No matter where you are in the world, three B’s bring people together. A barbecue, a few beverages and a bonfire. And as the evening progresses, maybe some singing of dubious quality from most of those participating.
Friends declared an End of Summer party. It’s still 20 degrees in the sun here in Nelson during the day but evenings are now cool, in single digits. There have been two dusting of snow of the tops of the distant hills. But the daytime weather has been stable and bright and sunny. Lovely autumn days.
Getting to their house, probably 3 miles away in a straight line involved…
A. Going ashore in the dinghy from the mooring, carefully caressing a bowl of food to be shared
B. Loading our bikes onto the back of a borrowed car
C. Driving very carefully as the car and the bikes were enduring a somewhat wobbly relationship
D. Unloading the bikes on arrival
E. Eating, drinking and socialising
F. Riding the bikes back in the dark to the dinghy dock (almost exclusively downhill so nice and whizzy whizzy)
G. Swapping bikes for the dinghy to retrace of wake back to the boat
This morning we’ll need to reverse this travel plan to go and collect the car. Meanwhile Dave is replacing some of the cabinetry in the cupboards. We removed it as part of the rig replacement to check the chain plates.
Our standing rigging is almost to the day 10 years old (the wires that hold up the mast). Our insurance company requires the rig to be less that 10 years old. And it’s generally the industry standard too. We’ve sailed a lot of miles so the whole set up has had lots of use. It looked absolutely fine but gremlins could hide within in the wire, unseen and lurking.
So Grace currently sits on a mooring, mast-less. Much work has been done in the last 3 weeks and by Wednesday, she should be back together again. The boat rocks so much more without the mast on. It’s Sunday morning and lots of ‘fizz boats” (small speed boats) are heading out for a morning’s fishing creating wake. Don’t want to spill the morning cuppa.
grace of longstone 