Diary for Sailng on Windwanderer.


Monday 22nd July 2013

2013-07-22

Monday 22nd July 2013

Well we slept the sleep of the dead, once again, well I did anyway The Captain said he was up a few times, checking out some strange noises, but I never heard a thing.

We are both feeling very warn out, so have not done a huge amount, I did manage to clean up the boat a little bit but other than that, we just lounged around a good chunk of the day.

We had arrange to go ashore and have a late dinner with our crew, as Leo was going back home to Mexico in the morning and we wanted to give him a sent off as well.

It was not meant to be.

Now we have been warned about the dingy dock here, as it can be a bit of a struggle, to get ashore.

Well I can tell you it is way more than a struggle, it was dark when we left the boat, which is always a worry to start with as we have no lights on the dingy, in America it is law that you have to have full nav lights on your dingy as well.

But not here thank god, but you do need something as there is a lot of boat activity , around so armed with a little torch me holding it up in the air, we set off.

We get to the shore and they have a little floating dock that you tie your dingy to, than climb into a little old wooded boat and you pull yourself to shore on a pulley system with a rope.

So we check this out as much as we can in the dark, take a deep breath and think ok we can do this, The Captain decides to drop me off at the steps, so I can climb up, and he will do the dingy thing.

Now they have huge tides here, sometimes up to 20ft, and tonight was one of them, we get to the steps and that are all out of the water, I'm thinking this is great no getting wet, but as we shine the torch onto the steps we notice they are covered in slim and very very slippery.

I decide to take off my shoes and go bare foot, for better grip, so with the surge of water at the right point I go to climb up, I put one foot on the step, and break out in a cold sweat, there is no way I'm gonna do this, it is just way too dangerous, I step back into our dingy for plan B. well not really step back I kinda fell back in on my arse, very lady like...not.

We dingy around some and there is nowhere else to get out, man this is crazy, we then heard Leo yelling out to us, so go back to the steps and he says we can climb up the rocks, instead of the steps, I'm looking at this and thinking are you crazy they are covered in not just slim but oyster shells as well, so put the shoes back on and give this a go, with the help of Leo and The Captain and a rope I manage to drag pull myself to shore, I get ashore, still in a cold sweat, hands shaking, knees knocking together, and with just a little scrape on my foot, I make it, and very chuffed with myself, The Captain comes next with no problems at all, he had on runners so he was fine.

Leo takes charge as per usual, jumps in our dingy goes and takes it back to the floating dock after coming back once, as The Captain had forgot to give him the pad lock to lock the Dingy, all is ok until Leo goes to get into the little wooden boat, and the rope breaks.

A lot of pirate cursing happening here.

So we have a situation Leo is stuck on the floating dock, we are stuck on shore, and no way to get to each other.

After about plan F, with trying to get the rope back to us which was just a tangled mess, we decided the best thing was to just go back to our boat and make it another night.

Leo goes to get into our dingy to bring it around to us, and of cause its locked, with the key safely tucked away in The Captains pocket, ( on shore ).......

Man this is turning into a nightmare.

So Leo climbs into the wooded boat and gives one almighty push and makes it to our side, grabs the keys, again another mighty push and floats back to the other dock.

Unlocks our dingy brings it around to us, we do the death walk back over the rocks he climbs out, we say goodbye wish him good lock on his journey home, and come back to our boat.

Talk about all dressed up and no place to go, and to make matters worse i was having a good hair day, which does not happen often out here.

So all dressed in our finery, we climb back on board, get back into our boat clothes and have cheese and crackers for dinner washed down with a fine glass of their local red that cost about $3 a litre ....hahaha

Well tomorrow is another day.