Introducing ...

It's time to catch up on the latest additions to the Norfolk Branch of Bears Unlimited. They didn't all arrive at once, and they all have very different previous lives, but the one thing they have in common is that they've all joined Bears Unlimited this year and have all settled in really well.

The first to be introduced is Victor of the lovely furry coat, who is sitting to the left of the picture. Victor was presented to our female minder as a leaving present when she changed jobs at the end of February. As our minder works for Victory Housing Trust there was only one name for this new bear, Victor. He might look a bit serious in the picture but he is a cheerful soul who does smile a lot - trust us.

Hot on the heels of Victor, came Peter who is proud to wear his yellow RNLI coat. You won't be surprised to hear he is a member of the Sheringham RNLI crew and, like Victor, he has very thick fur to keep him warm when out on the boat. Peter and Boating Bear Eddie, hit it off immediately and Peter has spend the summer helping Eddie out on his seal boats.

Bear number 3, in the middle, only arrived yesterday. He is Nick, the picnic bear and he arrived in the rather fine picnic hamper that the 3 guys are sitting on. Both Nick and the hamper were presents to us from two members of our extended family who got married yesterday. We allowed Nick a bit of a lie in this morning as he had such a big day yesterday, but he's been chattering non stop this afternoon - after all there are rather a lot of bears for him to meet. He's also been asking when he can go out with us on a picnic.

Welcome all 3 of you and we hope you'll soon join us in reporting lots of exciting Bears Unlimited adventures.

Love from all at Bears Unlimited xxx

Miri Moves On

Boating Bear Eddie here to report on a very important responsibility I, and able sea bear Louis, had today. We had to prepare our much loved Mirror dinghy Miri to go to her new owners and home on the Norfolk coast, not a million miles from our Bear Cave.

We hadn't used her for a number of years, as my minders had found her a bit small, and she'd been succeeded first by Tarka (who was, no prizes for guessing, an Otter dinghy) and then by Skylark, the Wayfarer we're currently using. We'd been looking after Miri, as she was safely stored in a garage, so warm and dry, but it wasn't really fair on her to keep her away from her natural watery environment for so long.

About a month ago we decided we should try and find her a new home, so we got her rigged and took lots of photos for an advert. I recommended that we put our advert on Apollo Duck as this is a great website for buyer and sellers of boats to meet.

Even though she is a very old boat, we all thought she looked great in the photos we took, and we hoped there would be at least one person wanting to give her the good home she deserved.

We were in luck; the same day the advert was published we had a call from someone who had a holiday home near Brancaster. He was learning to sail along with his two sons and felt that a Mirror would be the right boat for them. We couldn't agree more, and a deal was done.

Today was the appointed day for taking Miri over to join her new owners, as we'd got a towing hitch and they hadn't. I got up early to give Miri a final check and a pep talk, then directed the Bearmobile back to hitch up up.

It was a poignant moment when she came out the drive for the last time, but once we got to Brancaster and she met her new owners, who were very excited by her arrival, I felt a lot better and knew Miri was about to get a new lease of life and be kept very busy.

If you're a boat, being in the water is what it's all about, so we left her in Brancaster with a big smiles on our faces.

Lots of love, Eddie, Louis and all at Bears Unlimited xxx

A Life on The Ocean Wave

We’re back in more ways than one: we’re back blogging (sorry for the lack of posts recently) and we’re back from a wonderful maritime adventure with those great people at Sailing Holidays.

This is Boating Bear Eddie picking up the tale of our sailing adventure which has lasted two weeks and taken us to many of the wonderful islands of the South Ionian seas of Greece.

Readers with a long memory will know that flotilla sailing with Sailing Holidays is probably our favourite type of adventure, so good that it simply has to be repeated, and this was in fact our fourth trip with Sailing Holidays in the last 8 years.  Our first trip pre-dated this blog, but the other two have been reported in full and can be found in the archives of 2010 and 2007.

The trips are so popular with B.U. members that we set a new record for the biggest contingent travelling abroad – 7 of us. I was joined by travelling bears George and Yorkie (of course),  Irish bear Patrick, and our 3 members of Greek extraction: my fellow boating bear Louis (who joined us at the end of our last flotilla) and turtles Zak and Stavros (from Zachynthos).

