Thursday 5 September 2013

Love Me Tender

Well, a month into our great adventure, I feel it's time that I wrote a blog entry rather than just sitting back and enjoying Alex's hard work. It is tempting for me to just let Alex maintain the blog as he is very good at it, but I should at least try once in a while to write a post, to ensure I don't lose the ability to type and form sentences, if nothing else!

So, following our long awaited passage to Swanage Bay from Brighton, we spent some time in Swanage relaxing and soaking up the sunshine before heading on to Weymouth. Ok, you got me. We did nothing of the sort! We spent every waking moment getting the wind generator installed before continuing on our travels. Swanage was a very sheltered anchorage so a good place to do this, but it was still a little nerve-wracking hanging off the back of the boat with a 15-20kg, 2 metre windmill, trying to bolt it in place before it had chance to slip to the bottom of the bay. Alex has been angling for us to get a super strength magnet in order to retrieve the ever-increasing number of metal objects that we lose overboard during our DIY, but I think that even that would have hit its limits had we let the wind gen slip. Thankfully, on this occasion, we completed the installation without incident.

Fair winds on our passage to Weymouth,
with our newly installed wind gen!
We left Swanage Bay bright and early, excited by the prospect of  a pleasant day sail to Weymouth Bay and a forecast of pleasant winds. It was really great to turn west into the channel and be able to see our destination on the horizon. For the first time, the forecast was true and we were blessed with a lovely sail to Weymouth; the first sail so far whereby we have arrived at our destination feeling great and able to anchor in a leisurely fashion, as opposed to feeling battered by the wind and waves and in a hurry to seek shelter in the fastest possible manner. On a real high, we tidied up Firebird and decided to take the rest of the evening off.

A view of Firebird from the tender
Alex took our inflatable tender out of its bag and inflated her on deck, ready to take ashore. Many people call their tenders "TT <boat_name>" so ours would have been TT Firebird, with TT standing for "tender to". However, we decided against this naming convention as we theorised that anyone with a criminal mind could see our tender ashore and surmise that Firebird herself was empty and a good target. So, we decided to incorporate the TT in the name and called our little tender Trinity. Once backed by our 3hp Yamaha Malta outboard (named Yammy), she is a fine little vessel, perfect for ferrying us around whilst at anchor. We launched Trinity and Yammy into the water, clambered aboard and headed for the beach.


Our first beach landing
As we headed in towards the beach, past a large pier lined with fishermen, we discussed where we should moor/land Trinity. At first, we thought that tying her to the pier might be a good idea as there were ladders up the side that we could use to exit by and lock her to, and she would be relatively inaccessible for thieves. However, closer inspection of the pier revealed lots of sharp barnacles that we thought might damage her, so we aborted this plan and headed for the beach. On arrival, we carried her up the beach and locked her and Yammy to a metal railing using my old bike D-lock and cable, before heading in search of fish and chips.



Dinner with a great view... of the tender!
We had planned to get some dinner and then find an internet cafe/pub to relax in but, try as I might, I just couldn't bring myself to leave the seafront. I was so paranoid that someone would try to steal the tender and/or outboard, leaving us stranded on shore and out of pocket. We found fish and chips on the main promenade and I sat in a spot that had a good view of Trinity, getting paranoid every time anyone or anything (dogs included) went anywhere near her. I remember being similarly paranoid with my first expensive mountain bike, to the point of never really being able to leave it anywhere, despite having bike insurance and an oversized Kryptonite D-lock. As Alex so rightly said, you just have to stop worrying about it, as otherwise there is no point having it. We just have to use it, lock it up and take the risk. Easier said than done though!

After dinner, Alex prised me away from the seafront for a five minute excursion down a side road, before heading back to the beach to find Trinity and Yammy both in one piece and ready to take us home.

Super fast ferry to the Channel Islands, leaving
Weymouth harbour whilst we do more DIY at anchor
The next evening, after a full day's DIY, we headed back to shore and this time headed for the pier, equipped with fenders to protect Trinity from barnacles. We were just preparing to tie up to one of the rather dodgy looking metal ladders when we saw an orange RNLI rib heading straight for us. A couple of nice young lads told us that we were not allowed to use our outboard in that area, and also informed us that the ladders along that section of the pier were condemned due to being so rusty. They pointed us around the corner to the pleasure pier, where they said there were concrete steps and much better access, so we headed there instead.


We toyed with the idea of leaving Trinity tied up in the water, but passing vessels were causing quite a disturbance so we carried her up the steps and onto the pier. There was a group of teenage boys jumping off the pier into the water nearby, who found it quite amusing that we had just emerged from the other side carrying a boat. As we locked her to a railing and the boys tossed the pier's orange emergency life buoy around behind us like an oversized frisbee, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach at the thought of leaving Trinity in this exposed area. I considered suggesting aborting the mission and heading elsewhere, but Alex had his sights firmly set on a gingerbread latte from Costa, and we had less than thirty minutes left before closing time so I kept quiet. We walked away and I hoped for the best.

All present and correct at the end of the evening
Some few hours later, we returned to the pier, amongst the smell of burning rubber and the sound of engines revving and tyres spinning - it appears that this pier is the place to be for the youth of Weyouth, particularly those with souped up cars. Surprisingly, as we passed these "boy racers", we found most of them to be girls, so had to reconsider our initial labelling of them. I hoped that they were all too interested in their cars to have been hunting around the pier for a little boat and meagre 2-stroke outboard engine, and as we rounded the corner to see Trinity and Yammy untouched, I took a sigh of relief to see that my hopes were well founded.

As we headed back to Firebird, I hoped that this would be our last time ashore in Trinity in the UK. Somehow, it seems that it will be safer to use our tender and leave her ashore once we are in more remote, exotic locations with fewer people around to stumble upon her and the opportunity to steal her. It may be that I am completely wrong and that, in fact, she will be more desirable in these more remote locations. Who knows! I guess I will just have to get used to the fact that we will be leaving her locked up ashore along the way, and hope for the best. Or, perhaps concentrate my efforts on convincing Alex that a motion sensing alarm or remote tracking device would be a good idea and should be installed and incorporated into Boat App... now there's a plan...

2 comments:

  1. A great blog entry, Kate! All these items really help us landlubbers keep up with your adventure! :)

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  2. great to read about your thrilling experience, have fun!

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