Opua: floating
Opua: floating
THE HAWKE OF TUONELA is again on her mooring.
She was launched Wednesday afternoon. I powered slowly until I was clear of the moorings and then opened the engine up for a few minutes. Everything functioned as it was supposed to. No leak from the repacked stuffing box or screech from the alternator. All was well until I headed for my mooring.
For a while I couldn’t find it. I circled until I finally saw the float and pick-up stick bumping amidships into the hull of a 45’ German ketch. While there are now about twenty boats at anchor, there is room for another thousand or so without crowding. Sudden engine failure is the only reason I can conceive of for anchoring on top of a mooring, and with a sailboat that is only a temporary excuse. If you can’t sail on and off your anchor, you shouldn’t leave the dock.
Fortunately this fool was on board. I told him to move. His response was belligerent. This is the equivalent of someone parking in your driveway and then getting mad when you arrive and want to get into your own garage. I would say that this specimen was almost enough to give Germans a bad name. He did move, and I did pick up the mooring.
The boat yard here is as good as any in which to live aboard, but it is such a pleasure to be back on the water, to the quiet and the space around me.
It was a lovely afternoon, and I was in time to have a glass or two of wine on deck while watching the start of the Wednesday evening Opua Cruising Club race.
I am more than tired of painting, but yesterday was too good to waste, sunny with light wind, so I masked and got two coats of paint on the remainder of the double cove stripe on the starboard side of the hull. It is early morning here, but the forecast is not good to do the port side today.
I still have a work list, including one significant repair to a crack in the aluminum grid in the bilge that needs to be repaired while the hull is on her lines in the water and will require me to return to the dock in the boat yard sometime before going offshore; but I have hopes of actually raising a sail soon.
I made three attempts at different times this morning to get a photo of the hull in direct sunlight, but it isn’t going to happen today. The above is the best I could do.
Friday, December 8, 2006