The final bit
Dandelion
Rick, Helen, Sue, John
Thu 30 Jun 2011 13:21
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Hello from 50:27.4N 4:12.4
W
Those who can
‘plot’ this position will see there we are now back at dear old Weir Quay and
DDL is on a temporary mooring on the Tamar, snugged down between Devon (right
bank) and Cornwall (left bank). The last few days of our voyage continued to
produce one or two surprises (I’m not
saying this is a bad thing. You try writing a blog of a voyage when everything
goes well and according to plan, nothing breaks or falls off and nothing out of
the ordinary happens. It would be something like this:
‘We are departing from
port A. All well on board.
We are voyaging towards
Port B. All very well on board, nothing to report.
We arrived port B. All
still very well on board.’
You see, it would lack,
what we writers refer to as, zip.
24th
June
If you recall, where we
left you was in a SSW 7, crossing the continental shelf. That ‘half gale’ took a
day to blow through. A very, very, grey, rolly day in which we three forsook the
cockpit for the Pilot House and played Wizard (a version of whist with extra
cards and nastiness). Our table was a pillow wedged on the floor as, with the
boat ‘in full motion’, anything else would have taken off. During the night an
injury occurred. We had an ‘all hands on deck’ task to carry out when one of the
crew crash-gybed the boat thus jamming the skippers head twixt main sheet block
and main sheet track.
25th
June
Overnight the weather
pulled itself together and although there was quite a bit of ‘left-over’ sea
running it was a lovely morning. There was some odd looking, wispy low cloud
over to the north which prevented us from picking up our first sight of land.
There was a damn great tanker over to port – our first ship for some days. This
was a juicy opportunity to test the Radar. So. Switch on. Check the screen. Yes
there’s a green trace going round and round. What about the target? Nothing. Not
a flicker And this despite the fact that this tanker was about the size of
Suffolk and was plainly visible to the naked eye. I maybe jumping to conclusions
here but, you know, I’m wondering if the radar is really any
good.
26th
June.
Last night we had to dodge
around the ITZ (Inshore Traffic Zone) off the Scillies and as we cleared its
eastern end the Weather Gods took their final pot-shot and sent us a chilly
ESE’ly F4 which was basically right in our chops. So we got The Shrek turning
and headed straight into it, weaving now and then to avoid east-going shipping.
Of course, the wispy odd-looking cloud then metamorphosed into a sullen, damp
fog bank. But in the end that burnt off and, wind direction notwithstanding, we
had a nice day out a sea. Then, at 1900 ship’s time, bloody George (the
auto-pilot) started playing up and after a hour of fooling around, topping up
hydraulic fluid, we were stuck with hand-steering over night. Bad but not that
bad as this will be our last night. Then S came up from the Pilot House.
‘There’s a rotten egg smell’ she said. To a certain extent, R and I, poo-pooed
the R.E.S. putting in the ‘yes, well, we’ll look into that later,’ category. S
came back. ‘We really DO have a problem with our electrics! One of the batteries
is practically smoking!’ Three of us try to get through the Pilot House hatch at
the same moment. The outboard battery was as hot as hell, emitting a
hydrogen sulphide stench and hissing. In the end we took the terminals off the
wayward battery, thus isolating it. As the bank is wired in series, everything
still works fine. (Or at least as fine as it did before our China syndrome
incident. Even next day the battery was still warm to the
touch.)
27th June.
Gradually we closed the
land. (Actually it was during my ‘watch below’ but as land was evident when I
got up it was clear we must have closed it in the meantime.)
Its dawn and half a dozen
dolphins come to guide us across the last few hundred yards of open sea before
we pass by the western end of the Plymouth breakwater. We putter up our oh so
familiar river and at 0600 pick up the visitor’s buoy at Weir Quay. Next to the
non-working engine instruments there’s black button which you press to stop the
Shrek. I press it. The Shrek ignores it and carries on making the usual infernal
racket. I press again, harder. No response. So its one last visit down to the
Black Lagoon (there’s a secret lever). Success. Silence. A profound wonderful
stillness. We can hear the plop of fish jumping. There are cries from early
morning wading birds on the exposed mud banks and the far-off rattle from the
little local train as it crosses the bridge over the Tavy. It all seems a long,
long way from Curacao. ‘Lets have a whisky’, says R and we mark the moment by
sitting quietly in the cockpit with a very decent malt he brought with him. And
that’s it, really. We’re done. |