The great river city of Glasgow.
We had a "run ashore" while we waited for the agent to organise repairs to the engine Dock-and-Go system. We took the train to Glasgow on two occasions. Once for a general tourist type visit, then a second time to look at the incredible Botanical Gardens.
Some pictures:

 

 











Second visit to see the Botanical Gardens:

 

 

 

Our first cruise in 2014. 25th April
We bought an EPIRB (ACR Globalfix Pro), a new handheld VHF (Cobra HR500), and a new chart system called Navionics Plus. This chart system was a new version of the commonly available Navionics Gold but had the addition of user submitted data for depth contours. This would allow us to have a better view of depth in and around UK waters. The really big problem here is the under water dangers due to millions of rocks and reefs, and the existing paper charts don't show most of the critical depth in bays.
Then we took off on out first cruise for 2014. Up the Clyde estuary to the Kyles of Bute. First stop was the beautiful West Kyle off the town of Kames. Here we went walking and had lunch at the Kames Hotel on Sunday. Then we anchored in our favourite Loch called Loch Riddon off the Salthouse, an ideal place to watch wildlife and sunsets.

 

 

 

Installing the rigging 18th and 19th April 2014
For the winterising we had removed ALL the running rigging. This means all ropes that were not actually holding up the mast. I washed all ropes (warps, halyards, sheets, painters, shorelines and the rest..) in a washing machine on a gentle programme using Woolite soap and they came out looking good. Then we stowed the ropes for the winter so everything had to be installed again, including the sails.
Clambering up the mast allowed madam to get some harmless exercise winching me up three times in the bosuns chair. Some of the 'mouse' lines had broken and come out due to 100mph winds over winter. These mouse lines are installed in place of halyards so that they can be reinstalled without climbing the mast. So since they had broken I had to get up the mast to feed the ropes back into the pulley apertures etc.
Here are some pictures:

Launch.... 14th April 2014
Kwanza sat in the sling during the weekend to allow us to Antifoul the areas under the stanchion pads, and to allow a small gelcoat repair under the keel to dry and get painted. So on the morning of the 14th the marina crew carried her very carefully round the yard to the marina launch point. They eased her into the cold marina basin and motored her to the fuel pontoon. This was to allow some tests to be done on the Dock and Go system which was malfunctioning last season. I wanted the vendor to plug in the system to a computer and run some analysis.
Here are some pictures of the launch