We’re off again

Well yesterday was a bit frustrating too.

David the Fridge Man turned up at 0830 confidently telling me he’d be finished by 1000. We encountered various problems meaning that he didn’t get finished until 1330. However, as I’d pretty much thought he’d take all day anyway this for me wasn’t bad. The fridge and freezer are running fine but do seem a good bit hungrier on battery power than the predecessors. If I’m lucky they won’t need to cut in so much as they are bigger, we also found a couple of holes in the fridge and freezer which had been letting warm air in, not a good plan. 

As he was going to Cole Bay, and one of the cash and carry’s I wanted to shop at was that way, he gave me a lift for part of the way but as the traffic was bad I got out and cycled from about half way as it was much speedier. I did a full rucksack of chilled and frozen at the Cash and Carry before returning to the boat to pack it and see how much room was left - a fair bit as it turned out so I went to the local supermarket that Quaile had found and did another rucksack’s worth.

Then I cleared out at the office (clearing the boat out with immigration etc), paid my bill and  started to make the boat ready for sea. This gave me time to look at my shopping lists and decide I’d better do another run to the supermarket for tomatoes which I’d forgotten and, inevitably, this turned out to be another rucksack’s full. By the time I went to the Supermarket it was raining, (there’d been no sun all day) and by the time I’d left it was pouring. 

Having stowed the boat and made her secure it was still pouring and blowing quite hard, it was now just before 1800 at which time I could have no help from the marina staff for letting go. I decided to delay until morning. I cooked up some chicken and had a pot of tea and went to bed.

Obviously I couldn’t sleep, so by 2000, with the rain having stopped I decided to head out. We had been secured on the bow to a mooring buoy with the stern tied to the pontoon, this is common in the industry and called a medi (terranean) moor. I’d previously taken the precaution of rigging a slip line to the bow so that I could let go from aboard by swimming a big line to the buoy and replacing the two smaller lines with a big one on a loop with both ends made up on the boat. I rigged a similar set up aft and went to the marina security to drop off my Card key (to get in and out and for showers). The wind had picked up a little and I was slightly worried that once I’d let go of the bow it would blow onto the boat beside me but thought it would probably be alright. I double checked everything was ready, put the boat in and out of gear to make sure the knob on the controls wasn’t going to misbehave and then let go forward, pullling in the line quickly, let go aft and motored out with no incident.

Once clear of the marina there were about a million boats at anchor to avoid and I stowed the fenders and mooring lines whilst  remembering not to get too distracted. The wind was from the NW and after clearing the bay we put up the main with 2 reefs (for squalls) and unrolled most of the genoa setting off to the West which increasingly became SW and so we tacked after a bit. We were hit by a 25 knot squall and I had to roll in some genoa before settling down to a difficult night of light winds which were variable.

It’s now just post breakfast time, (I had bacon and egg having found some bacon - incidentally a shipment of cheese had also arrived so we have some of that too) and we’re motoring with a frustrating 2-6 kts of wind from astern, the most difficult direction for a light wind because any boat speed away from the wind reduces the apparent wind. We’re supposed to have NWly going Nly and then NE’ly winds  but the winds don’t seem to know that.

No land in sight again but yachts and ships are around for something to look at. We’ve done a miserly 37 miles since setting off. It’s now 0930.

Well that’s all for now.

Slainte

Jock