In our time messing around with boats we’ve done the odd little good deed helping people out or even when they don’t believe they need helping. A few years ago in the Solent we came across a couple of teenage lads in a tiny inflatable with one paddle about a mile offshore oblivious to the fact they were heading out on a flood tide towards the Needles Channel. They’d been towed out by some so called mates and left to drift. We motored up, said “Hi lads’ where are you going? Isle of Wight came the reply. We pursuaded them it was unlikely they’d be able to paddle there and to come on board. We called the inshore lifeboat who came and took them away. I think potentially they were more scared of the reception they were going to get from their parents rather than the life boat crew who also gave them a bit of a stern talking to.
Last Saturday night we were in Cedeira, a small fishing village which boasts an army of deck chair sitting, chain smoking, cardigan wearing women who sit on the pontoon at night fishing with hooks and lines mostly gossiping. We’d been out painting the town red, okay a very faint pink, and returned to the pontoon to row back in our tender to the boat which was anchored in the bay.
A couple of French guys were doing the same thing. We’d seen then in a bar earlier in the evening engaged in intense conversation, calamari and Rioja. Dave was just pulling the tender in when there was an almighty sploosh. We turned round to see a drunk Frenchman was in the drink. We fished him out and he went straight for his iPhone. Guess it wasn’t one on the new ones just launched which are supposedly waterproof to a certain depth. There was some spluttering and thanks but what was most notable was the army of women pi**ing themselves laughing and not stirring from their deck chairs. I don’t think they’d move for a nuclear blast. Love ’em.
Holed up in La Coruna right in the centre of town. It’s another lovely old town with squares and traffic free streets. I went to the grand and ostentatious post office earlier. Cromford Post Office is a little under whelming in comparison. Service in La Coruna not a patch on Carol though.
grace of longstone 