Guernsey
Tillymint.fortescue
Wed 29 Jul 2009 07:05
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Tuesday 28 July - yesterday went according to
plan in that our VAT papers arrived, we left Alderney and we arrived in
Guernsey. However another three things happened which weren't part of the plan
and they did rather change the complexion of the day. First of all one of the
davits stopped working when we were trying to hoist the treacherous dinghy and
it was left dangling neither up nor down. Secondly I broke the boat; well
strictly just one of the winches, but boy did it feel like the whole boat when
it happened. Thirdly all the pontoons were full and we had to anchor. Immy
might add a fourth in that we couldn't stay for pudding at the (chocolate) crepe
restaurant because the light was fading for our voyage back to the anchorage
(dinghies don't have headlights). However I like to think that the crew are more
stoic than that so I shall restrict the day's disasters to just 3
events.
The saga of the davits was solved by our truly
industrious skipper and several phone calls to the davit and boat builder.
Skip's a very resourceful chap and I wouldn't sail without him. But suffice
to say we are all passion spent with the dinghy and davits, they have given us a
lot of bother this week. We were all sorted in time to catch the slack tide
through The Swinge (a notorious stretch of water to the west of
Alderney, equalled in reputation only by the notorious stretch of water to
the East called The Race). You need to time your outings into the Race and the
Swinge with care otherwise you may find them deciding your destination for you.
Anyway we were on top of that and got off at the perfect time. There
was a lovely fresh (ie cold) wind from the west, the sun was shining and
we were set fair for a lovely trip to Guernsey.
We got out Stanley (the blade jib...think about it
for a moment) but couldn't hold our course in the Swinge so decided to put
him away and motor on until we cleared the tide. A bit later we decided to get
Stanley out again and that was when disaster struck. Hugo & I manned the
winches, all we had to do was press two buttons, watch the sail unfurl and mind
the winch. Well we did the first two jobs really well but messed up grand style
on the third. The end of the furling line got caught in the self tailor and
broadly speaking the winch proceeded to try and heave itself off the deck. It
went ping and grunch, prompting us to stop pressing the winch button - we may
have created the crisis but you can't say we didn't react to it. Moving on swiftly; the air temperature in the cockpit
plummeted for 20 minutes or so after the incident and the journey continued
on with the one remaining sail we could operate. We reached Guernsey without
further incident, morale being sustained solely by a packet of Pringles.
Because the Gods were obviously not smiling on
me we had to anchor for the night, but it was a calm (apart from a short
whizz on the spin cycle at midnight) and a very beautiful cove so spirits
were restored and we decided to head for our favourite restaurant for a hearty
supper. The day ended badly for Immy but I managed to salvage some shreds
of our otherwise close relationship with emergency Galaxy rations from Tilly
Mint's fridge.Today the Gods are more benign, we have our new easy going
dinghy, spare parts for the winch are arriving by plane tomorrow (we must
make a point of always mooring near airports) and best of all a pontoon came
free. So we have ended the day attached to wood which is really
quite lovely. |
