Time & tide...

Yesterday.  Yesterday was traumatic ~ to say the least.  Liddy left early with her broken computer.  Devastating.  Completely.  She is already minus the camera she was at such pains to purchase & having gone to great lengths to shorten the distance between us once she's gone it was more than ironic that her computer should fail her before ever leaving these shores.  Still, here was the best place for it to happen & she is now back up & running again.

Dearest was on a boat also, chasing a new printer for his computer, but Dino, who should also have been on that boat heading for the wedding he is to be best man at today, was beside himself because his dress pants were missing & nowhere to be found but before he could head overseas to the friend that he thought he'd left them with his boat needed dealing with. The shackle pin that connects the anchor to the chain had worked free in the night & the tinnie had drifted.  On investigation the stern was wedged under a mangrove & high tide was after mid~day.  In desperation I agreed to move the boat & put Ryan on a ferry ~ minus, as it turns out, all the cricket stuff he needs tomorrow for the Grand Final & which I now have to find & lug to the jetty tomorrow!  Then Star missed her boat!

Now when I agreed to move the tinnie the bay was like a pristine sheet of glass.  Not a ripple of wind anywhere.  I was assured the rubber ducky rowed like a dream.  All I had to do was tow the tinnie out off the mangroves & drop the anchor.  I know!  I should know better & never agree to these things!

By the time the tide looked like it was high enough to float the tinnie the wind was whooshing down the channel from the north but having dealt with boats all my life I donned the gumbies Ryan had assured me were small enough to fit a dwarf [they didn't & were at least 2 sizes too big] & clomped down the hill in a slip~sliddy fashion to investigate the rubber ducky that Ryan salvaged weeks ago & is still waiting for some yachtie to claim. 

The rubber ducky was fine ~ for one person doing nothing more but go for a leisurely row around the bay on a calm summer's day.  As I discovered, using it for delicate maneuvering of a larger, heavier vessel rendered it both useless & dangerous.  The rowlocks were inadequate.  Once I was dealing with more than just me the oars escaped the rowlocks sliding randomly up the oar & making everything so lopsided we tended to want to spin in circles!  However they do not ship all the way in either making it difficult, if not impossible, to pull alongside another vessel.   I know why so many sailors swear so fluently! 

Next I discovered there was no central anchor point for towing, which meant I had to tie the tinnie to one side or another ~ which aslo tended to make us want to spin in circles.

Finally I discovered that the tinnie wasn't quite floating but rather bouncing happily up & down on a jagged shard of rock, which meant I, in my overlarge & cumbersome gumbies, had to clamber out of the rubber ducky onto a tumble of slimy rocks & miniature breaking waves that hid surprise potholes & other underwater hazards!  Once precariously balanced on this uneven foundation I had to hold the rubber ducky's painter while bodily hefting the tinnie up & over, but not with enough momentum to wedge it under another mangrove or tear the dubiously tied painter free!  I then had no stable point to hang on to while I clambered back into the rubber ducky, tied the tinnie's painter firmly to an available stanchion, & negotiated the tangle of mangroves heading for open water ~& that was the easy bit!

By this time the tide was flooding in propelled by the northerly & not only am I small [5'5"] I don't have enough weight to make way against a good head wind & incoming tide.  Not in a cruddy little rubber dinghy with the oars escaping the rowlocks towing an 8' tinnie.  Even keeping the towline as short as possible the tinny was drifting across my course & anyone who has negotiated a mangrove forest knows there is not a lot of manoeuvrability through them.  Once again I found myself clambering in an ungainly fashion all over the rubber ducky to untangle the tinnie.  Worse was to come.

Once I managed to poke my nose out of the mangroves the full force of the northerly hit & I found myself in the strongest part of the current.  Making no real headway against both tide & wind I shot into the small channel that leads to our beach & wrestled the tinnie into our little sheltered cove, threw out the anchor, put out a stern line [scratching my head a little because it's been some time since I last had to tie a bowline!], secured the rubber ducky with a clove hitch & 2 half hitches & scambled back up the hill to find Liddy had found Star, Star had passed her license, the computer had yet to go to the computer man, Theo was due in any tick of the clock & needed transferring to the friend who was transporting him to the wedding ~ & once again Liddy had run out of time to do some necessary shopping.  At some point tomorrow the boys need picking up to see Liddy & my mum ~ but no~one has yet given me details!  We leave home early ~ & absolutely everyone leaving the house together, with bags, what's more!, is sure to send both cats into a psychotic meltdown!  I felt like an anchor myself yesterday.  It's a madhouse here!