I woke up at 07:00 as usual to a beautiful sun rise, and
after putting the kettle on, having a pee over the side and scratching my
balls. (all the usual stuff) I decided I should hand the dingy on the davits
for the passage back up to Denham.
So, I pulled the tender along side and tied it off with a
piss poor knot while I reached for the davit hooks to connect to it. Thirty
seconds later I looked around in horror as the knot was untying in slow motion
and the painter dropped into the water and away went the tender off to Denham
without us.
My mind was racing, by the time I pull anchor it will be out
of sight, so I stripped off and dived in after it. The water was freezing (20c)
and as I swam the 10-15 meters, I was thinking how was I going to get in as the
outboard was up.
I finally caught up with it and by then the adrenaline was pumping
and I launched myself like a hard-core navy seal and did a big fat naked
beached whale bally flop into the dingy. Then I though shit, I hope the
outboard starts or this could be one embarrassing rescue.
Luckily the old Yammy started first pull and I was back tied
up to Sirocco in no time. After the ordeal, I decided to just leave it on the
tow line and go and have a hot coffee and toast like I should have done.
It was a beautiful sun rise and the wind was only about ten
knots from the south, so it was a pleasant six knot motor sail down wind up the
Henri Freycienet Harbour, forty nautical miles to Denham.
Our chart wall over the TV
The cruise to Denham was rather uneventful and as I started
to get some mobile phone signal, I put my phone on mobile hot spot, put it in a
bag and hoisted it up the mast and then took the opportunity to update my blog
using the Internet on my laptop.
Denham is very shallow and there are very limited places to
anchor. I spent quite some time looking for somewhere to anchor, almost running
aground several times in the process and when we finally found a suitable place
between some moorings, it took three goes to get anchored and hanging the
correct way.
Once settled, we jumped into the tender and headed into
shore. It was quite a long way and there is only a very small area of sand to
pull up. After securing the tender we walked down the road to the supermarket
to buy a few things and after shopping, we walked up to the pub and had dinner
and a few beers. Its a good old country pub with lots of memorabilia.
After a pleasant dinner, we went looking for the tender in
the dark with our torch. The tide had gone out a bit and we had to drag it back
out with a cold 15 knot wind blowing. We got underway and managed to find
Sirocco in the dark without running into any cardinal markers, moorings or
other boats.
Slightly wet and cold, a hot shower was just what we needed
before settling in for the night.
Track Sirocco’s progress
Where's your pee bottle??
ReplyDeleteScarching your balls on the open deck sounds like heaven to me!
Only males can understand what you're talking about :-)
Nice recovery, although, I would think that water at 20°C would be rather balmy for you.
Hi Luc,
ReplyDeleteNo pee bottle these days, officially we have a holding tank. Doesn't take long for a hard core polar explorer to go wimpy when it comes to cold water :))