Day 3 Friday March 22nd Poole



crimewatch interviewing

We did not rise too early this 

calm view from our window

morning but when we opened the curtains there was Crimewatch interviewing just below us.  They had finally caught up with Christine!  The tide was in, it was a flat calm and a different scene to yesterday afternoon.  There was Lifeboat activity also going on which was continuous here.  We breakfasted (very sumptuous) and decided we needed to do a bit of pre-cruise shopping and so we went to the town centre a couple of hundred yards away.  We visited M&S, Boots and a couple of 

RNLI memorial monument

St Agnes crewman lost

other places to get our supplies.  Time for coffee, so we returned to the RNLI centre.  We 


the crewmen lost in the Penlee boat

passed the national RNLI memorial sculpture, it depicted a crewman rescuing someone from the sea and around the base the wavy stainless steel lines recorded all the volunteers who had lost their lives on RNLI duty.  It included a man from St Agnes and the crew of the Penlee lifeboat (Solomon Browne) who lost their lives in 1981.  Very poignant.  This side of Poole (the west) seemed to be dominated by the RNLI and its activities.

We had some coffee, spoke to some friendly locals and then decided to go for a walk along 

Sunseeker boats

the harbour.  We were soon there and found much of interest.  Sunseekers boat production is based here and we saw some of their products which were obviously near completion.  We haven't placed

local fishing marina

an order!  Soon we came to a less ostentatious marina containing local fishing boats which were much more natural to us.  Even further along we came to obviously a local 

local boat park

boat park which certainly would not have looked out of place on Scilly and this was reassuring.
We continued along the harbour wall and came across a boy scout


Christine's new friend

sitting on a tree stump.  Christine made his acquaintance and he turned out to be Lord Baden-Powell who founded the boy scout movement at nearby Branksea Island.  It was now time for a cup of hot chocolate and so we found the town museum café and enjoyed some refreshment.  We then made our way back to the Lifeboat college.

After sorting ourselves out a bit, we went for another meal at the college restaurant because we enjoyed last evening's so much.  We were not disappointed and can thoroughly recommend for anyone to stay and eat with the RNLI if they are in the Poole area.  So finished a day which was calm and dry throughout but with no sun.  Tomorrow we look forward to joining our cruise boat the Astoria.  Posts after then may be a bit more sporadic depending on wifi availability.