The forecast for today was fair so I made haste down to the mooring, prepared the boat and set off down river.

Here's the club moorings from the otters side. I really must try to get a good photo from this direction.

And the photo ahead. A grey day and not much wind despite the forecast. They did get the direction correct.

I took this short video clip to show the GOBA people (Great Ouse Boating Association) the rubbish that's been accumulating on one of their moorings. I don't know what it is but it looks like some piece of furniture upside down full of rubbish bags.

I also spotted a clump of bright green in the river.

I thought at first that it might be Floating Pennywort but it's not, thankfully.

After that shot the wind started to drop so I turned round and went back upriver.

We were invited to a Christmas Dinner with friends the other evening and one of the Gentlemen present mentioned that he thought that sailing on the river would be much to much hard work "all that tacking backwards and forwards" and I thought afterwards that this was a motor boat person type of comment. When you hear people who own Motor boats talk about their boat it's mostly along the lines of "we went to this place" or "shall we go to that place next week". It's the destination that they are interested in and getting there on the river. Talk to a sailing person and usually the opposite is true. "I had a great sail today, just trolling up and down" or "went out for a couple of hours yesterday. Had a great sail". Here the emphasis is on the sailing and not the destination.

So, I greatly enjoyed the sailing upriver from the moorings as I tacked to and fro trying to get the best out of the fairly awful sails. I wonder how much better Naiad will sail once I get a professionally made suite of sails.

I had a very good sailing the river today.