Trapped !
Blue Sky's Voyage
George & Michael
Tue 8 Apr 2008 15:08
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Hello Friends
"17:01.1N 61:46.4W"
We know you don't want to hear this, but
while those back in the UK are enjoying unseasonable Alpine weather, it has
again been gloriously sunny here...!
(But for those reading in Sydney Australia,
it is of course grey and rainy here and all the photos have been laboriously
re-touched)
After dropping Zoë & Matt, we again
headed up east to the Green Island anchorage and as usual plonked ourselves in
the middle of the area behind the reef, between Green and Bird
islands, to get the best of the wind.
However, as there were a lot of learner kitesurfers (...think masthead wind
instruments and aerials being caught in the lines) and the forecast was fairly
frisky, we tucked in more cosily just off the beach at Green
Island.
This move turned out to be a very good idea
as we had sustained 30 knot winds for several days, but we were very comfortable
and got down to some chores. Firstly, we had a little incident on the beat up
east - a bottle of cane sugar syrup liberated itself and spread over some saloon
cushions and the cabin sole. Think seriously STICKY !!
Anyway, with all the wind, we made lots of
fresh water and filled the tanks up as well as washing all the saloon cushions
and anything else which looked in need of freshening. We even cleaned out the
bilges so we have a very fresh boat after a serious Spring Clean. Since the
skipper is in charge of blogs, there is of course no photo of him up to his
elbows in soapy water or on hands & knees doing the bilges. At least
skippering has some rewards...
George meanwhile unpacked the new Blue Sky
sewing machine and got down to business with some saloon cushion
repairs...
 The saloon layout is a triumph of design
fancy over common sense and practicality, lots of curves which look good in a
boat show but just give you a twisted spine if you try to get comfy in a corner.
Anyway, at least they will hold together for a bit longer.
And we had lots of time to do all this as
there were large swells associated with the sustained strong wind and we could
not get out of the anchorage to the open sea. There is a bar at the entrance to
the channel with depths as little as 5 metres: as the swell forecast was over 4
metres it would be easy to imagine breaking waves and all sorts of problems -
hence the blog title - Trapped! In fact one other boat - a Swan of over 60 feet
- did get out, but only after being knocked down (mast sideways) and nearly
having crew overboard.
But you can see from this photo (Blue Sky in
foreground) that we weren't suffering too much. Photo from Green Island, Bird
Island is the dot in the middle. Check the line of breakers on the fringeing
reef. [Bump in horizon due to eccentricities of
autostitch.]
 With being "trapped", there was a certain
team spirit amongst the cruisers ("Happy Spirit" on port quarter and "Rush" on
port bow in pic; "Bright Eyes" not in pic) with much eating, drinking and
Scrabble, finished off with a beach BBQ for all on Sunday afternoon. And a
delightful afternoon it was too.
We are now back in Falmouth Harbour and have
met up with "Esprit" and "Kelp Fiction", freshly arrived from Guadeloupe: let
the partying continue.
and we hope the weather gets better soon
back in Europe!
Best Wishes
George & Michael
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