Escape to Port Edgar

We squeezed in a long weekend early in August, and set sail just in time to escape the heavy weather that was about to engulf our mooring. Trying to out run the weather looked unlikely, so we set sail with a reefed genoa and pointed towards Port Edgar.

Inevitably the weather caught up with us as we approached the bridges. With increasing wind and much larger waves, things got a little exciting when sheets and lines were momentarily confused, and our reefed genoa completely unfurled at the precise moment we were aiming to do the opposite. After a bit of faffing and flapping we got things back under control and ran for cover in the marina.

With the wind gusting unpredictably, it took two attempts to get on to our allocated pontoon, which wasn’t helped by the fact that the nearest pontoon cleat had a sizeable custom metal extension complete with owner’s lines. We installed the SlapSilencer to give us a chance of a good night’s sleep when the time came. As there was quite a bit of chop overnight, the SlapSilencer proved it’s worth yet again.

During the bright spells [above] it was really quite hot, but that’s typically what you’d expect for early August so it shouldn’t have been a surprise. We ordered take-out. The last time we had Chinese takeaway from the local Chinese restaurant it wasn’t great, but the memory had faded, the night was getting on …and we were hungry.

Note to self: Don’t ever (ever) order Chinese food from there again.

We went for walks, we chilled, we briefly caught up with our chums from Tight Fit V, a Grandezza 33 and loosely arranged for a proper catch-up next time we’re all back at the marina at the same time.

The crew enjoyed our little weekend break; she seemed to find it relaxing. However, as usual it was all over too quickly and we were back on the return leg before we knew what hit us. It was less blowy on the way home, as we made our way into a westerly. We exchanged briefly pleasantries with one of our chums from the club onboard Chiron as he was heading east.

It’s been a strange season. The weather’s been so changeable from one day to the next that we don’t feel as though we’ve been onboard all that much. With crane-out less than two month away, we had better try to make every day count.