Monday 26 January 2015

11. The anchor and the mooring rope

They are, it has to be said, nicely entwined. It's not that I wanted it that way but in the recent blows the anchor chain was swept overboard on the mooring and when I went out today to sort it, I found the little enmeshment.

Try as I might to lift the chain of the anchor, it was firmly wrapped around the mooring lines. The whole job lot was beginning to come up, the chain was taught across the rubbing strake on the front side bit while the mooring rope was slack. I did a bit of jiggery pokery and dropped one end of the chain down into the depths and hung the other end on the end of the anchor rope in the water to take the strain off the side of the boat. In retrospect, perhaps I should have hung the anchor chain on a buoy and sorted the thing out in a low tide. In fact I shall have to do that in the end anyway!

Luckily, I saw Trevor  of Iron-Bark fame coming out of the newspaper shoppe and told him the tale. He intimated I had done the right thing for the moment so I came home relived although somewhat tired after my extertions.

I haven't mentioned the mechanical paddling device on the blow-up stopping in the middle of the harbour have I? Well I have now as it did. I rowed purposefully looking relaxed as I could to the nearest pontoon by the lifeboat as it happens - hoping the coxswain wouldn't see my antics where, in a cloud of oil smoke I got the O/B going again.

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