Crunch time

After a seriously cold night, there was a bit of ice on the water. From a distance it didn't look too bad, so we got Sanity Again ready to cruise after breakfast and set off. As soon as she started moving back from the pontoon, I heard the distinctive crunching sound under my feet that meant that the prop was chewing through significant ice.

Similarly, I could see waves of swill from our motion spreading out under the ice without breaking it. In fact, it was between a quarter and a half inch thick; not enough to make boating impossible, but certainly enough to make it interesting.

With a fair bit of to-ing and fro-ing I managed to get her rotated in the open area of water between Yellowhammer and Quail and we could head for the service wharf. We were now following the track of another boat and things were a good deal easier, though still pretty noisy.

This first boat was across the end of the wharf, so I turned and backed onto the side of it. Here we were able to pump out and diesel without too much problem, though the rinse out hose was frozen up. Sheila got our dedicated rinsing hose out of the forepeak locker to use instead.

Having taken on 76 litres of diesel, we headed back the way we came. Things were now much easier, the ice being well broken, and we got back onto the pontoon without too much grief.

Once all buttoned up and reconnected, we had a well earned cup of coffee, then ambled over to the office to pay. This took quite a long time, as we kept stopping to natter to various friends and acquaintances. Trev and Rachael were prowling around with his sister and her husband; we'd not seen them for a while so it was good to catch up.

Then we met Jo and Wynne outside the shop and finally had a chat with the nice couple with a lovely husky bitch whom we met on our way back to the boat.

It all meant that lunch was a bit late, but for the best of reasons.

After lunch, we turned to and did some serious boat cleaning. Sheila polished the woodwork whilst I swept the floor. When Sheila finished before me, she made a start on brushing the mats, a job I took over when I'd done sweeping. I also cleaned the toilet and descaled the kettle.

We've been relaxing since then, feeling quite weary.

I can't think why... ;))