Here come the girls

Yes we do and with style, laughter and muscle power to rival the boys.

Firstly, hello darling. Now before anyone gets excited that was just for Seb- currently away on work and left me in charge of Ms Ann, with would you believe it a list of ‘should you have time’ jobs. Oh, and I should mention at this point instructions on how to varnish and teak oil (in case I hadn’t done it before the cheeky ****). For those unititiated of you the opportunities for me to get to the boat of late have been very sparse due to starting my own business (ours really because there is no way I could have done it solo), so the idea that I can get down to look in on Wendy let alone work is, looking at recent history, laughable. However I had my own ideas and although the teak oil and varnish will get a look in, the girls and I had bigger plans…

Have a guess; when thing one disappeared one of the few remaining parts were the wheels from the gangplank. Well here they are, back on dry land, how strange, how did they get there? Why go into the mud to retrieve them unless you were down there anyway?

Here are some clues; we needed a car, a trailer (which in itself presented a problem seeing as Seb has the car with a tow bar) some muscle and a plan. This aforementioned plan involved two day trips a week apart, borrowing Jon’s (Jenny’s dad) Land Rover Discovery, a people carrier, a lot of dangerous manoeuvres, three planks, ice cream and a stroll on the beach. Oh, and ropes…

Can you tell what it is yet?

Oh yes, we have removed both empty IBC’s

Plan A wasn’t really a plan so we winged it and got into a spot of bother. The trouble was not getting the IBC out of the boat but getting the damned thing off of it. We hadn't accounted for the logistics of actually getting this huge thing up the deck to the walkway, going over or around fixed obstacles such as bollards. So we threw it overboard. Great, it’s buoyant we thought. However it won’t float ashore on a fast ebbing tide will it. Hence the mud, you can imagine the laughs and the hours it took to drag it round to a low part of the shore so as we could drag it out again.



We needed a plan B seeing as we were now filthy, exhausted, mildly traumatized and running late to do evening stables back at home.
So, week two. We checked the time tables, realised that it would be low when we got there so went prepared with three long planks with which to make a temporary gangplank on the uncluttered part of the deck. We lifted the IBC from the engine room, carefully onto our gangplank and pulled it ashore, rolled it to the trailer and away. Plan B worked so well that we were caught by surprise and left with nothing to do but go for ice cream.

This is a major job on Wendy Ann done and I couldn't have done it without the 'girls army'. The recruits being- my sister Victoria, who travelled down from Nottingham twice to take part, Paula, who managed to juggle motherhood of 4 around helping out and Jenny who managed to fit the last trip in before starting her new job- congats! All of whom worked so hard with a fantastic sense of humour, I couldn't have asked for a better team of friends.

The pictures speak for themselves really so enjoy, we certainly did and I am far too excited and pleased with myself to edit this blog further so apologies. The last piccie is for Paula; it is of her two cool dogs having a run on the beach. I had the pleasure of dog sitting them a few weeks prior to this madness; say hello to Bear and Pumpkin.