Our local anchorages tend to be the same places all the time. Chosen over the years from many we have used to be very reliable and good holding.
After seeing the family away in the morning of Friday, we got stuff ready for going out to Elektra for the weekend, we couldn’t leave quickly because we had to wait for the tide to come back. I had left the dinghy on the pontoon over night so we only had to carry stores to dinghy.
Out on Elektra again in the evening. With the wind blowing from the west under full sail we made Channels Creek 9nm to the north in 1.5hrs, only slowing a little when losing the wind under Pendennis Point, it was a great sail. There it is well sheltered from the west.
On Saturday, l had a few jobs to do. New genoa cars to fit, l had tried this the previous weekend but found the track ends difficult to remove, asking in the week on a Facebook forum, lots of suggestions had been made, one of which was to remove the foreword stop ends. These came off easily and the job was done fairly quickly in the end.
Next was a problem with the genoa furling gear, ever since buying Elektra in 2016 the furling gear had played up from time to time. This season we had had problems more than once rolling the sail back in after use. Reading about the gear at home, l had discovered that the top bearing should be pulled to the very top of the furler, they suggested using a short piece of line from the top of the sail to the bearing. But our genoa rests on the pulpit when fully unrolled. So l pulled the sail down to check the top bearing and gave it a good going over with WD40 before pulling the sail back up as high as it would go. Then at the bottom I tighten it back down to the spool. I thought we were sheltered but playing with such a big sail it didn’t seem so sheltered! Elektra being a masthead rig the genoa is 2/3rds of her sail power. Once rolled in again, l decided that was enough for the day and l will try it another day.
The forecast said that a strong southwest was coming overnight, Channels Creek would be open to it so having found out a sailing friend was anchored at Malpas, we decided to move upriver. Arriving at Malpas we anchored near by and had a chat. Robert and Mandy envied us over for drinks later. Vicki made dinner and we went over, Vicki and l had a great evening, lots of stories with Robert and Mandy aboard their Sadler 34.
Robert and Mandy left in the morning but we stayed until nearer low water because we wouldn’t be able to get in back at Gillan until 2hrs after LW. What we didn’t think of was the shallows just south of Malpas. The anchor had dug in very well during the strong wind in the night, in fact so well l had to get Vicki to motor Elektra over it to break it free from the bottom. The chain and the anchor came up covered in mud, this left me with a big clean up job and a few buckets of water down the side decks. All this added time to my job and When Vicki motored Elektra over the shallows she said the sounder showed only 0.1m at one point.
A nice northwesterly to push us home, couldn’t have planned it any better. The furling gear seemed to work a lot better but l had been on to Mylor Rigging for a quote for a new one. It was a lovely sail and we were back in Gillan packing up within 2hrs.
Love Sailing 