Fw: Drunken Sailor III - 15th June 2009
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Greetings Earthlings..............
Friday 5th June
(Frankly the dates mean nothing to us now except I need them to look up the tide tables which most of the time I fail to understand. The other day we sailed on a supposed ebb tide and found ourselves going backwards - twas a bit like being back at work)
The sun is setting over Plymouth and also setting on a very expensive day. Not counting the £101 pounds for two nights berthing in the marina, the final bill for the repairs to our generator cost around £800! All for a printed circuit board.
But there is always an upside...it gave Sharon a chance to try out her new washing machine. Yes I know, Sharon even attempting to do anything domestic has got to be good for a laugh but it keeps her away from "helping me out" on the more technical issues. There is something deeply wrong with an former accountant who stands behind you making suggestions as to what the problem might be as you are stripping down a generator and haven't a blind clue about what you are doing. ( Notice that I didn't swear there but I still thought the F word). It is even more frustrating when she asks you why her suggestion does not merit an immediate and detailed reply. "So its not working Dave? What's an amp anyway and why haven't you not got any?" " Would there be spares in the toolbox?" When we were In Southampton there was a boat on an adjacent berth called "the Flying Spanner". I think I know why
and I'll bet it was a husband and wife team.
Anyway...back to the washing machine. "We are having a washing machine Dave" In bold. In capitals. Clearly no way round this one. So we get the refit experts in from the shipyard. The guy is as perplexed as me as to the underlying need. If you only shower once a week its pointless changing your clothes any more frequently otherwise they just get dirty from the inside out rather than the reverse as is normal....
"Mmmmmm" he says, " the washing machine will cost around £250 and fitting it will be around £4000. And it will probably only last a year and it will cost the same again to change it out" I could have kissed him but realised that it was very important to look disappointed. Sharon went into deep think.....
Now we have a portable twin tub, campers £99 washing machine which we set up on the worktop. And it is great. The commissioning consisted of us stopping it at intervals to check on the cleanliness of gussets and the skidmarks on my drawers and it works! Although Sharon did comment on the number of days we had been at sea and the distinct lack of pairs of my drawers in the wash. (This is back to the reduced showers/reduced change of clothes argument put forward earlier).
It also enabled us to turn a swish, up your ass marina, into a new age traveller site...check out the photos.
Oh and we had an outing today....on the RIB (rigid hulled inflatable) which is normally slung off our stern. We left our berth at the marina and screamed across the huge harbour in a bouncy sea towards the channel that leads to where the big naval base is. Yes Dave wanted to see the toyz of war. We were just passing Plymouth Hoe and admiring the posh yacht club looking across the harbour entrance when ....the engine died... yes we had run out of fuel. But guess what...we are learning we had a spare can of fuel on board.
Now this thing is a bit like a motorbike with a float round it and Sharon was sitting behind me on the motorbike seat....no room to swing a cat... and the main fuel tank....well bugger it it doesn't really matter suffice to say we managed to get some fuel in the tank, much to the disappointment of the punters in the yacht club whom I suspect were taking bets over their g+ts as to when we'd hit the rocks! We went back to Symphony.
Tuesday 9th June Forward a bit and back a bit and very battered!
It is a pleasant evening in Falmouth estuary. We are moored in St Just's Creek about a mile opposite the busy harbour but where we are low hills come down to the shore covered in brilliant green summer grass, hawthorn hedges and grazing cattle and horses. You can hear the birdsong. The sea is flat and there is not a hint of a breeze. During the afternoon we exchanged hellos with boat loads of primary kids on a school trip. Sharon even saw a naked man on the beach and needed the binoculars for 15 minutes to confirm she was right. Ever since she has been looking at my crotch and laughing......makes you wonder sometimes. We haven't done much since we got up in the early afternoon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wind the clock back 48 hours. We left Plymouth heading to go straight to Lizard Point, the most southerly point in the UK. very dramatic place, loads of rocks, treacherous currents, tidal races in excess of six knots, "stay three miles out to sea as a minimum" says the books. And we did...but when we got to our stop for the next night we realised that it was not secure against the forcast southerly winds.....nor was there anywhere else going west until we rounded Lands End which would have taken us around 5 hours....so there was nothing for it but to head back around the Lizard around the infamous Manacle Rocks and
And back to Falmouth, a three hour haul. As an aside the “Manacles” are a maze of rocks which stretch out about three miles west of the coast line. A cardinal buoy is makes identification easy today, as does accurate charts and GPS systems. But on a calm sea at high tide the buoy sits remote, well out to sea, all around you is water depths of about 150 feet........yet virtually instantly , a quarter of a mile west on the other side of the buoy, the seabed rises and you have jagged unforgiving rocks literally inches beneath the surface ...... As you slide past the buoy on a calm day, a mournful bell clangs out its warning and it is easy to envisage the hundreds of lives lost on these rocks through the centuries when dead reckoning was the only means of navigation.
Anyway, where was I before I got all poetical....oh yes.....we checked the new weather forecast and it predicted light easterly winds backing north east over the next 24 hours.. So that meant if we had stayed where we were we would have been fine. Such is life so we decide to anchor up in the estuary of the Helford River a picturesque mile wide cleft in the land at the base of the Lizard peninsula.
Morning dawned and the weather was atrocious, pouring rain, crap visibility and a steady wind from the east.....we checked the forecasts.......BBC, Met Office, weather Online, the GRIB weather maps and they all said the same....light easterlies backing to the NE. Nae problem! So we decide to hole up for the day and chill out.
