was quite good for filming
but lady luck was not on our side.
However this is going to be a short video for a number of reasons. One of the reasons
id that the drone shot didn't quite work. This is what happened. It was just one of
those things. but no real damage was done.
Now some will be more observant than others and at this point you will be asking yourself
a question and the answer to that question is yes they are toilets. and that was the
end of the drone shot.
From what we cam make out the drone has made a full recovery. But in fairness to Marion's
professionalism she came down to the jetty, grabbed her phone and recorded a bit of footage
of us here. And you can see the way we have to crab the boat sideways. That's on account
of the current coming towards us and it's just a very tight manoeuvre. The current has
gone down, a way way down from what it was about two weeks ago.
There's Hugh standing guard on the front deck. We'll bring the boat out here into the river
and I'm going to reverse it back now. We'll go into the second finger down which is quite
a bit wider and has a lot more room in it and far fewer boats. So there we are, it looks
a bit funny reversing back. Looking at Hugh standing there swear there's a torpedo boat
going to come down the river, he's standing on guard with his boat hook. Sorry about that
Hugh! He's like Neptune with his trident! So the sun was out and it was actually a beautiful
day and when we got the boat in here we were able to sit out on the back deck and enjoy
a nice cup of tea. It was one of those sunny winter's days that I really really love.
So now we have a new mooring for next weekend, it's closer to the gate. The plan is for next
week is to go for a cruise up the river as far as the lough Ree maybe call into Hodson
Bay or over to Coosan Point.
Myself and Mar decided that we deserved to get out for a pint, and we said we'd bring
you with us. We'll have a couple of pints! And this is where we had dinner it's an Indian
restaurant The Silver Oak. Melodies Restaurant is on the West Bank of the Shannon next door
to Sean's Bar, and it's another superb spot to eat. Athlone is full of some wonderful
pubs this is Flannery's it's one of those spots you really have to go and see. All boaty
people of course must visit this bar, this is Sean's bar, this is the back entrance to
it. This is where you come out onto the roadway and out onto the river. There's the river
itself right outside the door, and if your taken by the idea you can moor your boat literally
right outside the door of the pub. So apologies that this is quite a short video guys. I hope
you did enjoy it and if you did you might give us a thumbs up. So with Athlone Castle
in the dark seeing us out we'll say thanks very much for watching. Cheerio.