This weekend the crew consisted of two of my grandsons, Reyce and Prentice, along with their other Grandad Louis – making it a real jolly boys outing.
Louis had not been out on a boat with sails before, and Reyce and Prentice had to keep him right when it came to us slipping the lines and heading out for a weekend on the Clyde.
We had a super time albeit I have to admit that I cocked up a bit with the food supplies i.e I was a bit light on the “snacks” perhaps a bit light on the “meals” and also a bit light on the “juice” department – so in truth if this was a school report it might have read “could do better” . Lesson learned ,and never to be repeated, or the boys will no doubt have me keelhauled! 🙁
Louis quickly adapted to being on the boat and I’m afraid he had a bit of a baptism of fire in that he had to pick up moorings at different places with and without pick up buoys, and get the lines underneath everything and onto the cleats – a task he did well. He also sailed the boat (with me controlling the sheets) and had us gybing away down the Kyles of Bute.
A sign of the terrible economic situation lies up Loch Striven; where the Maersk Line have five large (container?) ships all rafted/anchored together half way up the Loch, and it’s fair to say that they have been lying here for sometime. Perhaps we just need to keep an eye on them as some kind of economic indicator, in that when they move away from here it would indicate that demand for container traffic has increased due to a more vibrant economy. We have passed by the bottom of this Loch numerous times, but this time we decided to travel up and have a good close look at them, which we did with Reyce controlling the situation admirably from the helm.
While Reyce was slowly taking us around these boats, Prentice was trawling away to try and catch our supper.
Strange to think that there are similar ships parked up at various deepwater locations across the UK – hopefully it won’t be too long before they are all busy on the high seas again!
The weather during the weekend was sunny and warm (ish), and we all had a good time together. While playing cards we were taught a new game by the boys, and had a really good laugh. However I will refrain from naming the person who ended up being “Scabby Queen” more times than any other…………………….OK you twisted my arm it was …………Reyce 🙂
You could twist my arm further and I would be forced into telling you how many fish the boys caught between them over the weekend, but that might well be a step too far!
On the way back into the marina late afternoon on Sunday, it was fairly obvious that the wind was going to be blowing us off our pontoon, and I have to say that Louis and Prentice did an excellent job of getting off the boat smartly and getting her tied up quickly alongside the pontoon; all the more impresssive really as Louis had never done this before.
Another bonus over the weekend was that the autopilot seems to be behaving itself since it was recently checked out and reset. Fingers crossed that this has finally cured what has been an irritating problem.