A Lady trip...Avoiding the feckin recession in comfort and heat

A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Thu 27 Aug 2009 16:19
Tuesday 11th Aug
Crew ;-    Stephen and Aileen
 
mid morning the guys from Sopromar came and serviced the engine, this included replacing two completly depleted annodes on the 12 month old
engine. imagine, nothing was known or done with these annodes in cork ,on the occasions the boat and engine was serviced... this is real confidence building when going on a long trip,  However I will deal with some of these issue's at a later stage.
This floating university wil eventually confer master degrees on Stephen and Aileen, for....engineering, plumbing, electrics, shite reclycling, water making, surgery and medicine, and a host of other usefull qualifications...... knots knots, God I nearly forgot the bleedin knots, what is it about knots that gets
everyone into a KNOT.     feck our kids could never get the knots right, so what chance has the mother, HOWEVER she is a very enthuastic  student,
I can see the spelling has not improved.
 
At the end of a long day we went for an indian meal, ( as redden would say, an arse burner ), actually , it was fantastic,to say the least. the best indian we ever had anywhere.
We met our N.B.F. in the restaurant by chance, that is John Mc Cann.  As I said earlier, a lovely man.. He described his buisness to us in detail, and how he employs many many Ukranian people and said they were great..  His wife " Janine  " has been very ill over the last few years but , like my lovely sister,
" Judith " has recovered well.
 
N.B.F.= new best friend..
We had an early night  to the super bunk..
 
 
 
Wednesday 12th Aug
Crew ;--     Stephen and Aileen
As I type this, the boat is creeking softly in the sun,   its so good to wake up every day to clear blue skies and loads of heat.
10.00 Arthur the sparks from " Sopromar " came to look at our non functioning raymarine  clocks,and A.I.S.and  in particular the wind instruments.
This was sorted quickley, the problem being the new windex at the top of the mast was not fitted correctly in crosshaven thus causing corrosion in the
connections and the complete malfunction of the deck instruments. Hello Hello, This is after many complaints from the skipper to the shore crew, and
was assured at least twice that everything was working correctly. confidence building in cork...........
By mid afternoon all was fine again, windex and A.I.S. running well, and the boss happy out with the new kids on the block...Sopromar....
they also repaired the non working deck light and all the lights on the steering column, the little ones that control the deck lights, boom lights, aft deck
lights,  and spreader lights.
 
By 18.00 hrs I was bursting for a pint, so I went to the nearest watering hole, a ( about 40m from the boat )  John Mc Cann was there before me. 
we had a few pints of the local beer, lovely, then met Aileen and returned to A Lady and the Boss prepared a v, nice salad...,
this was followed by watching a D.V.D.
 
Super bunk ,  god what a day .. the bunk is just the job...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
 
 
 
 
 
Thursday 13th aug
Crew :-- Stephen and Aileen
Lazy day , you know , the kind of day everyone loves.
10.00 boss got into the lazerette. ( its like the boot of the car ) and usually full of junk, we just have to clear this up, because, because, we have a bicycle,
golf clubs , water, fishing rods, deck chairs, all of which must be stored carefully and be easily accessable, as I said before ,my spelling at school was afull
and they were the days when you got ths shit kicked out of you for the smallest thing.. AND they used to say, " SCHOOL DAYS ARE THE HAPPIEST DAYS OF YOUR LIFE " what a load of bollux.....
 
13.00 we dropped the rib in the water and scooted around to " Alvor " , a lovely estuary a few miles down the coast, We went for a swim off the beach
( which I thought was bloody freezing ) and it had to be refreshing, well thats what everyone was saying, so I just went along with it, why be the only
langer out of step.. no if's and but's
BUT then there is always a but........ we could not start the rib , this is after pushing her out into the channell..  and you know then ,after the long pregnant
pause............you hear those dredded words....." SO WHAT DID YOU DO "  and what do we do now.....why cant YOU start this thing..  oh.oh .ohhhhhh
shit, lets get out the paddles while we think, lets hitch a lift, and it worked, we got a tow up to the village, we ditched the feckin rib and went for beer for the boss and food for the lady..   pissed off, and not knowing what the problem was, we rang " sopromar" .
Just like home( ha ha ah,)  a launch arrieved from the boat yard and rescued us marooned souls within 20minutes.  god we were so impressed.
 
they solved the problem and we returned to A Lady on our ( again ) lovely rib.
 
we had a boring evening, so we will skip that..
 
the super bunk later for a good night sleep.zzzzzzzzzzz