Monday
11th February
And yes – another public holiday for people south of the Blackman
River. I do love this time of year, with
its plentiful holidays…
We are still darting from one activity to another but I am pleased
to say we had a few islands of rest. One
of these rest periods involved watching Midsomer
Murders, which provided many opportunities for napping without spoiling the
(VERY SILLY) plot.
We went back to the Wooden Boat Show after our return from
Launceston, and squeezed into the Huon Aquaculture theatre tent to listen to
some very experienced sailors from the US, Lin and Larry Pardey. Or rather, we listened to Lin, who was a very
confident public speaker. Larry sat near
her and would occasionally whisper, “It was the mainsail not the headsail,” or
other such helpful hints, but he was obviously NOT comfortable speaking to a
crowd. The crowd, I must say, was
riveted to her every word and I took lots of notes on my iphone because what
she was giving us was…hints on how to survive a Big Storm at sea… I must say
she was very reassuring; if we are properly prepared, and able to Macguyver
this and that handy lifesaving item out of … well I’m not sure about this… we
will be hunky-dory.
She was very keen on the idea of heaving-to, with the help of parachutes,
drogues, this and that handy Macguyvered item.
If you are able just to STOP, the storm can rage past in a few hours; if
you try to run with the storm you can find yourself ten DAYS later, exhausted,
with shredded sails. I love the idea of
heaving-to! Ln told us about a freidn of
theirs, Joan, I think, who is a lone sailor on a hundred year old yacht called
Cooee. Joan was caught up in a violent
storm, and was very distressed – everything was awash, her cat was missing, it
looked like many days of horror ahead.
Then she remembered the Pardey Words of Wisdom and hove to… She spent
what she said were a pleasant few hours cleaning the boat, finding the cat,
reading a book on her bunk while the storm raged past, and then – all was well!
ha! I love Midsomer murders (always a fan of the ye olde English-e telly-e). I've only watched a few, but when I unexpectedly turn one on they sometimes suck you into a 'must watch me' vortex, oh, and then two hours is over and the doctor's receptionist's mad aunt IS GUILTY! Ooh-ah!.
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