Wednesday 19 May 2010

Rain stops play.

Well I am not certain that TBH would see it quite like that!

The past 3 days have seen him diving every morning to clean a plague of barnacles off the hull. Same thing happened to us this time last year, it must be barnacle spawning season. The tenacious little bastards grab on to everything below the waterline and grow like crazy. I've no idea what hormones they are on but am betting that chicken breeders worldwide would love to know.

Just as an aside did you know that Darwin wrote learned volumes on the barnacle before he published his theory of evolution. How mind numbing is that?

Anyway TBH had to give up on the final 20% of the hull yesterday after a terrific storm the night before. Even by our extreme Tropical standards this was quite some event. Dear old Mother Nature rather o.d'd on the SFX, lightning to herald the end of the world and thunder so violent that the sole of the boat was shaking. I was too. Shaking that is. After the first hour, during which I felt I remained impressively calm, I was reduced to a quivering wreck in TBH's arms as lightning strike after strike hit all around us. I could not believe this was going to happen to us again...and it didn't. This time we were safe.

But man you should have seen the sight the next morning, huge islands of debris floating downstream towards the sea, big enough to be classed as navigation hazards. The water like an over stewed cup of tea, thick and brown and full of bits. Yuck.Impossible to see anything under the water so we are now condemned to sail in ever decreasing circles until it clears and TBH finishes the job. Maybe we won't notice the difference!

2 comments:

Ken said...

Hi Gerry:
That was a very good account of the storm, almost like being there (no thanks). I can just imagine your consternation given the storm and damage that you experienced last year.
I love your interesting yarns. You certainly keep your arm chair sailors attention.
Thank you
Ken

Gerry said...

Can't blame you for not wanting to be there! I didn't either. Nature can be pretty awesome...