The Cook family have been holidaying on the Norfolk Broads for over fifty years and have lots of wonderful memories. Some are very funny and some are sad.
It must have been in the 1960's when we were moored at Oulton Broad Yacht Station one sunny afternoon when a motor launch came along promoting Harp lager, the skipper and his assistant throwing cans to anyone who was interested, our boat seemed to get more than its fair share much to my fathers delight!
It wasnt always " plain sailing" as far as my father was concerned though. There was the occasion when we moored for the night at Acle and I was awakened in the middle of the night by my father who was crawling along the deck with a torch, moaning about "some idiot who had left the top off the maggot box". In broad daylight my mum was very pleased to find them inside the boat, hiding in every nook and cranny.
One very wet and miserable day we had decided to moor at Burgh St Peter, my father complained that we should delay mooring "because I dont want to get wet". So after holding the boat against the Waveney current for about 15 munutes he decided enough was enough and we should moor up. This I expertly did, manouvering the boat into a small gap, stern on (long before bow thrusters) my father stepped off the stern of the boat onto the very wet wooden quay side pulling the stern rope, only to slip onto his backside and straight into the river, so much for not wanting to get wet!!
Some of our memories are however not so funny; like the time we were moored at Stokesby one night, when in the middle of the night I was awoken by a load bang . I got up and checked and all was in order on board our boat. A couple of hours later I was awoken again as our boat rocked madly side to side with the wash of a sppeeding craft. The next morning at the local paper shop I was told that a petrol cruiser had exploded and sadly a woman had gone down with the the boat and on cruising around the bend later we saw the divers trying to recover her body.
Another worrying occasion was when we were awaiting a pilot at Potter Heigham to take us under the bridge when a cruiser crewed by all males approached the bridge with a young chap sitting on the forward top side, making no attempt to slow(never mind stop for the bridge pilot). As we looked on in horror people shouted warnings to them but sadly they hit the bridge and got stuck about half way in with the chap squashed between boat and bridge. His screams of agony were terrifying. The police and ambulance teams were quickly on the scene and we never did find out how he was.
On a lighter note my son caught his first fish at Wroxham, he was overjoyed and that night we made our way to Stalham where he caught his second only to inform me that it was the same fish from Wroxham and that it had followed us!?
I think it was the same holiday that as a water skier sped past us on Breydon my son fired his cowboy gun at him. The skier promptly lost his balance just at that moment and sank into the water. My son thought he had killed the chap and disappeared into the forward cabin not appearing again for some time.
A few years ago whilst cruising past Southgates at Horning my son and his friend were throwing water bombs to each other, when one went into the Bure. My pet Schnauzer 'Murphy' thought it was a ball, jumped from my lap where I was at the helm and into the river after it. Fortunately a workman from Southgates jumped into a dinghy and helped us rescue him, very cold, very wet, and no doubt thinking it wasnt one of his better ideas.
So there we are, just a few memories covering 40 years of holidaying on the beautiful Norfolk Broads. I'm back cruising and fishing with 6 workmates in September, 7 men in a boat, now thats another story.......