15th May
Osprey
John Bowering
Sat 16 May 2009 00:44
after Helen from the Cat Club came over for sundowners, clutching the bill
and John was seen swimming to the Azores.
A restful day, another early start saw the Genoa out so that the leach line
could be tightened. Then it was up the mast for SC Ted, he decided that he
needed to check John's work so he hitched a ride on Charles's wrist whilst
he was up there lubricating the staysail halyard block. After that it was
onto the navigation and radio instruments - we set the course up to the
horse latitudes and checked the radios.
It was then off to Johnny Coconut's at the Slipway, English Harbour for a
long pizza lunch watching the harbour. Excellent food, and a nice view made
for a wonderful early afternoon. Finished off very nicely by a nice
chocolate, coconut & almond torte for Charles, who initially wasn't go to
have one but was convinced by the other two. And promptly lost a sizeable
amount to Kuki.
A return to the boat for a lazy couple of hours, siesta time prior to the
final preparations. The sun tent came down, was promptly stowed tightly in
the aft sail locker. Then a pause was required as Kuki decided she was
washing her hair in the evening and not the morning as previously reported -
once she had done something with it, the deck was washed down. Then a few
other minor jobs such as closing a few scuttles, preparing the final
scuttles, moving the dingy to the foredeck and rigging the aft and the fore
spring as doubles for inboard release.
At this point, John of the Chuddies (JoC) decided he was content with the
state of Osprey and her somewhat unorthodox crew. Then SC Ted reminded him
that whilst on paper JoC was the Skipper everyone knows that Osprey will not
slip the berth until he says so......all being well approximately 0800 hrs
tomorrow morning. The next installment of this blog will come from
somewhere in the Atlantic.