Sleeping on a boat if a lovely thing, and I shall find it difficult sleeping in a normal bed on dry land. You get rocked to sleep, quite literally and the splish splash can be very comforting. However, I’m now in a bow cabin and we are at anchor, so there are all sorts of noises and groans, and if you listen to them too much you start to believe you could be drifting aimlessly! I kept in mind that we laid the anchor chain, then held the engine in astern propulsion at 1800 revs to check it is firm – that would be one hell of a wind to get beyond that, so I ignored the occasional groans and slept, until 5am that is! I think my body is getting a little into antipodean mode – this time in 3 weeks I will be enroute to a new adventure in Australia!
Day started with a cuppa, which I delivered, as usual to John in bed – he is on holiday and usually up so early as a farmer at home, so is enjoying a little down time at the start of the day
The day has now ended and yet again, Im snuggled in bed in my gorgeous little cabin and my hot water bottle with the wind rattling around me, the boat vibrating and rolling around – the Indian summer has officially ended! We are in Teignmouth and attached to a pontoon which is just a girlie stone throw from the town, in fact, we seem to be getting nearer all the time – I shall explain.
We arrived here around noon following a gorgeous sail from Dartmouth with a lovely broad reach and the boys taking turns on the helm to see how they could best surf the waves and get the best speed. Alan won, not suprisingly as he is the instructor, and he managed 11.2 knots. That may not mean much to you, but it impressed the hell out of me, but I stayed right out of the competition. I was skipper and taking my role far too seriously and busy doing a proper job, and nothing to do with the fact I would never beat that record of course!
Alan
Tim The Superyacht Man!
John!
I had carefully planned a pilotage into Teignmouth, and with Alan on the helm pretending he was a complete novice and needing careful direction, we brought the boat in behind two training naval vessels. There has been a new gale warning at 9.40 saying the gale would arrive “soon” Well you see, soon in my language is a bit like saying to my kids, “just wait a minute” with a “minute” having no definable boundaries. The met office however have a definition of “soon” which means in 6-12 hours. The wind speed quickly rose and we had a wonderful challenge getting the boat onto the pontoon, not least because the naval vessels had taken up the room we would have used. Alan thankfully did not relinquish the helm, as he said that was one of the most difficult berths that could be made, but it was helped by the skipper of the naval vessels instructing his students to take our lines on the boat to which we rafted. They were brand new at it, which took a nano second for us to assume, once we saw the looks on their faces as they took our lines wondering what the hell to do with it!
Anyway, here we are rafted onto a boat onto a pontoon which is one of 3 short pontoons in a row. We had lunch, settled down to some work in the pontoon, whilst John inflated the dinghy and the wind blew him to the shore! We jumped up when we heard a bang, it was the bathing platform touching our neighbouring boat, but we looked up to find the pontoon had left its position and was sitting at a completely different direction to the others.
Where has out pontoon gone??
Barely a boat width between pontoons when we arrived!
Instruments straight on, we ascertained we were in a good amount of water, but couldn’t understand what was happening. A quick call to the harbour office, and a woman there informed us “well, I don’t really know cos I just sit in the office and answer the phone, but the harbour assistant told me it does this lots and there is nothing to worry about”
We continued our studies and then Alan decided he would cook, he saw on the menu it was gammon, new potatoes, veg and cauliflower cheese which he considered easy. Well, it is to someone who knows how to make a roux, but for poor John, who thinks this is just the name of a chef, it was a tad of a challenge! With just a little coaching from me, and lots of boating analogies, the dinner was complete, and he had left just one pan unused in the process – a very good job John is great at washing up!
We had planned a trip across the small strip of water into the highlife of Teignmouth, but the rain was horizontal, so we had an evening in and continued our studies!
Its now 11.30, I’m very tired, and the line from the assistant at the harbour office is running through my head as I lye here in my cabin and feel the boat shaking in the wind…..goodnight!
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