The classic boat Concord next to us on our overnight pontoon had a classical guitarist as skipper who was planning a round Britain tour on the boat to places associated with classical musicians – we invited him over for dinner and he exclaimed that ‘this is like a floating Ritz’ as Jim produced crystal glasses for our glass of wine for dinner.
Wednesday morning saw us towing Mervyn in torpedo run fashion – running at the dry dock and then releasing him with a wave (and a quick pass over of a thank you bottle of wine) as we headed off ourselves on my passage plan of back to Plymouth in rough seas. Surprisingly we actually got there racing a military cargo ship (and winning) into the safety of the water behind the scary Plymouth breakwater. Jim produced a bicycle from the starboard bow locker and headed off to Sainsburys for extra provisioning for the examiner on Thursday and we tidied the boat and studied the diesel engine in closer and cramped confinement.
Andy showed off his military training in producing splendid breakfasts and sandwiches and I even pitched in cutting onions and tearing tomatoes and lettuce to pieces.
We had to head up river on Andy’s pilotage with me helming – that was when we almost came a cropper as Jim shouts hard to port and we stop running aground just before the training ship Ajax (which is apparently not Ajax anymore but that is what it says on the chart). We get the buoys in the correct direction this time and made our way to a quiet anchorage for the night.
Thursday had arrived – this was Jordans moment. We picked up the examiner from the marina and Bob was definitely on board – he was a marine commando and is looking at doing the North West passage with a carbon fibre catamaran which can act as a sledge for iced over sections and a gun to cull polar bears that would be stupid enough to argue with Bob. Andy and Bob exchanged countless military stories which were most entertaining and we tried out a single person life raft whilst waiting for Jordan to do his planning.
Mooring and sailing about (you are a sailing vessel bloody well sail it your engines have failed, shouts Sergeant Major Bob), then man overboard (which was almost me as I was hit by the jib sheets with my pole in hand and tumbled into the catamaran’s trampoline), we headed up river to the Tamar bridge and a spot of dinner and it turns out that Bob was stationed at Arbroath where I was born. Night fell and Bob instructed Jordan as to his destination – we headed down river in a confusing set of lights greeting the entrance to Plymouth with unlit boats and barges passing on either side we enter the Sound which was where the nuclear submarine issue came.
The first we knew was the blue lights racing towards us – we had ‘Hove To’ in front of a navigational mark which the nuclear submarine now steaming towards us pulled by 4 tugs was using. There is a helpful 1000 pound fine so our engines magically restarted and our sailing vessel became a vessel moving swiftly away from the blue flashing lights. The submarine slipped through the water looking blacker than the night. Through the 4 posts of Plymouth (one of the lights was unhelpfully off) and into a very busy military operation (Thursday War) with HMS Daring looking like a James Bond villian HQ. We returned Bob to the marina with the sad news that Jordan hadn’t passed but he did produce a rather nice Bulgarian wine (as well as the last of the chocolate – we would miss Jordan as we left him the next morning on the marina pontoon). We would also miss one of our engines as something went wrong, and a winch handle which was whipped over the side by the headsail sheet and a rear gate lock which caught on my jumper and went pinging over the side. Jim was wondering whether he would come out of the week still solvent (or even afloat).
We sailed out and I pilotaged us back in to our marina and that was when we ran aground. With memories of Anstruther harbour and being on my watch this wasn’t great but Jim wiggled us off using our one and a half engines, reassuring me that the new buoys are actually in the wrong place, and we made it to the marina safely with a military helicopter swooping over us. We were presented with our certificates for not sinking the boat.
Andy gave me a lift to Millbrook in his Starsky and Hutch VW camper van – which was before they had curved glass so there are two panes of glass for a windscreen and no seat belts but did have the safety features of a dangling Elvis and Zebra fluffy covers.