Horse racing fan Patrick might seem like a strange choice of travelling companion for a boating adventure, but there was a lot of sense to his inclusion. He was there to be re-united with our good friends John and Emily from Northern Ireland, who we’d met on our first flotilla and were due to be sailing with us again. They had given Patrick to us when we visited them at their Irish home. Patrick was very excited at the thought of seeing them again.

We were all very excited when we arrived at the Sailing Holidays base at Sivota on the island of Lefkas. We set off along the harbour searching all the many Sailing Holidays moored boats for one with the exciting name of Analipsi, which was to be ours.

We soon found her ... 

... and there was a mad scramble aboard to check her out and admire her fine lines and her internal space. She instantly got the paw of approval. We couldn’t spend long though as we had an even more important job to do, to meet our lead crew.

We didn’t have to look hard as they were a friendly bunch and as keen to meet us as we were to meet them. Our lead crew were Skipper Liz, Hostie Pip and engineer Jamie. We liked them from our first meeting and thankfully they seemed to like us too.

We felt very privileged to have a female skipper as they are a rare breed. Liz is the only one this season, and in our opinion,  better than many of her male colleagues. The whole crew was a class act and, as a good lead crew are the key to the best flotillas, we knew we had a great two weeks ahead of us.

We’ll be telling you lots more about these great folk and all our new boating experiences in the days to come.

Back soon

Love Eddie and the crew of Analipsi

All Aboard the Skylark

Surprise! It's me, Boating Bear Eddie again. I did promptly finish the canal boating posts as requested, but I have some other boating news to share with you.

Earlier in the year, we moved up in the boating world. For a while now, we'd been finding our Otter sailing dinghy, Tarka, lovely though she was, a bit too small on two fronts:

firstly, our minders kept wanting to come sailing with me and my fellow boaters, and they do take up rather more room than us bears,

secondly, the boat wasn't big enough to take an outboard motor and sails at the same time, yet we really wanted to motor out to the Blakeney Pit sailing area from Tarka's Blakeney Quay boating home, where we had to race, and fight, the tide.

After a fair bit of research, I decided that a Wayferer sailing dinghy would be just perfect for us. At the start of the year we came across a nice man who refurbishes Wayfarers and does a rather good job of it. The first boat we enquired about had already been sold, but he had another one coming in, and a modest deposit reserved it for me.

We had to wait a while for the renovation to complete, but as it was winter, there was no hurry. On one of the coldest days of the year, we went over to the St Neot's area to collect our new boat. It was a very exciting day and she looked splendid, but as it was still winter, we tucked her up in an elderly friend's garage.


We then had to find a good home for Tarka. We were all very fond of Tarka so wanted her to go to a family who would use her and appreciate her.

Fortunately, we found the perfect family fairly quickly, through a mutual sailing friend. The children had been on a sailing taster session and liked it so much that they had joined Hickling Sailing Club to learn how to sail. The parents thought they should learn too, and needed a simple family boat to take out on the Broad.

Fortunately Tarka fitted the bill, and not so long ago, they all came round to collect Tarka and to have a lesson in rigging her ...


I think I made it look sufficiently easy and they seemed to take it all in and were very excited to have their first boat. I had a tear in my eye as Tarka was hitched up and we waved goodbye, but it was great to know she was going to a good home.

It was now time to release our new Wayfarer from hibernation and to get her out to her new home at Morston Quay. The guys and I, plus our minders, have had a great few months, choosing a name, buying an outboard and getting everything bedded down during our first few trips: initially motoring out to see the Blakeney Point seals and, more recently, sailing.


Here we are rigging the boat for the first time; as you can see, we chose a rather fine day for it. I was in seventh heaven!

You'll be hearing lots more about our sailing adventures, but for now I will just let you know the name we decided on for our new boat. She is called Skylark as it is a seemed a good name for a Norfolk Boat and also because I just couldn't resist being able to say, "All aboard the Skylark?!''.

Back soon, lots of love Eddie xxx

Taking the Road Less Travelled

Eddie here readers. I'm coming under pressure to complete my boating posts since, as George and Yorkie keep reminding me, there have been 2 further Bears Unlimited adventures since this one, and they're keen to have the blog back.

What I didn't tell you in my last post, when I waxed lyrical about our Greensforge mooring, was that we this mooring wasn't actually on the route I'd planned. I'd gone 'off piste' as I heard what a lovely spot it was, but no-one minded when I confessed, as it was wonderful and we did have plenty of time.

