Helm's a'lee

Actually, it was a bit more complicated than that. Firstly, I kept having anxiety attacks about the engine. I didn't feel confident to service it myself, and had never had it done, in over two years. Was it reliable still? What was that squeaking noise when I switched both batteries on to charge? Where is the dipstick, exactly, and should I just keep pouring oil into it and hoping for the best? That was all fixed when I called a local chandlery who put me onto a bloke who for a nominal sum (that I finally remembered to pay) came and looked it over. He gave me renewed confidence. All in good shape, he said. New oil filter, new water impeller, change the oil and it's set. Give it a good run once in a while so it doesn't glaze up. He also knew immediately what the squeaking under load would be. The alternator belt is the wrong size, but he made it much better by adjusting the tension. Still, the belt is wearing and making an awful mess.

I've also been playing with my garmin GPS and a electronic chart package called Memory-Map. For what I do it's overkill, but it lets me play the armchair sailor when I can't get out and do the real thing.

My plan was to leave Kangaroo Bay at about 9am Saturday 30 May 09 and sail to Barnes Bay. On Sunday we would chose either Tinpot, Port Esperance or Port Cygnet, depending on the weather, then retrace our voyage on Monday and Tuesday. I plotted all this carefully and uploaded the routes into my GPS.

As with all good plans, it was a good plan right up until it was put into practice. In the end we loaded up and refuelled and left Bellerive at around midday. We beat down the river but the wind kept dropping so there was a bit of motoring there too. Once into the Channel I was more and more worried about anchoring before sunset, so there was quite a bit of motoring there too.

A highlight of the trip down was seeing a lazy old seal lying on his side in the water. We came close and did a lap around him before he got startled and swam away.

We arrived in Barnes Bay in good time and went right up into the Duckpond, well away from any whether, and not another boat in sight. It was then that the crew mutinied. Rather than sailing on anywhere, all they wanted to do was to stay where we were and row around the bay for the next few days. I was in no position to argue.

So from Saturday night to Tuesday morning, I cooked and swabbed deck, and they rowed and fished, and rowed and explored. Sunday was broken up by a pod of about a dozen dolphins skimming into the bay. I heard a splash then a 'fooph' and looked over as one blew out a breath. The next thing I knew they were all around. I called out the the crew, who were ashore. Watching them row back to the boat I had images of the tiny dinghy being overturned by and inquisitive dolphin, but nothing happened. We watched them for ten minutes or so as they cruised around and left the bay again.

(I thought I'd better publish this, although it's not finished yet.)