Being in Place, l thought l could give Elektra a bottom scrub. But when l awoke Elektra was aground, down at the bow and lying to starboard. It was obvious where she was at anchor was too soft ground. So once she re-floated l would move her to solid ground.
I could see the harder patches of the bottom, but could l dry Elektra out on one? I waited until after high water and then moved her 76 meters according to the GPS, then all l had to do was to wait for her to dry out again.
She stopped swinging at 1330hrs, but she still didn’t seem very stable. I was doing other jobs in the cabin and it wasn’t until l looked up, that l realised that she was bow up! Elektra had landed on the side of a hard patch, it could have been worse, she could have been on the slope sideways. But there wasn’t anyway to move her now.
So when the tide had gone out a bit l got out in the dinghy and started scrubbing, realising the depth at the bow was now shallow enough to get out of the dinghy, that’s what I did. Scrubbing the bow first because the water was far to deep at the stern. The tide was falling and l could do more and more as it did.
It soon possible to see her bottom and l was horrified to see barnicals! I soon realised that my winter experiment had proven me wrong! I thought the antifouling l had been using for the last possibly 15 years wasn’t working anymore and so l didn’t buy any and l didn’t have enough to do all of Elektra. The places l hadn’t done had the barnicals! Well now l would have to scrape them off and the only way to do so was to climb in under her on the wet bottom. But l would let the tide go away properly first. With other jobs to do in the cabin l climbed back aboard.
About 3/4hr later l climbed back down to scrape off the barnicals, l had found a plastic bag for lying on, but soon found out it didn’t work very well as l was getting wet! But l kept on until l was finished and all the barnicals he’d been scraped off. Then l had to get back aboard, climbing onto the boarding ladder out of the mud isn’t ever a good idea! At the top of the ladder l kicked my Crocs off into the aft end of the cockpit an then climbed in myself. I pulled off my T-shirt and my shorts and found clean set. Then l boiled the kettle to have good wash myself before washing out the cockpit and my Crocs.
By the time l had finished it was 1700hrs and time for some dinner. Once Elektra was floating again, just before dark l moved her out into deeper water, to try to stop her from drying out on a funny angle during the night. And then l went to bed at 2130hrs.
Love Sailing 