Another lovely spring day. We got the Skerry out for a row, with Anne in forward station. I think she was a bit dubious about it.
Oz was pretty relaxed about it all, old seadog that he is.
A pigeon took up residence on the seat in the sun in the garden this afternoon . We sowed some grass seed earlier, maybe he was too full to fly off.
Another light wind blue sky spring morning this morning. Anne had some medical appointments in the afternoon so Oz and I went for a one hour row. It was lovely.
Later in the afternoon I tried putting the Skerry on the roof of the car using the loader.
It is a bit of a work out, but doable. Proof of concept successful, which means we can think of some boat and teardrop combo trips. But the trailer is so much quicker and far less effort and stress. I would need to be somewhere for a few days to make it a worthwhile return on effort.
Maggie was a huge help though.
While the boat was upside down I could see that I need to sand and repaint the bottom, as some of my rough launchings have left their mark. Lucky I have plenty of time to do the boat maintenance.
Because of the lockdown, the kids couldn't come over. Anne made a memorably splendid dinner, which was some compensation.
A beautiful sunny early spring day today, with light winds, so I gave the Skerry's sail a try. It took me longer to get set up than I had managed in the driveway, and I was a bit disorganized. I forgot both hat and oars.
I had the sail set too far back I think. I tried multiple times to sail out of the shallows but kept getting blown back onto the sandbar. It would have been good free entertainment for anyone watching from shore. Eventually I twigged, and adjusted the sail, and we had a lovely sail, tacking back and forth in the little bay there, for about 20 minutes. Frank saw me out there and sent the photo below. Just as well he didn't come along earlier.
Even though my horizons are somewhat circumscribed at the moment, I am trying to do at least one different thing a day. This morning I walked with Oz down to Ransom Reserve, to suss out the launching options down there. Hmmmm. Soft sand, very shallow. A high tide required to have any chance of getting in and out. No trailer space, so it would have to be a car top trip. It is potentially a good trial exercise for cartopping, so I will put it on the list of things to do.
Another thing I have been wanting to try is walking the Skerry round to Flemmo's, the local beach, where I used to launch my kayak. The Skerry is a good bit wider and a bit heavier than the sea kayak, but I got it down there ok. The wind, a South Westerly, had kicked up a bit by the time I got down there (16 knots at Laverton), and the tide was about half in so I had almost no sand beach to wedge the boat on, and a steady stream of small choppy waves bouncing the boat about. I got Oz in, put the oars in and rowed off as best I could. It was not my most graceful or organized launching, but we managed to miss the the various rocks that I saw sliding past on either side. Rowing into the wind and chop was interesting, particularly as I discovered. after a while that I had put the oar locks in backwards, which didn't really help. But we had a good row, over to Altona Pier. I decided I didn't want to try my luck again at Flemmo's, so we rowed round to the Red Stick, then back into the little beach at the base of the Revetment. There was just enough water to get in there and it is nice and sheltered compared to round the point.
Getting the boat trailer over the soft sand was a work out, but doable, and we got home, pretty much within the allotted hour of outside time we had left.
It is good to have the folding trolley, so I can launch and land in different spots without running around. We rowed about 2 nautical miles, top speed 3.9 knots, probably down a wave face, average 2.5 knots.
The skies were blue, the weather warm, the wind light, hurrah for the first day of Spring. Anne came out in Derry the Skerry with me this morning, and we tried two up rowing.
We tried to get Oz to settle down right at the other end, to help trim the boat, but he likes to keep down low, probably a good instinct, and we were down a bit in the nose I suspect. But we managed to keep moving without too much effort. Our moving average for the trip was 2.2 knots.
Anne and I used to row our double kayak "Xi" or "Double Happiness", over to Point Cook. The kayak got harder to get into and out of, so I sold it. Rowing the Skerry is a very similar experience in all the good ways. It is nice to get into a good shared rowing rhythm, very companionable. The nice thing about the Skerry is that you are not so cramped, you can move round a bit. And we can take Ozzie too. I hope we get many more outings, and bit more time to be out would not go astray, so we could do a bit more drifting. But no complaints, it was a great morning!
