Dear Reader(s),
Perhaps, in the absence of any news since August, you are wondering if my blogging is over for good?
Has lockdown led to blogdown ?
What has happened to Albatross and her crew ?
Well .. sorry, to disappoint you, but the blog is back. A new season is here and sailing and blogging must go on.
As spring approaches, boats need maintenance.
Boat maintenance now has to be redefined as Emergency Essential Boat Care (EEBC). EEBC is, of course, an entirely essential activity during lockdown and can be conducted away from home (well this is how we have interpreted the advice provided by an employee of our local boatyard, anyway).
Wednesday 17th February 2021
After a long and boring winter alone on her trot in Kingswear, Albatross needed to be lifted to have her bottom scrubbed . Getting out to Albatross on her mooring is not as easy as it was pre-COVID because the yacht taxi is less freely available. But don't despair, we have THE GREEN THING.
My regular reader will remember that The Green Thing has this winter been redeployed as a cover to prevent weed growth on our vegetable patch. However, with some help from my crew and first mate we managed to extract her from our garden and launch her into the River Dart at Stoke Gabriel from where it is a mere 5 or 6 miles downstream to Albatross in Kingswear.
The Green Thing.
Stoke Gabriel to Kingswear is pretty straight forward and downstream.
About halfway is the famous village of Dittisham (pronounced locally as "Ditsum" or "Arrr Ditsum" if you're a pirate, or "Ditters" if you are posh).
Dittisham is well know as being the birth place of a Enid Blyton and is also where she also worked with a Mr H. Poirot on a collaborative novel entitled "Five get murdered on the Orient Express". Enid has, of course, since moved on but she is still very much revered locally.
I was just marvelling at the astonishing reliability of the Green Thing and her 10 year old Suzuki 2.5 HP engine when she spluttered to a stop. Had this happened 20 seconds later it might have resulted in an interruption to the smooth running of the Dartmouth Higher Ferry, but it didn't and a ferry nasty incident was therefore averted.
A little more petrol and some verbal encouragement saw us safely to Albatross at her mooring.
I won't trouble you with the finer intricacies of the getting off a trot mooring without getting a rope around ones sterngear but Harbour Patrol, appreciating that we were undertaking EEBC, was extremely helpful and gave us a good shove with his RIB.
Safely aboard Albatross, we motored back to Dittisham, towing the Green Thing behind us.
Despite its fame in literary circles, Dittisham is really very pretty.
Someone else's boat at Dittisham.
We left Albatross in Dittisham on a visitors' mooring and took the Green Thing back to Stoke Gabriel. The plot would continue tomorrow.
Tomorrow
Albatross was to be lifted at Galampton Quarry Boatyard (pronounced "Gamton" by locals or "Arrr Gamton" by pirates and "Gammers" if you're posh etc.*). Conveniently Galampton is just across the river from Dittisham, so all we had to do was to get back by Green Thing to Albatross and motor into Galampton at high tide to be lifted out of the water.
The forecast was F8 - 9 (yes really) and heavy rain. I woke up at 0230 that morning to hear the roof tiles rattling and rain falling like horses pee. How would we ever get back to Albatross in that?
Dawn broke. It was still and sunny, Warm even.
We completed the rest of this epic mission without incident.
Albatross is now safely ashore and will soon have her bottom scrubbed and painted.
*Posh pirates rarely visit Galampton.
