Land to sea

Longer days, real warmth from the sun when it shines, lighter breezes, all this brings on our sailing urges. Our elderly Cornish Shrimper sitting on her trailer under the carport down the garden talks to me whenever I go down that way saying 'When are you taking me sailing, putting me back in my natural element? I'm getting all dried out and wrinkly here.'

So who are we to ignore her.

But first, I have a big reel of rope, 60 metres of the stuff, which needs to be divided up to make three new halliards and a main sheet. [Non-boaty's bit: A halliard is the rope what pulls the sails up. A sheet is what pulls them into shape so they catch the wind. The various bits of cordage on a boat all have different names. Nothing, in fact, is actually called a 'rope'.] 

We're upgrading too. When we bought the boat a few years ago we're pretty sure that all the halliards were original, fitted when the boat was built back in 1985, and 8mm three strand rope was considered adequate. Indeed it has survived pretty well. But the rope is quite stiff, hard on the hands, and there are a few little nicks here and there, little frayed pieces, so we reckon the time has come to upgrade. The new rope is smooth, soft to touch, 10mm thick and is white with a green fleck running through it, matching the green of the hull. But threading all this correctly into place when the mast and the other spars are lying horizontally along the deck requires concentration and patience, without which you will end up with a tangle of twisted lines to sort out when the mast is raised.

Despite knowing this, it is time for the first mast raising of the season. We pull the boat out clear of the car port but no further. Since we live at the end of a quiet road this is a place where we can almost guarantee not to have an audience watching us, an important factor when you are about to try something as exciting as a mast raising. The process involves us both climbing up onto the deck (which is now high above the road as the boat sits on her trailer) so that I can lift the heavy wooden mast while Kate pulls on the jib halliard [again, this is a piece of rope]. We have done this before, many times, so we know what we're doing and surprisingly, there are very few tangles to sort out. The new halliards present a flashy look on an otherwise aged boat. Job done, everything is folded down again until launch day. It's all down to the weather now.

Ah yes, the weather. 'Today is the hottest day of the year so far!' It is blasted out all over the news so it must be hot...somewhere. So how is it that where we are the rain poured down from dawn to dusk, torrential at times, the wind blowing it horizontally and the sun never showed its face? The answer to this question lies in the fact that we live in a remote and forgotten place. Few people live here. General statements about the weather made on the national news are aimed at the majority, people who live in cities, and mostly those who live in the south east of England, which might as well be a different planet to the one we inhabit. We wish you all well as you swelter in your 27 degrees of heat, sitting out in your parched gardens praying for rain to water the grass.
But I digress.
Returning to the matter at hand, there is a combination of factors that must coincide in order that Eun na Mara can take to the water safely. The wind must be light and preferably from a westerly direction so that in Carradale Harbour we are sheltered. Anything from the east will pick up waves and push them sideways across the slipway making launching almost impossible. The rain must also cease (this is purely a preference - we don't relish getting wet) and then finally the tide must be coming in, at least half way up. This last factor is because if anything delays the launch you don't want the water to be disappearing downwards away from you. As it happens the lower part of the slipway down which the trailer must roll is covered in a green slimy weed which is like an ice rink to walk on.

At high water this weed is covered over and the operation can be carried out much more safely. So we wait, watching the weather forecast, letting the hottest day of the year slip by and hoping that when the moment does eventually arrive for this combination of factors to come together it won't clash with something else in our busy agendas.

Local assistance is on hand to ease our stress levels when we do decide to 'go for launch'. John is just the man we need, a practical sort who can anticipate things before they happen and doesn't mind getting his hands grubby. He has a boat of his own on a trailer in the garden of his house so there may be a trade off involved soon.

Now we just need the tide to give us a bit more water... so we wait, something which I admit I find very difficult to do. I need a project, a job to do, to while away the hours. Then the rain starts. Then it stops and the sun is out. What can possibly go wrong.

Time slips away and we drive to the harbour, Eun na Mara following dutifully behind us, and start the mast raising, for real this time then reverse down to the waiting wet stuff. A time lapse here. Getting the camera out is not the first thing you think about when you're hanging onto the piece of rope that is all that prevents the boat drifting away to sea without you on board. Between trailer and sea there are a hundred things to worry about but it all goes well, experience shows, and we even manage it in the dry.

It is late in the day when we motor out of Carradale Harbour. We have a passage of nearly 20 miles to the next safe harbour, so up go the sails and we steer northwards, a fresh little breeze carrying us away. It is cool and it gets cooler when the rain begins to fall but there's no going back now. We're sailing quickly with the wind behind us but the cold gradually seeps into our bodies until finally, hours later, the entrance to Tarbert harbour finally comes into view. Then it is engine on, motor in, tie up alongside the pontoon, kettle on, time for a late dinner. It is 8pm.

Once inside our tiny cabin the hatch is closed so the heat is retained, allowing the warming up process to proceed, and before long we are tucked up in bed. Job done. Eun na Mara will be berthed here for the summer, waiting quietly, ever ready for us to take on a new adventure.

Things not mentioned about small boats like ours include the way we navigate. Modern electronic navigation systems require electricity, invariably 12 volts, but we have no means of generating this. Instead we use our phones which use only 5 volts and we carry spare power in small battery packs that can be charged up from a small solar panel. The operative word is small but this doesn't mean less powerful technology. Evidence of this is shown below.

 Passage data: Distance 19.2 nautical miles; average speed 4.4 knots; maximum speed 7.4 knots!