Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Drifting away

Today the forecast was for very light wind, dropping to under 5 knots at midday. Anne wanted the car, hence no launching the big boat. I thought I would wheel the Bolger Pirogue down for a sail or paddle. I took the old inflatable Tahiti canoe along too, as Kate has been wanting to try it out since I lent her Audrey Sunderland's Paddling North.



It was a lovely morning, and we  paddled a bit out to the reef to check out the sea birds, rafted up and drifted for a while,  then landed on the dog beach for morning tea and a reinflation of a leaking chamber on the Tahiti.

Ozzie was very disappointed there were no dogs around to see him make a dramatic seaborne arrival.



It was all very relaxing and pleasant. After we returned to our launch spot, I  ran the Pirogue onto the sand, then carried the Tahiti up onto the grass. I unlocked the club door, opened the air valves on the boat to let the air out, and generally pottered round, till I suddenly noticed the Pirogue quite some distance offshore, drifting slowly away. The sand bars shelve out quite a way, so i ran after it, but couldn't get to it before the water level was too deep to stand. My swimming seemed to be about the rate of drift of the boat, and I was beginning to think I would have to let it go, when a nice chap in a kayak saw my predicament, caught the errant boat, and towed it back to shore. A happy lucky ending to what could have been a bad situation.

I knew the tide was coming in, and the wind off shore. Hard to fathom why I let that happen. Just stupid I guess.

Under the heading "Weird coincidences", I noticed tonight that the AYC web cam has  become stuck and is showing an image from some days ago,  capturing me rigging up the Core Sound.






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