I was going to post this in the forum, but it got a little long for a post....
 

Today Charlie and I went on a little expedition across the river to Kingswear to look at boats and steam trains:
 
 

 
 
Here is Charlie on the passenger ferry, clutching the pennies for the tickets.
 
 

 
Here is the Segelschulschiff Gork Foch - great baggywrinkles, a fantastic pair of anchors (a bloke was lowered on a line and sat on the flukes of the port hand one with a pot of black paint and a brush yesterday) but an absolute sod to pronounce after a couple of beers.
 


 
 
Here she is again, with the passenger ferry in front, and the Britannia Royal Naval College, the purpose of her visit, on the hill behind.
 
Sadly, today was the one day this month that the steam trains weren't running - after an initial disappointment, Charlie rallied magnificently (with the promise of a rerun tomorrow).
 
Funnily enough Dartmouth had a railway station on the quayside from about 140 years ago right upto the 1970's. Never had a railway or trains though. The idea was to build a bridge upstream to bring the railway down the West bank of the river into the town, where the station was built in readiness. But a landowner (the Raleigh Estate, as in Sir Walt. IIRC) changed their mind so the track was built down the East bank to Kingswear, and when your train was due one boarded the ferry to take you from the station house to the platforms. The line is now run as a private steam railway.
 
Sadly the Dartmouth station is now an utterly crap caff in the most wonderful location - it was originally built on piles out over the water before a new embankment was built around it, and I remember fishing for grey mullet underneath it when I was a sprog meself.
 
 
Anyhoo, here's another picture of a splendid vessel:
 
 

 
 
A pleasant afternoon out - and we'll do it all over again tomorrow to see the trains!