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As I sit here once again in front of my computer eager to write about a relaxing event free cruise, I find myself once again sharing what’s becoming an interesting season. All week the weather was looking increasingly bad for the weekend, with increasing winds and possible rain. Friday was supposed to be the last of the good days with Saturday starting sunny and becoming windy. With this in mind I hatched a plan which entailed leaving for Harty on the Friday night after work, heading around the north part of the island and hopefully arriving as the sun sets, then the following day before leaving for home via Kingsferry going to see the local seals. Things started well with my wife Ann having all our provisions ready and the cat once again in his life jacket. As soon as my sister-in-law arrived we were ready to go. We made our way down to the all tide landing where I managed to collect some fees, then launched the inflatable and loaded it up. The plan was to make two trips as Ann had exceeded herself again packing enough provisions to keep us going to the Canaries. While the two women and the cat waited I made my way to the boat and once there unloaded the dingy, but just as I placed the last of the bags on the boat the outboard decided to throw a fly in the ointment by promptly stopping. I attempted to start the engine with the start cord but was immediately thrown into disillusionment when the cord would not budge an inch. I started to row back to the all tide landing, and for those who haven’t had the pleasure of rowing an inflatable across the harbour in a falling tide you haven’t missed much. I can’t understand why the rowing club don’t just get outboards and row only when it breaks. Rowing just isn’t any fun. I finally got back to the all tide landing and a very nice helpful guy who I just relieved of some hard earned money came to my rescue. The line on the dinghy had gone over the side and must have thought it would be fun to visit the prop, and in a mad suicide had had a fight with the prop. The result was the line had to be cut free, but fortunately the engine was forgiving and once all were on board fired up and at last we were all heading for our evening sail. When we finally left the mooring time was no longer on our side. In fact it had become almost a hated enemy, but I was not going to surrender to a few numbers on a digital watch. The wind was light so we motor-sailed past Garrison point before getting enough wind to make headway, we then shut off the engine to enjoy a steady sail along the island. A quick time check showed we only had another forty minutes of tide in our favour and the very light wind in totally the wrong direction forced me let the crew know that we may not make Harty by sunset. Actually we did see quite a nice sunset, it’s just a shame we were just off Minster when it happened. We could have turned back but the gentle breeze had all our spirits up and turning back would have spoiled the day. So I started working out courses ready for the imminent darkness that was slowly enveloping us. As we passed Warden the gentle breeze quickly turned to a six gusting seven, and I reefed the main before light was totally lost. As be progressed further around the island the wind increased and we were all getting a bit wet. It was at this point my wife turned to me and said “It’s getting a bit rough now”. It wasn’t what she said but how she said it that made me wonder if she wanted me to turn the weather down a bit. By now it was dark and I had to go down below quite often to check on our position. To be honest I was quite happy to stay in the cabin as the wind and waves were making sitting outside quite cold, and the women were doing such a great job it seemed a pity to go out and take the tiller. I became quite concerned when as we reached the eastern end of the island I couldn’t see any red and green flashing channel markers. I once again had to put on my most confident tone and give a compass heading, stating that everything was great and I knew exactly where we were, though my GPS had developed a burnt out screen at the top which made reading our position more a guess than a science. The weather by now was exciting to say the least, and it was just about now the cat decided that his presence was needed on deck. Now I don’t know if this is normal for a cat, I had always believed that cats were more likely to come out if the weather was dead calm. But our cat seems to only want to emerge when we hit a force seven. He tends to sit on the seat with his paws on the side and can look over the side for hours even though he is being continually drenched by waves. The worst part about sailing at night in a seven is you can’t see the waves approaching, during the day you spot the ones that will get you wet and you instinctually turn your head, at night you just sit there and take it all. Eventually we spotted the red and green lights I had been hoping for and though it seemed to take a life time to reach the fist channel and the depth gauge to read 1.5 metres we rapidly passed the other markers. The only problem with Harty is as you approach the moorings there are no more of those nice bright red and green lights to follow. We started looking for a mooring buoy but the torch could not throw out enough light and though I sure the cat could see the buoys he kept it to himself. Finally I decided to anchor instead as we were all wet, cold and tired. The following morning was if anything windier that the previous night, but at least we were in the relative shelter of the Swale. We were aground but the tide was coming in fast, and I knew we would be afloat very soon. Ann and Helen quickly set to work in the galley, so after a four hour breakfast I decided to get going before we ended up aground again. I was not totally surprised when the engine didn’t start due to a flat battery and always carry a spare now. I think the reason for the flat battery is the fact that we had all our lights on as well as the depth sounder and GPS, I doubt the alternator was producing enough power to run everything and charge the battery. Once the spare was connected up the engine fired up and we headed off east again just to see any seals that were around. We were not disappointed, though there were none on the mud there were plenty in the water. So after having our visit to the seals we headed back through the Swale towards home. It was a pleasant trip with the added bonus that we didn’t have to wait for the bridge as a tug needed to go through at the same time as us. We continued our trip under power until we reached our mooring and moored up without a hitch. Pete was even in the trot boat and motored up to take all of the gear and crew ashore. I stayed to complete some work that needed doing, and after doing all the chores I went up forward to tie the genoa up. It was only then that I looked down and realised that my dingy was no longer attached to the mooring buoy. It was there when Pete took the crew and now it wasn’t. I stood on the bow like a demented Victor Meldew. “I don’t believe it” I kept repeating hoping that god would feel guilty about this latest piece of fate thrown in my direction and make my dingy re-appear. I didn’t and I quickly rang Ann up to let her know what had happened, I then rang Pete up with my latest exiting adventure, again Pete came to the rescue and came out in the trot boat to get me. It turned out that the line had broken and the dingy had been blown onto Crundles wharf, where a fisherman had pulled it out of the water and had left it by the Old house at home. So it turned out a wonderful weekend. (It’s a wonder we made around the island at all.) Keep tuned in for the next exiting adventures of Captain Ed and his trusty crew.
Written by Eddie Johnson |
Last modified: August 28, 2008 Night sail to Harty
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