So to recap, we arrived in Ilfracombe on the Monday afternoon, and spent a very comfortable night on a visitor mooring in the outer harbour, complete with a gorgeous sunset, a chilled bottle of white wine and a fish and chips supper.
After breakfast ashore Tuesday morning, Nikki and I left Dad to fuss about the hull of the boat and as she dried out again on the beach and spent the morning together exploring the town. Nikki is very new to yachts and cruising; I mean, so am I, but she is so much more so than me, both practically in terms of the hours and miles covered, and emotionally. As I previously mentioned, she's definitely warming to it, and has proven to have an eagle eye when it comes to spotting dolphins and porpoises (less so navigation buoys or lobster pots, it must be said) but truth be told, it's neither unfair nor a disservice to suggest she only does it to spend time with me.
In fact, far from meaning that observation as a disservice, I'm touched, flattered and quietly impressed that she'd tolerate with the inevitable boredom and discomfort that intersperses the underlying majesty and raw beauty of the sea and the English and Welsh coastlines where we sail just to be with me.
It does mean the character of our cruising has changed. It's less long hauls interspersed with late nights in various harbour bars, and now more short hops interspersed with respectable rest breaks characterised by long shops. I don't really do shopping. A secret to our long and happy marriage is that, over the years, Nik has recognised this, and gets her fix on her own time when I'm not around. To me, one New Look, or Salt Rock, or Primark or whatever little fashion boutique you're likely to find is not only the same as another, they're invariably stocked with much the same as one another. And don't start me on shoe shops or craft shops.
In a way, and I stress I am being tongue-in-cheek here, I guess the price and consequence of Nikki and I getting to spend time together is that she has to tolerate the discomfort of sailing and I have to put up with the boredom of shopping. I'd say that's a fair trade.
The Lydney fleet caught up with us on the Tuesday afternoon tide. We had supper that evening with Eric and Jeanette of "Jander", a Lydney boat that had picked up the mooring alongside us, in a very nice resteraunt called The Quays overlooking the harbour. We retired afterwards to the Yacht Club bar to catch up with the rest of our friends to discover most had moved their boats off the outer visitor moorings to the inner harbour; the wind was expected to increase and veer into the north overnight, which could make the outer harbour a little rolly. With not much water left on the ebbing tide and the light beginning to fade (and nothing to do with the charm and comfort of the Ilfracombe Yacht Club bar) Jander and ourselves decided to stay put in the outer harbour. The forecast really didn't look too horrific, and by the time the Club bar kicked us out we'd be able to walk back to the boat.
When we'd come ashore earlier in the evening, I'd left the tender secured high on the outer harbour wall, above the tide line, the paddles clipped in and strapped down with the bungie clips fitted to the dinghy for that purpose. Despite being well clear of the tide line, the swell pushing into the harbour at high water as the weather had built up had still reached the dinghy quite the beating; both of the paddles were completely gone, snatched from their clips and bungie fixings by the violence of the tide.
It was a peaceful night's sleep with the boat at rest on the sand. I awoke around 0400 as she lifted off, but I think only because I'd expected to, and had gone to sleep anxious that it wouldn't be too rough a lift from the sand with the incomming swell. And it wasn't a particularly rough rise, a couple of thumps, then we were away. The wind and swell soon pushed us onto the neighbouring mooring buoy however, which set up an arythmic thumping on the hull, seemingly inches away from my head, until I crawled above decks and in the pre-dawn gloaming strung a necklace of fenders around the bow to guard it; a trick I'd learned on the first night in Tenby the previous year.
A little before 0700 that morning, we moved onto a visitor's mooring in the inner harbour. The weather was expected to worsen over the next couple of days, so our week's cruising plan devolved through mutual consent to walking, shopping, eating and drinking our way around Ilfracombe for the next couple of days. I think of Calstar's crew, only I really felt the regret of lost opportunities, and even that was mitigated by the fact the the Lydney Fleet were now storm-bound in harbour with us for the duration, so at least we had good company to drink with.
Around 0830 I paddled ashore using the dinghy's seat for propulsion, and set to wandering about town looking for anywhere that might sell me a pair of replacement paddles. The only place that seemed to open before 1000 in the town turned out to be the RNLI charity gift shop, and they didn't sell paddles. They did, however, sell a beach spade, which although a little short, proved to be a more elegant paddling solution than the dinghy's seat, to the amusement of neighbouring boats when I returned to Calstar. As the tide ebbed away, leaving us high and dry, Dad and I toured the width and breadth of the inner and outer harbours, looking for our lost paddles but with little hope and, predictably, to no joy.
A while later, Nikki and I headed to shore to look for breakfast and, perhaps, an upgrade to my temporary, foreshortened paddle. One of the gift shops sold me a pair of "collapsible" plastic paddles for £7.50. We returned to the tender and standing at the top of the slipway, I screwed them together; a distinctive black and yellow, I observed to Nikki that they were "Batman themed" and a definite improvement on my beach spade, even if they did seem a little bendy. I think she might have deigned to roll her eyes. And then said, "Bill, what's that?"
Resting at the top of the slipway, at about the high water mark, nestled in one of the groves formed between the lateral slaps of concrete, was one of the dingy's original paddles, returned by the tide.
So, from having to paddle ashore first thing in the morning with the dingy's seat, I'd gone from the seat being contingency to my spade, being contingency to my batman paddles, to being contingent to the now returned original.
I was, if you'll forgive the horrific pun, left amused, bemused and utterly over-oared by the change in circumstance.
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