An anticyclone of seabirds blew across the field, one line of trees from our car park. The birds flying upwind appeared stationary while those going with the wind whipped by like darts. As the formation drifted it slowly diminished as a steady stream of its members chose to flap back upwind from where they came.
What features are visible in the clouds follow the flock, except the darkness on the horizon that just sits and broods.
Thursday 18 December 2014
Wednesday 3 December 2014
Not under steam
Chrome vanadium stood in for lead to calibrate the accoustic depth measure. 3.5 metres in the new money compared well with the vernacular "just less than two helmsman lengths" in rope. We lay our trust in the modern gauge.
Sails were bent on by experiment. The first reefing line made do as an outhaul. The small genoa, confusingly, with its UV strip on the wrong face for the furling line.
The sonorous single cylinder pushed us past the buoy, slipped mooring, and feeling our way in the hidden channel, narrow, shown only by starboard marks. To the mouth, where port is marked, pointing towards the Island. Turned Southerly on a port tack and, quieted the engine, set the head sail, took the breaths we had spared for ten minutes or maybe a month.
The last Saturday of November 2014. High tide at 16:30 (or thereabouts), 13 degrees Centigrade, sunset 16:04, ten knots Easterly backing North Easterly. Our maritime adventure and the rest of the sea was occasionally lit from the side when the sun broke through.
Four tacks and then a gentle turn back towards the castle with a slow, controlled gybe. Still to conquer mooring again we left plenty of time before peak tide or loss of light by motoring back, sail was only giving us a knot in the water and prey to the tidal gyre.
Missing the mooring with the current gave me the opportunity to experiment further with the maneuverability of the vessel and to learn more about the width and character of the channel. She turned in her own length, easily holding off the following buoy and boat. I touched reverse to avoid swinging too wide in the turn and then just let the current drift the bow back to the target using the engine to cancel the flow.
Sails were bent on by experiment. The first reefing line made do as an outhaul. The small genoa, confusingly, with its UV strip on the wrong face for the furling line.
The sonorous single cylinder pushed us past the buoy, slipped mooring, and feeling our way in the hidden channel, narrow, shown only by starboard marks. To the mouth, where port is marked, pointing towards the Island. Turned Southerly on a port tack and, quieted the engine, set the head sail, took the breaths we had spared for ten minutes or maybe a month.
The last Saturday of November 2014. High tide at 16:30 (or thereabouts), 13 degrees Centigrade, sunset 16:04, ten knots Easterly backing North Easterly. Our maritime adventure and the rest of the sea was occasionally lit from the side when the sun broke through.
Four tacks and then a gentle turn back towards the castle with a slow, controlled gybe. Still to conquer mooring again we left plenty of time before peak tide or loss of light by motoring back, sail was only giving us a knot in the water and prey to the tidal gyre.
Missing the mooring with the current gave me the opportunity to experiment further with the maneuverability of the vessel and to learn more about the width and character of the channel. She turned in her own length, easily holding off the following buoy and boat. I touched reverse to avoid swinging too wide in the turn and then just let the current drift the bow back to the target using the engine to cancel the flow.
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