Fw: C Sick Monday 16th Nov. 2009

Lady Corinne
iain and gaynor macalister
Sun 22 Nov 2009 08:53

----- Original Message ----- From: "LadyC" <LadyC {CHANGE TO AT} mailasail {DOT} com>
To: <ladyc {CHANGE TO AT} mailasail {DOT} com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 12:41 PM
Subject: C Sick Monday 16th Nov. 2009


Up,up and away! At last the time has come to head for warmer climes and Gaynor and I are onboard an Easy Jet Airbus from Gatwick to Las Palmas in Gran Canaria to rejoin our beloved 1939 14 ton Hilliard ketch, Lady Corinne, who has been sitting in the picturescue Pueto Mogan Marina since we abandoned her there at the end of August. This was after the longest trip that we have ever done in her, from Chichester to the Canaries. Preparations for the second leg have seemed to take forever and we have found about 80 kilos of stuff that we need to take out with us This is as well as the 40 Kilos (Those cakes that Vicky makes us do weigh a bit) that Zara and Simon will be bringing with then when they come out to visit us and help us to celebrate Gaynor's Birthday on Friday. Finding a way to get all this out wasn't easy as our hold baggage allowance is around 40 kgs and most of that is taken up with a new sail that we have had made to power us to the Carribbean. It's called a Twisle rig and consists of two sails totaling almost 800 square feet! that are joined together at the luff (leading edge) and hoisted from the top of the mast to the end of the bowsprit (A long wooden pole that sticks out from the deck at the front of the boat) The two identical sails are used with one on each side with a very complex, floating suspended double pole arrangement that we will have to arrange when we get there. I am the person , you may recall,who managed to forget his spinnaker pole on the journey down here and now I need 2 of them! This extra weight saw us selecting the maximum size hand luggage bags we could get and filling them with all the heavy stuff. Fine until you arrive at the airport and realise that your gate which is 113 is as far away from the arrival point as you can possibly get and the bag weighs a ton. We are now in a very Orange environmment and should arrive in Las Palmas in about 4 hours, the same trip took us 15 days in Lady C and we loved every minute of it. We will be without Tristan this time, he was the third crew member on our last passage and I think getting up in the dark and setting off in the cold to go to his job in England made him think of Oz and we said a very fond farewell to him yesterday . We really will miss you Tristan, enormously on the trip (I don't know how I'm going to break the news to Lady C) and when we get back. It was so nice having you around and we both wish you lots and lots of happiness in Australia. Hmmmm I wonder if Lady C could make it through the Southern Ocean? However I am kind of starting to think that you not being there might give us a chance of catching some fish!! I hope you left Dexter Delure onboard. Sunday started with a bit of a hangover as we had been busy saying goodbye to Tristan the night before and when Zara came into the kitchen and announced that there was water dripping through the ceiling in the hall I just knew it was going to be a challenging sort of day. A water pipe had just randomly decided to split and then while trying to clear some of the junk in the loft out of the way she must have knocked the house alarm wiring and that triggered a 2 million decibel screeching that did nothing for our delicate heads. Anyway we got through it and hopefully all is now repaired and I can only think how lucky it didn't happen a couple of days later.
Csick refers to lady C as she is not well, I have only seen pictures but apparently the dry,dry, hot wind which comes, most of the time, straight off the Sahara has caused the coachouse roof sides (That's the bit on top of the deck where the portholes are) to split along the grain of the timber as the wood has contracted . It sounds very serious and we will certainly have some work to do before we set off. We will keep you posted. Leaving was very sad and there are so many people we will miss terribly, thanks to everyone for their kind wishes for a good trip, we will be thinking of you often and I hope, able to keep in touch through email. To all of you who joined us for our trip down Welcome back! It's lovely to have you back on board with us and to any new arrivals we hope you'll have a pleasant journey with us.

Hasta Las Islas Canarias (Island of dogs)