THE VIEW FROM THE DARTMOUTH OFFICE

Every picture on this website, with no exception, is taken from one place - our Dartmouth office garden

For those of you that don’t already know..........every single snap on this website is taken from one place -

our garden in Above Town, Dartmouth, Devon, England

Good Friday 18th April 2025 6.30pm

A private train excursion. A new hotel (The Seal Harbour Retreat)

And much much more.

And as always, a few taster pix on this front page, with hundreds more inside the various albums.

Click any pic to reach all that month's pix.

TVFTDO is a unique record of life in, on, around and above the wonderful river Dart.

PREVIOUSLY ON www.TVFTDO.com

06-02-2025 - 13:27:11

A very talon-ted fellow, this kestrel

20-03-2025 - 12:41:09

Six weeks after I managed the close-up of the kestrels talons, this one alighted

upon a bush in the garden and showed the strength it has in just one of those claws.

01-03-2025 - 08:05:03

Another floor - or yet another storey.

Noss on Dart's apartment building is looming large. Very large.

02-03-2025 - 13:43:34

But with tides this large. it'll soon pick up some slime.

And that original name could well return.

02-03-2025 - 07:52:56

To be called the Mayor's Avenue pontoon, this was previously known simply as the green pontoon.

28-02-2025 - 07:15:58

I always like to try and ghet the sun rising behind the Daymark but this year, this is the closest I got.

Cloud ruined most days. Or I was away. No real excuse.

18-02-2025 - 07:39:50

Four weeks earlier, in February, sunrise had not yet reached the Daymark.

And it was over an hour later.

02-03-2025 - 13:43:34

A step up for the fire brigade on the Lower Ferry during one of the lowest tides of the year.

28-02-2025 - 11:33:49

And it's the extreme high and low tides that dictate when the Higher Ferry will have its bottom examined.

No NHS wait list for it.

19-03-2025 - 15:01:46

A very rare sight as far as I'm concerned. All three tugs plus both barges / pontoons lined up together on a midweek afternoon.

And first time of noticing that Hauley VI, on the left, has a flat back end, unlike the other two with their curvaceous derrieres.

17-03-2025 - 13:15:11

Only one canoe in this pic, the darker blue one in the foreground.

The other two are kayaks.

The river Dart cares not. All are welcome.

18-03-2025 - 19:27:04

One night last week the toot of a diesel loco alerted us to a night time train. And one of the carriages had some of the Train of Lights illuminations in place. Was is a party train, or just testing?

22-03-2025 - 07:41:53

No real colour on display, but a striking sight with early morning sun and mist over the mouth of the river Dart.

22-03-2025 - 09:22:45

Minesweeper HMS Cattistock arrives in the port. The minesweeper was last year's Regatta guardship.

22-03-2025 - 09:43:04

These crew are working to the Carpenter's Rule: Four by two.

That is....two to work and four to watch.

22-03-2025 - 09:21:07

Okay, so very much unlike the huge guns of a WWII battlecruiser. This is the rear gun aboard HMS Cattistock

Mind you, few in Dartmouth would argue with it.

21-03-2025 - 11:03:59

It's the activity that says the season is about to begin. RDYC get their pontoons out of winter hibernation.

20-03-2025 - 10:47:28

Slightly strange goings on aboard the Lower Ferry which was moored up to mainstream buoy number three.

There seemed to be some sort of official inspection, including under the deck.

Who knew there was space enough for a man to disappear down there ?

10-03-2025 - 08:45:20

One of the smaller towers at BRNC has its turn for a spruce up.

20-03-2025 - 10:55:47

And Inverdart Boathouse continues its refurbishment and enlargement.

The extension is getting its own extra storey.

17-03-2025 - 13:09:10

The perils of burning. There are guys on the trackside having a presumed controlled burn.

For a short time, the fires seemed to very quickly get carried away. Luckily soon enough back in control.

12-03-2025 - 07:40:59

Dartmouth's favourite tug, CMS Thunderer approaches for what is at least its eighth visit since October.

17-03-2025 - 09:20:42

The fuel barge headed to the quayside for a top up. Or two.

18-03-2025 - 06:42:32

Sunrise, as viewed from TVFTDO has already passed the Daymark, so this tree stood in for a size comparison.

17-02-2025 - 15:52:19

Wargames produce casulaties.

Whoever that is laying on the deck, they looked comfortable.

17 January 2025 - 11:55:58

The photo makes it look easy. But he is at least fifty feet above the ground.

Not easy at all.

25-02-2025 - 19:14:49

A late night arrival - couldn't make out the boat's name until...........

26-02-2025 - 08:19:31

..........the following morning.

04-03-2025 - 12:35:47

Another good reason for a speed limit in the river.

12-02-2025 - 15:26:47

What are we looking at here ? Not the Higher Ferry, nor the train, not even that yacht in the foregorund.

It's the loo. Guide price £25,000 at auction in September, it actually sold for £141,000.

Somebody needed to spend a few pennies.

09-02-2025 - 13:30:26

And what speed is ramming speed?

There's no real aggression involved of course.

It's the Winter Series Regatta with teams from Teign, Salcombe, Brixham, Paignton, Yealm, and Dartmouth taking part.

26-02-2025 - 16:09:24

TVFTDO features a fair few double rainbows.

No apologies, here's another one.

28-02-2025 - 06:42:28

Two early morning arrivals in the dawn.

The trimaran has its headlights on. Hope they're on dipped.

25-02-2025 - 09:54:47

Ribeye test their new boats most weeks. These two are both marked as tenders to a boat called Alnanha of Georgetown.

Except....there is no boat listed on Marinetraffic of that name, or listed anywhere for that matter.

