Making a fool of oneself
NORDLYS
David and Annette Ridout
Fri 20 Jul 2007 08:51
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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.
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