By 1000hrs, the wind has risen to about 20 knots and the rain is like somebody playing a hose across the deck and the sea is getting up a tad. We peer out into the grey gloom and spy a number of yachts heading out to sea.....poor sods we thought they are going to be seriously wet.
By 1100, the weather was if anything getting worse and when the wind reached 30 knots our windlass started paying out anchor chain....OK time to go. Scan of the charts, plan to head to Falmouth, hard weather gear on (“Henri Lloyd" you know. Sharon likes to keep us fashionable. I agreed on the basis that we bought last years issue.....cheap in the sale but not in this year’s manly pink colours. It is a sad indication of how sad we humans are when you have to have this year’s colours in wet weather gear when you may be wearing it for three days continually and it smells of a combination mould, jock strap and dog breath), start the engine, get the navaids on, recheck the weather forecast....out on deck.....but the anchor won’t come in...oh shit! Should have thought of that! If in doubt, phone a friend! We are very lucky to have two friends who are competent sailors, Dave Sinclair and Hugh Williams. “Who do you want to phone, Dave”. I’ll phone Dave Sinclair. “Hello Dave Sinclair you have thirty seconds to answer this question before Dave and Sharon and their shiny boat end up halfway up a Cornish hillside.” And answer the question he did and we fixed the windlass, and we then forgot about our plan to get the hell out and decided to ride it out. Big mistake! By 1800 hours the wind was a force 7/8 with gusts of over 50 knots and the sea was rising towards 2 meters.........All 33 tonnes of Symphony was being tossed like a cork, shearing 60 degrees either side of the wind and rolling to 40 degrees. The noise was horrendous. Everything inside our supposedly well packed lockers clattering from side to side, the oven clanging against its gimbal stops, the wind screaming through the rigging, the rain battering across the deck. Suddenly I was amazed to see two people out for an evening swim about 100 yards from us...hardy folk these Cornishmen. We spent the night on deck taking sightings (with the aid of a zillion candela B&Q torch which I always knew would come in useful one day when I bought it 8 years ago) to ensure that we were not dragging the anchor. By dawn we were knackered and left wallowing beam on to the sea and the wind while much less, had still not done the gentlemanly thing and behaved as per forecast. So we cut our losses and up anchored and headed back to Falmouth and in my case several large whiskies before crashing out at nine o’clock in the morning. Lessons learned – (1) when you have a plan stick to it. (2) Make allowances for crap weather forecasts and local conditions (3) Always stop off your anchor on something other than your windlass
Monday 15th June So now we are in Wales! At Milford Haven to be precise. It is 1000hrs and Sharon has just staggered out of bed after a well earned sleep. We were stuck in “Naked Man Bay” in Falmouth until Saturday. We decided to do the 140 mile run to Wales in one go an estimated 24 hour run on the engine and more or less on wind power...but there was no wind. We had two aborted attempts to make the trip, one called off because of a rigging problem and the other because of fog. So we left at 1100hrs on Saturday morning to catch the tides which would give us 10 hours of assistance to get round Land’s End and well across the Bristol Channel. First excitement came west of Land’s End when we came across four huge basking sharks which we think were doing the piscine equivalent of shagging. They were impressive beasts about 5 metres long and we got right alongside the amorous couple and the two other would be suitors. See the photo. Although there was no wind, there was a big swell which we took on our beam and this made the journey a little uncomfortable as we were rolling constantly. As it was a relatively short journey we decided not to do watches but just to take turns cat napping. The darkness was short about 5 hours and there was little traffic until about three o’clock. The only excitement was caused by a herring gull which I had chucked a sandwich to off Land’s End. It then followed us to Wales ( a bit like our daughter Catriona when it comes to food)......every now and again swooping out of the blackness to flash white across the cockpit. First couple of times I almost *hit myself. Anyway the traffic hotted up in the couple of hours before dawn, with tankers, freighters and fishing boats ploughing through the night. Sharon and I worked full time with binoculars and the radar tracking them and occasionally taking avoiding action to get off collision courses. We are also learning to identify different classes of vessel by the arrangement of their nav lights...that is the ones that actually have them on. We have MARPA radar which takes does a lot of the hard work. If you are concerned about a particular vessel you tag it and the radar works out its speed and course and tells you of its closest point of approach and the time when it will happen, giving you loads of warning.
We are also learning that the normal rules of the sea don’t apply to fishing vessels..they just do what they want. Dawn brought a brilliant sunrise, a clear sky and a sparkling blue sea and......common dolphins. Not one but three schools of dolphin joined us in turns for the run to Milford Haven. You could see them coming from about a mile away, racing through the sea towards us. Then suddenly they were all around, riding our bow wave jostling and pushing each other like a bunch of unruly school kids to get the best position. I cannot describe the joy I get from watching dolphins having fun. Sharon went up to the bow to speak to them and they seemed to take it in turns to lie on their side looking at her and audibly “clicking” loudly before another would bump it out of the way in order to take its place. I have stuck in a couple of photos but as usual photographing dolphins is like herding cats. We were moored up in a lovely bay in Milford Haven by nine o’clockand got a couple of hours kip before daily chores. In my case changing the fuel filters on the engine and then making diesel flavoured burgers for an evening barbecue (yes believe it or not we have a gas barbecue on the stern. I may have mentioned this before cos it never ceases to amaze me) In Sharon’s case cleaning up 24 hours of fag ash off the deck and doing prep work for planning the next stage of our journey.
Today is a chill out day.......test the engine after maintenance, plan the next big run....possibly here to North Wales or Northern Ireland to get the next all weather anchorages. It will depend on the weather forecast!
The Drunken Sailor
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