Day 8 Tuesday 15^th Oct

A leisurely start to the morning waiting for the boat inspector to sign off Great Escape as sea-worthy after yesterday’s excitement. He was due at 10am, but was an hour late and we were eager to set sail. Eventually, all formalities completed, sails readied, boat tidied, wet gear donned, we switched on our newly repaired engine and alongside Skyelark slipped our moorings and ventured out into the stormy waters. Unfortunately, it was the shortest day sail in history and after some raised heart rates and a closer view of the harbour wall than one would wish for, we stuttered back to the pontoon aided by the headsail and Emily’s unflappable skills, closely shepherded by Skyelark ready at a moment’s notice to throw a line. Everyone had their eye on that pesky footbridge just beyond the pontoon! Two crew of the only other boat on the pontoon caught our lines, while their third crew member hovered anxiously with boat hook ready to fend us off and obviously not aware of Emily’s pinpoint steering skills.

Spirits were now a bit low.

The engineer and spanner holding, hipster wearing translator arrived and after more investigations a tiny nugget of rubber was found in the fuel pipe. Could this explain the intermittent engine failure? We thought so.

Spirits rose.

As it was now afternoon it was decided to delay our journey until dawn tomorrow. We filled our time showering in the stone cold marina showers. (We wondered why the marina office insisted on giving us free tokens!) Rob slaved over a hot washing machine. Nicole and I bought bargain fleeces (age 13-14 years) and we rounded off the day at the same restaurant  that had served us so well yesterday. Jeremy (Rob’s Jeremy) soon learnt not to say “What? More chips?”within earshot of the waitress!!

Nicole and her Jeremy readied themselves to move temporarily to Skyelark in the morning to replace ‘lost crew’ (‘returned home’ for those readers getting worried!) and we all settled down for a good night’s sleep.

Maggie X