So, the next morning we found a winding hole (a place to turn for the uninitiated), and I turned the boat round and we set off back the way we'd travelled the previous afternoon.

We could have continued on to Wolverhampton taking in the great Wolverhampton 21 lock flight, but this was the busy route, and I had the urge to take the road less travelled. And so, a few miles back, we made a left turn, and joined the Stourbridge Canal.

This was a first for all of us and we were eager to sample its delights. And so, as we went through the first lock, just after the turn, everyone who wasn't working, was out in the bow enjoying the sunshine and seeing what the Stourport had to offer.


The water rushing in to fill the lock, created a great frothy head and made us think that it was probably time for a beer! Very quickly, not only were we supping beer, but we were passing through wonderful countryside, and it was all so quiet. We didn't see another moving boat during our time on the Stourbridge, and it was hard to believe we weren't far from the centre of Birmingham.


While we travelled towards Birmingham, we had a few adventures which included:

- fishing Maria's grill pan from the bottom of a particularly deep and muddy section of the canal (female minder who forgot the handle wasn't permanently attached when emptying crumbs overboard to blame)
- an excellent day out at the Black Country Living Museum - go there if you're ever near Dudley
- a descent of the mammoth Tardebigge flight of 30 locks in record time (under 3.5 hours)
- lots of rain which created dramatic waterfalls over the front lock gates - there really was water everywhere.

Our last night on board came all too soon. We had a bit of a party on board and it must have been good, as there were no end of locals who wanted to join us; one tapped quite insistently at the window until gave him a party bag.


At 9.30 a.m. the next morning it all over, and Maria was safely returned to the Black Prince yard at Hanbury Wharf. We were all sad as we waved good bye, but we all love canal boating so much that we know we'll be back.

Lots of love Eddie and the crew of Maria xxx

Simply Special

By now we were really into our boating stride and the days started to pass far too quickly. There is always so much to see and do. A simple job, like stopping to fill up your water tank, can be so much fun when you make such amazing discoveries as this old lock paddle, close to the watering point.

I was able to use it to give my apprentice Louis a lecture on lock mechanics. However, he's such a bright spark that he'd already worked it all out, without seeing below the murky canal water. It's great to have someone as enthusiastic about boats as me, to talk over the finer points of boating.

George and Yorkie were more interested in the wildlife that abounds on the canals. Boating in April is great as you get to see so many baby ducks ...

... although you have to keep your paws crossed at all times, that they won't get snatched by a hungry pike for dinner.

Not this family, but another, did live very dangerously by going for a swim in an empty lock. They could easily have got crushed by tonnes of hard steel, as there is not a lot of spare room in a lock. Fortunately, with our careful supervision, they made it safely out, family intact.

This mooring near Greensforge was one of my favourites. It was simply idyllic and very quiet. At dusk, and again in the early morning, it was very atmospheric, with mist over the water. And the great thing was, there was a pleasant pub, with good food, just 5 minutes walk down the towpath.

Have we sold canal boat holidays to you yet?

Love Eddie and crew xxx

Kinver Calls

Not far from Kidderminster we stopped for a stroll at a local beauty spot. It is one of the joys of canal boating that you can tie up almost anywhere and make a foray ashore.

We had a steep climb up to Kinver Edge which is a National trust site. Yorkie, as usual, had eaten so much for lunch, that he had surplus energy to climb to the top of the location sign ...

When we got to the stop we could see for miles and, even more exciting than the view, was the fact that we could bag another trig point for our sister blog Bears on Trig Points.

Back aboard Maria we came across a quirk of the canal system that we really appreciated. This was these marvellous cottage gates which were miniature lock gates ...

I made a close inspection and was able to confirm that they were very accurate replicas. It's a pity we don't need any gates at our Norfolk Bear cave, as I know what I'd be recommending.

Lots of love, Eddie and the crew of Maria xxx

We try a Salmon Run

Bear flag safely aboard, we made our way into the overflowing lock without further incident. As the bottom lock gates onto the Severn were opened, there was a tense moment as we made the turn to go upstream. Would we be able to make headway or would we be carried backwards by the current?

As Eddie inched us further away from the canal, Yorkie and I looked back to see the junction with the canal (marked by the pontoons) rapidly disappearing; there was no going back now.


Although we had the tough task of forging our way upstream, against a river virtually in flood, looking back at the junction, we couldn't help thinking that had we been going the other way, we might have been travelling so fast, that negotiating the turn into the canal, and not shooting past, might have been quite difficult. If anyone could do it though we felt sure that Eddie could. However, on this occasion we didn't need to put him to the test.