Seems likely these two are destined for an as yet unnamed vessel currently still at the makers.

04-03-2025 - 12:44:40

More on Inverdart Boathouse. It's a fascinating project, and somewhat unusual for Kingswear, is fully supported by neighbours.

22-03-2025 - 23:49:47

Regular readers will know that any big ship overnighting in the town has to have its nighttime snap taken by www.TVFTDO.com.

HMS Cattistock obliged and stood very still for many seconds.

10-03-2025 - 08:32:38

Extremely keen, but the only face they would show was strapped to their arm.

And it was almost clear enough to see the stroke rate on that watch face.

05-03-2025 - 10:23:10

Not often pots are emptied right in front of us. But here a juvenile lobster is getting another chance at life under the ocean wave.

29-03-2025 - 10:44:02

The much anticipated partial eclipse, seen best through the clouds - it was way too bright otherwise.

Even more wonderful when you can visualise that rather than it being a chunk taken out of the sun, it's actually the moon in front.

You can almost see the craters on the edge of the moon.

25-03-2025 - 06:26:04

The sun once agin, rising over the horizon south of Kingswear - through the mist.

25-03-2025 - 06:36:42

The mist was pretty spectacular that particular morning.

And as it lifted, look what was lurking beneath - HMS Cattistock.

29-03-2025 - 11:16:22

Just four days after the RDYC dinghy pontoon came back from its winter hols, some local chancers made a bid for ownership.

More pix inside the March album. Just click the pic.

25-03-2025 - 12:25:58

It's a boat house. And that's a boat.

Canoe believe it ?

30-03-2025 - 09:37:07

It's quite normal to see the Salcombe lifeboat pop in on the occasional training exercise.

Even if the crew have to fend for themselves.

30-03-2025 - 11:08:58

Twenty minutes later, after a brief stop at the town jetty the lifeboat departed.

But what's this? A lucky few of the crew have taken sustenance ?

30-03-2025 - 11:09:31

Maybe not just the lucky few, here's six of the seven crew munching their way through some of Dartmouth's finest pasties.

But what about the driver, you may well ask?

30-03-2025 - 11:09:19

Fret not, the crew looked after the skipper.

30-03-2025 - 12:40:12

We've just discovered an amazing App called Merlin which identifies birds for non-twitchers.

Sorry, I know full well they like to be called birders nowadays.

Anyway, we had twelve different birds logged in ten minutes, just by their songs.

Clearly a robin and a wren are not hard to identify by sight, but a wren's song would have passed me by.

30-03-2025 - 12:41:51

So here is jenny wren, perched just six feet away from the robin. Could they have been singing to each other?

30-03-2025 - 13:12:52

A speeding Dart Harbour patrol rib caught the eye........

30-03-2025 - 13:13:18

They were racing to a becoming-critical "fending off" incident. All soon made safe.

06-04-2025 - 08:33:53

No designated seal pontoon out yet, so the boys in blubber and their families have been settling in to the RDYC dinghy pontoon.

As usual.

05-04-2025 - 16:03:34

I've been testing a new lens witha view to purchase.

A lot of people ask how far a telephoto lens can see.

This far. In the afternoon.

06-04-2025 - 14:13:29

Sat on a roof the otherside of Above Town from us. This loud magpie had clearly been putting his nose into some one else's business.

05-04-2025 - 10:32:03

A couple of glorious days of sun and no cloud. And, it should be added, no warmth.

04-04-2025 - 14:46:14

Last Sunday Salcombe's RNLI Lifeboat crew stopped on the town jetty to avail themselves of a pasty picnic (pix down below).

On Friday, the Torbay crew raced round for what turned out to be a false alarm.

A quick pit stop at the town jetty and the junior raced to Rockfish.

04-04-2025 - 13:15:07

Lots of RNLI activity this week. Dart RNLI Atlantic class was out twice hunting an EPIRB (an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) which had been set off. On Wednesday they joined Torbay Lifeboat plus a Coastguard helicopter on a sustained search out at sea.

Then two days later another alert had the crew searching from river mouth to Dittisham.

Above shows two of the support crew racingfrom the RNLI boathouse to the vessel for launch.

03-04-2025 - 12:42:22

Meanwhile the new RNLI boathouse is awaiting the roofers.

Many will know that feeling.

02-04-2025 - 09:58:06

At speed, passing us at TVFTDO, the Dart crew would end up on duty for many hours.

04-04-2025 - 13:26:32

Friday's search took the crew all over the river.

02-04-2025 - 07:06:48

P&O cruise ship Iona passed the river early one morning.

On a short cruise from Southampton to Zeebrugge.

I know, did someone hold the map upside down ?

03-04-2025 - 13:27:16

The valley of the river Dart is still construction Central.

On a slightly smaller scale than Noss on Dart, this wall has been built above Bridge Road.

04-04-2025 - 12:48:54

Found at last. The missing link.

SD Navigator comes in to maintain some of the Navy's buoys and moorings.

But it also spent some time in the centre of the river. And fished out this huge chain.

05-04-2025 - 09:46:24

Count 'em. Four engines. Three seats.

UPDATED LAST WEEK

18-04-2025 - 09:11:17

An early morning toot from Hoodown direction alerted us to something unusual. Steam loco Nunney Castle was being reversed onto a train of carriages which had overnighted in Kingswear station. A bit of sleuthing unearthed the unusual story of the Hoskings family's Easter break aboard their own train. Sir Jeremy Hosking is a wealthy British investor and also owns a number of steam trains. His idea of an Easter break is apparently a weekend trip around the West Country for family and friends. Hence, this morning, they departed for Cornwall. Via Taunton.