This year’s cruise was going to be shorter than usual, and I was still sitting on the club terrace on the 11th of August, longing to be off, imagining being at anchor in the Jaudy just below Tréguier, picking samphire on the river bank for supper, and going to market on Wednesday – which gave me two days to get there.
Calculating back from the beginning of the ebb off Alderney at 1400, this meant having to leave at 0400, made easier by Condor arriving making its infernal racket and driving me to anchor off Greenhill for a quiet night…
There was white water forming outside the Swinge as I arrived, and I just had time to get into the channel before the ebb really got going. From there it was a very pleasant sail down to Guernsey, staying on the pontoon outside in order to be able to leave early the next morning. A tricky day, the 13th (anniversary of our picking up a fishing net on the prop of 'Penzephyr' in the middle of Biscay in 1995, which Keith said was because I had written the date in the log), so it is now referred to as my daughter’s birthday and I tend to avoid being at sea then.
Sure enough, motoring about fifteen miles south-west of Guernsey, I heard a horrible clonking and banging on the rudder, which turned out to be about 8 metres of line with four plastic fishing floats attached wrapped round the prop. Project Samphire being thus substantially endangered, and being used to having to dive to clear weed from the prop in Brittany, I thought I’d start from the dinghy, fishing with my excellent Exe boathook. I got about as wet as I would have done in the water, but managed to catch hold of the line and tie it off to the boat, then reached down as far as I could, and used a saw to cut it, which worked a lot better than a knife and was less dangerous for me (and the dinghy!) In going round to the other side to pull the rest out, I managed to drop the boathook, which started to float away – but by quickly getting back on board and trying the motor by going in a circle, I was able to recover it.
Having lost less than an hour, I was still glad when the breeze filled in and gave a pleasant tight reach up to the Basse Crublent buoy, where I was able to set the spinnaker to run up to the entrance to the river, though managed to tear it getting it down. A gentle drift up the river to anchor, and then – ashore for samphire!
Submitted on 28th August 2013