After the narrow canal, the amount of water in the river and the speed with which it was moving was quite awesome. However, once we were pointing in the right direction, there was no doubt that we were making progress. It wasn't fast and no doubt our fuel economy wasn't very good, but we were all happy and relieved, especially Eddie.

We began to relax and take in our surroundings. There was no other boats around and we had the river all to ourselves. When we phoned the lock-keeper at the first lock he told us it would take us a while to reach him. It was nice to be expected though and we had the bonus of having the lock ready for us as we approached it. As we got close, the lock gates started to open and the traffic lights changed to green. This made us feel very special.


The lock- keepers on the Severn are very helpful and very patient, so they get our paw of approval. After the first lock there was a very noticeable drop in the speed of the current so we began to enjoy ourselves even more, especially in the intervals between showers.

It wasn't long before Stourport on Severn hoved into sight and it was time to turn off onto the Staffordshire and Worcestershire canal.

The next stage of our journey was about to begin - how exciting!

Lots of love, George, Yorkie, Eddie and crew xxx

Time to take to the Ark?

The next morning everyone was in good spirits as we set off in the sunshine on our first full day of boating. The M5 motorway seemed a long way behind us as we rounded an early bend and saw this delightful stretch of rural canal.


It had much more of the feel of a river rather than a canal and the best thing was we had it all to ourselves. It was a real treat to all our finely tuned bear senses.

The relaxed feel of the day started to fade when 2 things happened that caused us all some anxiety, especially skipper Eddie who was responsible for us all and for our boat.

Our first anxious moment came when we saw the lock at the junction with the River Severn. This signified the end of the Droitwich canal, which was sad in itself, but what caused us consternation was the water level at the lock. It was very high and water was flowing over the lock gates and almost over the sides of the lock.


Memories of being flood bound on the River Avon a few years ago came flooding back. The thing about rivers is that they are only navigable by boat when not in flood. As water levels rise, the current becomes too strong for a relatively small narrow boat engine to contend with. The Severn was the only stretch of river, rather than canal, on this trip, but we couldn't complete the Stourport ring without navigating the stretch between Worcester and Stourport.

Although, at this stage we hadn't seen the Severn, the high canal level looked ominous. The most important job for the advance party, put shore to open the lock, was to check the colour coded water level gauge to see if it was safe to proceed onto the Severn. We'd have liked the level to be green, but it was in the amber zone which meant 'proceed with caution'. It was better than seeing it red, which would have stopped us in our tracks, but there were certainly no grounds for relaxing yet.

At this point, those of us ashore heard a cry of alarm from on board Maria. We ran back up the towpath to see what had happened. It was serious! No-one had fallen in, but ... the bear flag had got caught in a tree and parted company with the boat.


It was time to do a quick reverse and try and retrieve it. As Maria inched backwards, guided by Eddie, Fred's Mum gamely inched along the outside edge of the boat and managed to reach up ad retrieve the precious flag. We'd have lost our identity without it so were very grateful for Fred's Mum's minder length arms and gave her 3 cheers.

It was then time to deal with the lock and hopefully after that the river. Find out how we got on next time.

Lots of love, George, Yorkie, Eddie and the crew of Maria xxx

How Low Can You Go?

The Droitwich canal continued to have more surprises in store for us.

Just after Louis's cowslips we came across a simple staircase lock. I called Louis over for his next lock lesson - in the space of a couple of hours he had advanced to advanced lock handling and he was taking it all in his stride. I explained how the bottom gate of one lock was he top gate of the next. It was important to check that both pounds were empty before starting off; thankfully the canal was quiet so this was no problem.


Louis wanted a photo for his boating log book and this one shows the arrangement of the staircase lock rather well.

He also found a plaque confirming that the Droitwich canal had only re-opened last year. We were all astounded at the amount of work that must have been involved in the restoration and full of admiration for all those who had worked so hard on the project. It was a great privilege to be one of the first boats to travel this way since the re-opening.


The thrills continued as we approached the M5 motorway. What an obstacle to have to pass. I don't suppose for a moment that any of the drivers rushing along imagined for one moment that they were so close to the waterway underneath them. As we approached we got a warning of how low we would have to go to make it throughout the tunnel.


