Boats and boats and boats

My binoculars were out of my bag before I got down the hill as I remembered that last time I walked down I saw from near the top something I'd never noticed before, some unidentifiable structure just visible over the headland on the horizon. I couldn't for the life of me think what it could be even when zooming in...how could I not have noticed a large white building along the coast from here with a thing like a big chimney on the top? Duh! Some sort of ship...

It's hard to express what a buzz I get out of seeing big boats and ships...but you might begin to grasp the the extent of it a little if you read on. For once in my life, I wished I had a car to see if I could find a place to see it closer, and then I saw the tourist boat heading out into the bay and realised it would go past the ship as well on its trip and a dark cloud of jealousy moved across the sun. But hey ho, there's at least a dozen things a day I wish I could do and can't for some reason or other but I was outdoors and the sun was sparkling on the sea and the melted butter on my teacake and there were plenty of other rather unusual things to look at like the man in the full body camouflage wet suit walking along the sea wall carrying a harpoon gun! Milk Tray anyone?

In the end though I could not get that glimpse of funnel out of my head and feeling ready for a sit down caught the next bus along the bay glued to the upper deck windows for sight of the craft when the sea came into view here and there. Got all the way to the end of the line though...nowhere I wanted to be and no big boat! I walked out to the edge of the harbour, pushing the comfort limit of the day as far as it would go but all I could see was some sort of grey warship moored just off shore - the wrong shape and in the wrong place.

By this point the harbour wall was looking about three miles long and there was no way I was trundling to the end of it to see 'round the corner' back the way I'd come where the bigger ship must have been hidden from view but I managed about a dozen paces and there it was...HUGE but still too far away to work out what it's function was. Then just as I was about to turn around and head home the warship started disgorging camouflaged landing craft which headed for the part of the harbour right by where I was...a smallish one first that tied up on the quay and then a large one that came right up on the slip to bring forth a cargo of sea scouts and various military cadets and leaders. Something else you don't see every day!

Took a couple of photos but not uploaded them yet...if they're any good I'll add them later. Pretty much stuck in the horizontal position at the moment - it's taken me about four hours to write this in instalments! It probably seems a little insane to tire myself out on such a strange quest but if I don't invent things to do I have no purpose at all, you see... for a little while there I had a mission, a reason to keep plodding on. I'm grateful for that and for finding the energy to stick to my task and for the fascinating things that I saw along the way.