After a good week at work Vicki and I were keen to get back aboard and enjoy the great weather. With home jobs needing doing on Friday the earliest we could get aboard was 2hrs after high water by which time Elektra was grounded and the tide was falling fast. With just enough water to get to her by dinghy we motored out from St Anthony and arrived at Elektra’s gale proof mooring with just enough depth for the outboard, Vicki climbed aboard and I pasted up the stores.
At standerd pressure (1016mb) Elektra needs a 4m tide hight to float. Our problem was the next days high water was only predicted as 4.1m and with the high pressure Elektra might not! The next high water at 0230hrs was 4.3m, I decided it would be a good idea to lay her bow anchor in the channel and her keg anchor in line astern, once she was floating I could pull her out over the channel allowing us to be able to leave at high water Saturday afternoon. So I spent Friday evening setting this up. I needed to use all the cable, 40m of 8mm chain and 20m of warp and had to add another 30m of line to the keg anchor. All the length wasn’t for the depth but to get Elektra over the channel.
Once done we settled down to evening meal and a game of Scrabble, getting out at 0230hrs wasnt much fun but seemed to work ok, I was glad to get back in the bunk.
In the morning Elektra was sitting right in the middle of the channel, success! I got out and picked up the keg anchor and placed in dinghy. I had a new job to look at in Gillan, so with the tide out I walked up to take a look before breakfast. While I was gone it started to rain but I hadn’t taken a coat, Back at Elektra I could dry of and have breakfast. The tide was starting to run in while I did the washing up and Elektra was starting to lift off, I had to get into the dinghy to clear weed which had fouled the prop and the rudder as the tide ran in. Leaving a 1/2hr after Elektra started to float before starting the engine and pulling in the anchor. Vicki motored Elektra down the channel out of Carne Creek with only 0.5m under the keel while I cleaned the deck of all the weed which had been brought aboard with the anchor chain. We picked up our mooring in Gillan Harbour and attached our dinghy. Then headed out for a sail, we never got far before the heavens opened so we turned about and headed back to Flushing Cove inside Gillan Harbour and dropped anchor! Quickly getting out the cockpit encloser and putting up as fast as possible, there we stayed for the remainder of the weekend, with the rain on Saturday and the Sun dried the encloser on Sunday before we moved Elektra back onto her mooring having only logged 2.5nm over the weekend.
Love Sailing 