Tuesday 19 May 2015

Mud glorious mud

The forecast really made the decision for us, it was force 7 for the next couple of days with high pressure building towards the end of the week and winds decreasing. Unfortunately that also meant a bit of rain about but you can't have everything!
The first night saw me staying up until 3 in the morning tending lines along with Ian our temporary next door neighbour ( we seem to have an endless supply of them, it's great ) I also helped to look after his lines when he felt the need for a comfort break in the 24 hr Tescos over the bridge. The forcast winds did indeed blow quite strongly overnight and in combination with the strong tidal flow it made for a bit of a noisy night for Lynne trying to sleep below. However it really is remarkable how quickly it goes still and quiet by the time we " touch down". Then it was straight to bed for me until morning.
So it was up to the top of the wall for lunch and then back down again for three in the afternoon, we rigged our magic hosepipe and washed the saltwater from the hull prior to putting on a coat of anti fouling paint. We had scrubbed and prepped the hull yesterday so this was a fairly simple job.


Luckily the rain held off, it had been very much off then on all day, but then again we are in Snowdonia!
The bottom of the harbour beneath Dark Tarns keel is composed of a mix of broken mussel shells and mud and is fairly solid, however if you wander to far away the bottom is very treacherous, in fact only the day before a local boat owner was forced to call out the lifeboat men as he had become firmly stuck in the harbour mud. Best not to wander too far!


Therefore Lynne had to learn to negotiate quite tall and slippery ladders in order to avoid the glutinous mud and keep her wellies clean.
We managed to complete the port side and will now wait until tomorrow to turn the boat around to do the starboard side, another late night/early morning so I grabbed a bit of sleep after dinner.


It has been an interesting few days and we have learned a new and valuable set of skills which should come in handy in the future.



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