Making a fool of oneself

NORDLYS
David and Annette Ridout
Fri 20 Jul 2007 08:51
A very expensive incident
(or how to be very foolish)
 
 
4:17S 55:42E
A over T in the Seychelles
 
After some time in Victoria and then in and around the beautiful Beau Vallon Bay Annette and I were ready to start exploring.  A brisk 25 mile sail brought us to a bay on the northern, protected side, of Praslin.  This bay however still has some swell finding its way in.  The waves crash with some force on the beach.  By dint of choosing a calm moment and using a beach that is semi protected by some offshore rocks we had managed to get ashore several times without getting very wet.  Yesterday morning however was to prove different.  Going ashore with rucksack and equipment for a good days walking we were met by large breakers.  The small protected beach was full of local boats and we 'cruised' the main beach noting that another yacht dinghy had made it in alright.  A calm moment appeared however I was slightly slow, missed the shoreward onrush and suddenly there was a wall of water behind us.  Result complete chaos.  Annette was thrown clear, I was trapped under our upturned dinghy unable to get it off my back so to speak.  Desperation eventually prevailed and we got ashore, collected hats, shoes and then noted neither of us had our glasses on and there was sand in every orifice you could even think about and a few others.  Camera, phone and outboard were totally soaked.
 
Well to cut a long story short our outboard, the small one a Tohatsu, has been rectified.  The phone and camera have not.  Long hours of snorkelling the beach has not produced our glasses.  Yes we do own both a waterproof phone case and a waterproof rucksack.  None of which we were using.  How stupid one can become after many months of hassle free sailing life.  In aviation there is a well known saying that the careless aviator will get bitten.  There are old aviators and bold aviators but no old bold aviators. The same obviously applies to thoughtless yachties.  The only thing to do is laugh as I am sure many of our readers will be doing by now.
 
The Seychelles are proving to be a delightful area to cruise despite all the officialdom.  The anchorages are mostly sand, the people friendly and the scenery lovely.  We have enjoyed coastal walks of breathtaking beauty, good food and relaxed living.  Sailors amongst you should note that the charter fleets are very active and we usually share our anchorages with charter yachts, mostly catamarans.  Since these are crewed by Italians, French and the like and are liberally sprinkled with lightly or even unclad beautiful female bodies and unlike the Caribbean they seem to be mostly sailed by those who know what they are doing, they are no hassle.  Despite being rather cluttered with long term cruising paraphernalia Nordlys still gets more than her fair share of admiring looks from the charterers.  The reason for this is certainly not because of the beautiful bodies onboard!
 
My Nikon packed up for the third time a few weeks ago and now Annette's point and shoot Sony has had its dunking we are temporarily without the ability to provide pictures but we did get a couple of shore scenes before this happened.  Alas the Sony was due for a big download session.
 
 
Typical view when at anchor.  This anchorage is only about
ten miles from Victoria.
 
Buying local fruit after a two mile walk and a good lunch from the above anchorage.
.  The couple standing in front of Annette are Danish, a doctor and a business consultant. 
They are having a four year sabbatical and circumnavigating in their X yacht.
  A fifty six foot go fast machine.  In their excellent company we keep very quiet about
'average daily runs's'. We hope to meet up again in Madagascar.