We have had a couple of days of light and variable winds so Elephants Child has been wandering around her anchor. I was sitting having breakfast and notice that relative to my neighbors I have moved sideways a bit, now this is not a worry as I think I am lying to chain and as soon as we get a bit of a blow things will sort themselves out. But it did not happen so I decide to investigate and discover that somehow I have got the chain wrapped around a fishpot which in turn was snagged on some large lump of rusty machinery which was probably someones mooring at some time.
It was easy enough to winch the whole lot to the surface but it proved impossible to unwrap the chain until I had cut off the old mooring [FIGHT and SWEAT]and lifted the fishpot with a line [ STRUGGLE and SWEAT] and taken the strain of the anchor chain with another line. STRAIN WAIT Noooooo. No Straining why at this point I remembered a recent discussion on a sailing forum about hernias. So I dismantled the fishpot with a hammer and eventually sorted out the rats nest of lines.
A SPIRITED LADY IN TROUBLE
I have seen this gorgeous old boat throughout the islands as we have leapfrogged over each other on our way South. She has had a variety of crew members onboard but it was just the owner and her local crew Andrew on board this morning when she eased her way into Prickly Bay under power to anchor amongst the motley crew already here. But it all went horribly wrong as she turned into wind and hit reverse only to hear much grinding of metal but no drive in either forward or reverse. I heard the anguished call on the VHF for anyone with a big engine on their dinghy to help her onto a mooring. So off I went and was amongst the early attenders this time and we soon had here safely attached to a mooring.
I was invited onboard to inspect the gearbox and it was soon plain that the bolts holding coupling on the back of the box had come undone and the coupling was in fact somewhat damaged. [ Rats!! somehow it has got about that I know one end of a spanner from another.]
In conversation it came out that she was a new build finished in 2008 in Ipswich from Spirit Yachts, A traditional boat above the waterline with a very modern look below and lots of performance.
THE LONG WAY ROUND
Well my passport renewal is in Washington but it went via the following stops.
St George's, Grenada
Port Of Spain, Trinidad And Tobago
Maiquetia, Venezuela
Panama City, Panama
Miami Gateway, FL
Cincinnati Hub, OH
Washington - Ronald Reagan National, DC
Had I known this was the route my application would follow, in advance, I would have been really really worried!
Now I wonder what the route back will be. Maybe next time catch a bannana boat back to the UK.
ReplyDeleteSummer gone here, we have october storms. Looks like a quiet Hurricane season so far.