Underwater imaging

 

A short video clip, created this summer, at a point we were wondering if there was to much growing on the rudder. An instinctive responsive rather than being crafted - but how useful is this ! This winter I'm definitely making a boat hook adapter - sorry, a remote imaging subsurface probe.

That's it.....

 

...we're out of the water 

That's another season over then. Here's to next year !

The Pontoon Bar again....

You can see my boat from here:

Another super supper at the Pontoon Bar on Saturday.

Solar panel update

Sun peeping through 95% cloud cover and panel knocking out up to 3.2W !

A heated debate

Bit of rainy grim morning in Pw, so stayed below and polished our

cabin heater ( and that's not a euphemism ). 

Came up quite well I think, but there was Brasso everywhere (Wiggins)

Solar charging

It's a bit of a grim day to try out the new solar panel...

New buoys

The new green-o-matic mooring system in action.
















Works brilliantly.

The Pontoon Bar at Pwllheli

We can't really say too many good things about the Pontoon pop up bar in the outer harbour at Pwllheli (see the flyer shown below for location or follow this link  https://www.facebook.com/Pontoonpwllheli)
Nice selection of drinks at reasonable prices, delicious fresh food and great company.










We've enjoyed two Saturday nights on the go, and it's a good thing  its not too far to row back to Annabella - especially with the tide with us !
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Great food and drink and a warm welcome for yachtsmen  - who could have thought of that in Pwllheli ? Our best wishes to young team behind it - you can count on our support as often as possible...

Not very nice here this morning!

Pretty grim here on board. No sailing and no work on deck - working out out how to get off...

Interesting youtube from the RNLI

The RNLI have been looking after the safety of mariners since 1824, follow this link to see their recent youtube video .
 
It'll makes you think!

Look at the size of these jellyfish !

These jellies were stranded by a neap tide in the harbout at Pwlheli yesterday (11 July.)
They are easily the biggest I've seen in the harbour - and no, we weren't using miniature oars !

No-one knows if jellyfish have a concept for luck, but as it was close to the neep tides they were covered by the sea again pretty quickly. They were gone by the next ebb tide - lets hope they survived okay !

Back in the water

Back in the water and off for a super day's sailing last Sunday:

Consistent F4 westerly all day brightening in the afternoon.
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Michael joined Annabella for the day and is definately the coolest helm we've had so far...

Following on from a series of setbacks this was a great return to form and we're looking forward to many more.

First time out in 2015

First time off the mooring this year and we're joined by Sue and Neal to see how the winter work has turned out.

All the mechanical work has turned out very well, and she handles like a different boat - one that's much easier to manouvre ! All of Tony  Evans' very hard work has paid off, so hats off to him.

Leading all lines to the cokcpit works quite well, the only snag was that one of the reefing lines is a bit too short.. but soon rectified

All in all, I'm declaring a success !

The harbinger of a clear morning

About 1900 the wind dropped and the sky cleared, with this glorious sunset a little later. Looking forward to a clear day tomorrow and taking Annabella off her mooring for the first time thins year.

C for Charlie...

Unfortunately the bad weather had prevented us from visiting Annabella for a few weeks, but it had given us chance to get hold of code flag Charlie. The first workable weekend of the year has give us chance to fly it from the messenger pennant, in solidarity with the action of members of the French sailing community - see the previous post below.
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Unfortunately it became sadly appropriate as events unfolded and the lunacy continued...

... Then the stupid

Two and a half years ago we sold our previous boat P******n to fund in part the acquisition of Annabella. She was very comprehensively kitted out for coastal cruising and I reckon the chap that bought her got her for a song. One of the assets was a GPS EPIRB manufactured by Ocean Signal. Now read on:

1145 Zulu Time - somewhere in northern england: A mobile call is received from an undisclosed number:

"Hello, who's that?"

"This is the coastguard."

"The coastguard you say - I wonder why you are calling me ?"

"We've received an EPIRB alert registered to you for a boat called P******n. We're wondering if you're alright"

"On no, not again! I'm so sorry - I sold that boat about 2 years ago with the express instructions to re-register the EPIRB. Do you think the new owner is in any danger ?"

"Not as it's from G*****t marina, do you have his contact details"

I provide the contact details

"I'm so sorry you have been inconvenienced like this - I suppose it squats on the frequency as well..."

"He only needed to make one short phone call.to sort it out..."

The whole event is a bit embarrassing, because the first place the alert goes is Falmouth SRC centre, but it also seems rather selfish, because of all the resources taken up to respond to a false alarm all because this chap didn't have the wit to store the EPIRB in a dry location. All one can hope is that whilst the coastguard were busy sorting out this cockup no one who was in real danger ended up dead.

 Names have been changed / omitted to protect the stupid.

First the sad post Signal pennant C

Following the recent sad events in France, Herve Hillard  suggests sailors everywhere hoist signal pennant C

for Charlie, in solidarity. Link to his facebook post.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153493891143912&set=a.170375603911.120677.533238911&type=1&theater

Sadly I am rather far away from Annabella at the moment to accomplish this, so this is the first substitute.

Sea Survival - A Manual

The first mate also read 'Adrift' (see previous post) with an interest which I find slightly uncomfortable, as there is an unhealthy interest in disaster and deprivation at sea. Steve Callahan refers a number of times to Dougal Robertson's
book 'Sea Survival'. This was unavailable for many years, and certainly out of print, but was a welcome Christmas present from the first mate.
Robertson - now dead - had been the skipper of the sailing boat 'Lucette' with whcih he was attempting a circumnavigation with his familly, when it was lost in the western part of the pacific in 1972. They spent 38 days in primative survival craft and much of the manual is informed by this gri first hand experience. 
Although some (much) of the content has now been superseded by more modern information, taken overall it's themes are still very valid  and would be valuable addition to the grab bag.
Regrettably the two 'survival charts' have become disconnected, but the hunt goes on!