Some things sink, others float.  Those items which sink do so very rapidly, straight to the bottom, without trace…

This is one of the sad lessons I have learned while sailing…

The first thing I lost was our trusty and essential boat hook.  My role, when we are coming in to a mooring, is to stand like Poseidon on the front of the boat, either port or starboard, depending on which way the sea is moving, the wind is blowing, the ice caps are melting… Pete slows right down, according to my semaphored instructions, and then when we get close enough I have to hook the heavy, wet loop of rope, pull it up, and get it secured to a stanchion quick smart.  Otherwise we keep on sailing past and have to turn around and come back and start all over again.  Poseidon posture, semaphore, lunge…the whole kit and caboodle.  Many possibilities for error.

In the process of mooring Eroica (in the pre-2XS days) at Airlie Beach a few years ago, I managed to get the loop of rope secured, but let the boothook slip through my nerveless fingers.  I didn’t actually think this was much of a problem – wouldn’t a boathook be – well WOULDN’T it be??? – floaty??  No, apparently not.  Not this one.  It sped for the depths like a javelin, never to be seen again.  We had to slink off to the shop at the marina to replace it.  I think it had been specifically designed to sink, to keep such shops in business.

The boat hook on 2XS, to my great relief, is a sturdy wooden affair which does not sink, not at all.  When I drop it into the water (yes this still happens...) it just bobs about like Excalibur, waiting for me to pluck it back out of the water.  I am inordinately fond of it.

Another item which, to my sorrow, has sunk without trace is my gold bracelet, the one I bought with much effort in the heat and dust of Mumbai.  It suddenly came undone and disappeared before I could do more than utter a startled yelp, when I was sitting on the trampolines discussing ocean race swimming with Bridget Walch.  No I have never done such a thing – the very idea!! – but Bridget is, or has been, a champ!

But my very worst sinking story involves…alcohol.  Not consumed but lost forever.  Pete’s daughter Rebecca was on Daydream Island with her husband (also Pete) and little girls.  Pete and I did a mercy dash to the bottle shop at Airlie Beach to stock up on gin – two bottles of cheaper stuff, two bottle of the best.  Nothing like a soothing gin and tonic when on holiday… Oh and yes we bought other things.  Cheap things like potatoes and carrots and teabags.  Unlike the gin, totally replaceable and unimportant.  We unpacked all the groceries from the tender to the deck of Eroica – Pete in the tender handing things up, me niftily arranging things on the loading platform.  On top of the rope (yes I do know it is called a painter but I don’t want to be too much of a boaty show-off) which ties the tender to the boat… Just one little jerk and splish splash what was THAT?  Oh only the two best bottles of gin, plunging, like the aforementioned boathook, straight to the depths.  I looked down in horror, then happened to catch sight of Pete.  Now Pete has a very nice look about him; he is smiley and affable and almost invariably cheerful.  So who was this man looking at me with such a grim expression??  I think I also heard some extremely rude words – but we will gloss over this very painful – for both Pete and me – moment…