Wednesday, June 21, 2006

The Flight of Wendy Ann 2





We woke to see the world slipping by the cabin porthole. That’s not right I thought, then I thought ‘ Drat, I knew I was crap at mooring boats- we’re adrift!’ I stumbled from sweaty cabin into harsh morning sun and the smiling visage of Matt, Saxon Wharf’s manager bloke, who was leaning from Wendy’s stern spring and dragging the boat forward into the lifting dock. Blimey what time is it? Only seven in the morning and we’re creeping toward the open arms of the strops hanging from the hoist. Bloody hell it’s time to get off.
B and I stood like bedraggled gypsies on the pontoon wearing flip flops and dredging the sleep from our eyes; watching Wendy Ann being expertly guided into position. The strops went taught all round and slowly Wendy rose gracefully in a direction that boats rarely travel. There was nothing to it and thankfully no need for the divers that we’d been warned we might have to call should events below the waterline develop in a wrong way. Luckily we’d done the homework/guessing combination about right- having marked the extent of the bilge keels on the hull in dirty white spray paint that gave the appearance of our having been visited accurately by a very ill gull. So there wasn’t much to do except smoke roll ups and observe. We observed half our anchor to be missing, somewhere along the dinosaur coast it’d dropped off, having rusted away too much, thus proving itself non commissionable in a decisive manner and gone to join the bones at the bottom of the sea. We observed the frankly embarrassing state of our bowfender, it completed the whippet on a string look of our venture (a week later whilst removing it for disposal I found a dead fish trapped inside its tendrils).
Once our boat was safely up and over the boys set her down, still cradled in the hoist- onto a pair of temporary blocks. The nasty fouling was pressure washed from the hull and the air smelled strongly of barnacle soup, then it was time for tea and nail biting, I’d already spotted something that didn’t look right about her keel at stern, from a distance it appeared missing (!) and on closer inspection I realised there was indeed a six foot long, six inch wide hole… We’d only stayed afloat because there was concrete filling the bottom of our hull above this. Get a proper survey before you buy a boat kids! Let’s just say there were a lot of interesting expressions worn by the faces of the staff at Saxon Wharf that morning. Wendy was going to be accommodated on the opposite side of the yard to the lifting dock so the hoist moves to allow this. With glacial speed our boat, which suddenly looked tiny, floated across the apron. God do these guys know what they’re doing. Never mind hand signals, hardly a word exchanged through the whole transit, hoist driver and banksmen seemed to communicate by a subtle telepathy.
Wendy Ann 2 was chocked up on massive oak blocks and an old ladder was kindly donated so we could get on and off. All over by lunchtime and that was that, hands were shaken, sighs of relief exhaled and our boat stood firmly on dry land.
Then the fun really began.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Your are Excellent. And so is your site! Keep up the good work. Bookmarked.
»

6:56 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

My Love Of BicyclesI have owned many different bicycles in my life. I decided in my early twenties that I could live just fine with just a few bicycles and without a car. I have different bicycles for different uses.I live in Houston and use the Houston streets for my transportation. I regularly use one of my light duty mountain bicycles for grocery shopping. The light duty mountain bicycles are not as tough as my mountain bicycles. Light duty mountain bikes are also referred to as trail bikes.I would never take a trail bike off-road. I have a really tough mountain bike with a full suspension system for taking camping. I try to get out and really ride on my mountain bicycle at least once per month. I usually know at least one person that is going cycling every weekend. It is easy to hitch a ride with them.Some of the most expensive bicycles are recumbent. I bought one for myself and I love it. It allows me to sit in a reclined position and pedal with my feet forward. My recumbent bicycle seat feels like a lounge chair. My model is one of the faster ones and I love it.I had a boyfriend once that was also interested in bicycles. We rode together everywhere and he talked me into buying a tandem bicycle. That was a huge mistake. We just could not work together on that bicycle and it amplified the problems in our relationship that were just below the surface. We broke up about two months after the purchase of that tandem bike.I was on one of my bicycles just getting some exercise last week and I rode past a retirement community and saw something amazing. I thought I was up on all of the available bicycles, but I had never seen an adult tricycle before. They were amazing. I stopped and chatted with one of the women riders and she told me that she hadnt been able to ride bicycles in about twenty years. She needed the stability that the adult tricycle had to offer and felt like she had new freedom.My nephew has recently become interested in bicycles. He wants a BMX bicycle for his birthday. He asked me for it because, as the most enthusiastic bicycle rider he knows, I am most likely to indulge his desire. I think that I am going to try to talk him into a free style bike instead. If I cant talk him into a free style bike, I may end up buying both bicycles for him. I want him to love cycling as much as I do.To learn more about everything bicycles vist my site at: BrensMartUSA Bicycles Have a geat day and stay healthy!Brenda Sue

9:46 pm  
Blogger Abdul said...

This is such a great resource that you are providing and you give it away for free. I love seeing websites that understand the value of providing a quality resource for free. It is the old what goes around comes around routine
obat syaraf kejepit

9:36 am  

Post a Comment

<< Home