We cleared the height guides, but not by much; it was a good job the water level wasn't any higher, otherwise we'd have been doing a long reverse. Even so, as the tunnel proper came upon us, we all took a sharp intake of breath, hoping there would be no screeches of torn metal and even worse cracked heads.


We were o.k. though provided we kept our heads down and knelt to steer. It was quite an experience and actually quite quiet - we were completely protected from all the traffic thundering over our heads.

After the motorway tunnel came 2 swing bridges, I just could't get over how exciting this canal was and how many interesting features were packed in. But it was enough for 1 day, so just after the swing bridges we tied up for the night and were soon relaxing over a home cooked meal and a glass of wine. It was simply great to be aboard and none of us wanted to go anywhere else.

Lots of love, Eddie, Louis and crew xxx

Down the Droitwich

We simply can't go any further without introducing you properly to our boat, as without her the trip could not have happened. So here she is, the good ship Maria ...


.. and what a beauty she is with the lovely canal side setting of Kidderminster church to show off her fine lines. Those in the know, will deduce from Maria's maroon and navy paintwork, that she's a Black Prince hire boat, and we were lucky to have one of the latest additions to their fleet. She'd only just had her maiden voyage, so was spick and span and very smart. I enjoyed being aboard Maria so much that I spent the least time ashore of all of us bears.

I mentioned last time, that our trip had started with the excitement of travelling the newly restored Droitwich canal. The welcome sign on the lock gate that we saw previously, was only seen once you were actually on the canal. The signing at the canal junction, where we turned right to join the Droitwich, was far less significant. We were looking out for the turn using our boating guides and it was just as well we were, as the only indication we got was the small white sign on the wall, just above Maria's bow fender ...


Turns are always quite tricky when your boat is so long and the canal so narrow, but we made the turn successfully and almost immediately we were enjoying the sights of this delightful canal. Our canal guide was published before the Droitwich was restored,
so it only showed us where it used to run. There was no detail, such as where the locks would come, and also the unusual swing bridges.

We didn't have long to wait before our first lock ...


We all love working the locks, so for us, they are a pleasing sight - not everyone on the waterways would agree with us though!

Lots of love, Eddie and the crew of Maria xxx

Was Odysseus Here?

The great sailing that we had confidently predicted, got under way with a lovely sail over to Ithaca. At the briefing prior to departure, we were pleased to discover that we were going to an old friend, the port of Big Vathi.

We had such a good sail over, and Milia handled so well, that we actually sailed past the entrance to Vathi - it had come upon us so quickly. We had to do a quick turnaround when our GPS told us we had gone too far. I never like to rely too much on the GPS though, and think there is nothing like a visual recce of the land ahead.

After mooring, with the welcome assistance of our very capable lead crew, we still had plenty of time to wander round to the swimming beach and enjoy a beautiful swim in the clear warm waters of the Ionian, before heading into town to do some shopping.

That evening we had a lovely group meal in the local taverna and enjoyed looking at the lights of the town, over at the other end of the harbour.

 

We all felt very relaxed and at peace with the world. We couldn't think of anywhere we would rather be, and with the prospect of more good days of sailing to come, I was in bear heaven.

Lots of love, Eddie, George & Yorkie xxx

All Aboard .... Milia

We embarked from our plane into lovely sunshine, and it wasn't long before we were admiring the beatifully clear Ionian Sea.

The sea wasn't the only thing we were admiring, we were also very interested in what was floating on the sea - lots of boats - and one was of particular interest, as it was to be our home for the 2 weeks of our holiday.

This was the good ship, Milia, and she was to me, Eddie, 32 ft of very beautiful yacht. I felt both proud and excited to step aboard.

Now, as you know, we try not to repeat our adventures too often, but some are so good that they simply have to repeated. If you're getting a sense of deja vu, it is because we've been on a Greek Islands sailing adventure before, and it was even with the same company, since, as far as we're concerned there is only one company to sail with, and it is, as our next picture shows ...

... Sailing Holidays. They really know how to give their customers a fantastic holiday, which is why their customers keep coming back for more.

For us,  this was our third flotilla: the first pre-dated our blog, and the second,was three years ago, so we're sure our most loyal readers, who have been with us that long, will have forgotten most of the previous posts.

This trip involved a bigger boat and a new route, so our posts will be different anyway.

We look forward to taking you with us on our wonderful adventure over the next few weeks.

Lots of love, Eddie, George & Yorkie xxx