to drive or to fly

Nik and I are off on holiday tomorrow, with a week booked in Sharm El Sheik. Sadly, no boats involved, this time, but I did manage to negotiate a hotel next to the sea. On the easyJet itinerary it gives the address of the hotel we're staying at, along with a link to "Get Directions"

Seems there's a lot of roadworks between here and there.

weather watching

Forecast for Sunday is now looking a lot easier. But Saturday has turned grim, with gusts in the afternoon of up to 42 knots and 3m waves. It looks like it's coming in from the west, so if we left earlier to avoid it, we'd get caught before we reached Fowey.

So it looks like it's likely to be a maintenance weekend on the boat.

Once this lot blows through, next week actually looks quite pleasant. I'm reminded again that if I wasn't restricted to only using the boat at weekends, we'd get much more sailing in. Unfortunately, short of winning the lottery (and for that, I'd have to remember to buy a ticket) retirement is still another good ten years off. 

And who knows what my health or the world will do between now and then. So we'll continue to grab the moments as we can.

The photos were from the beginning of August, on the way out from Plymouth to Fowey. We should probably have waited another day before leaving, but I was keen to go; we ended up beating into gusts up into the high twenties. The crew were not particularly impressed; it took 35.5nm and seven hours to cover the 20nm passage, and as a concession to the crew I cheated with the engine for the last hour.

Petrella managed it beautifully however, and the crew were more than happy once we got to where we were going. And dolphins are always a welcome treat.

forecasting

The forecast for this weekend. It's only Wednesday, so it may yet ease, maybe. I'm heading down to the boat with Dad, and would very much like a last trip out Fowey and back before the end of the year and this is my last free weekend before January.

On the other hand, if the forecast is gusting more than 20 knots, I'm not sailing. There's no point in trying to be clever, we'll only damage the boat or ourselves.

On which point, I'm recovering. I'm still limping around on a single crutch, but improving daily. I'd be confident about sailing this weekend if the weather turns kinder, and am hoping to get back to karate next Tuesday.

We shall head down to the boat anyway this weekend. If for nothing else, I need to deflate the tender and stow it below. Although there are no free weekends left this year after the next one, I still mean to pick a few Sundays with suitable weather and take Petrella out for a day sail. We won't need the tender for that, though.

Unrelated to my foot, the last course of antibiotics seems to have done the trick, as it's been ten days now since the course finished and there's been no sign of the infection returning. Because the infection was unexplained, and recurred after the first course, the GP referred me to the hospital for a CT scan. I saw the consultant yesterday and he confirmed that it had showed up nothing sinister, which after a two week wait since the scan comes as something of a relief.

Ironically, although the scan showed my kidneys and general waterworks to be fine, the consultant did point out that the scan had picked up that I had a herniated disc in my lower spine. Which would explain the occasional back ache that I just put down to getting old or sleeping bad and mostly chose to try and ignore when it flares up. 

A bit like the tendonitis in my left foot that's left me lame the last couple of weeks.

Because of that, I didn't race the Albacore last Sunday. Ironically, almost as soon as I'd made the decision to cancel on Saturday evening, my foot started to improve and by Sunday I'd cast off one of my crutches as was occasionally making my way to the kitchen and back without either to make myself a cup of tea.

We had a night out last night. I bought tickets for myself, Nikki and my daughter Tash to go and see  one of my favourite singer songwriters, Frank Turner, at the Guildhall in Gloucester, and left my youngest, Sam, babysitting the grandchildren for the evening.

It was an excellent show. We caught an Uber into town and back, so I might have had a few beers just to ease the discomfort of standing on my bad foot all night. That was the first alcohol that has passed my lips in seventeen days. Oddly enough, I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would, but the gig itself was fantastic.

It's a venue I've played a few times in the past with my own band, though not for many, many years, and we never quite managed to fill the venue as he did. I actually enjoyed standing in the crowd, singing along shamelessly to my favourites, but otherwise watching somebody else do all the work. 

It was a great night.

thank goodness it's Friday

The week appears to have shot by. The now complete second course of antibiotics continue to appear to have done their job, though the last time it took a full week for the infection's resurgence after the completion of the first course. So jury is still out, but I'm optimistic.

Meanwhile, I haven't touched a drop of alcohol since a week last Saturday, which is a source of some personal lament, but wanted to give the antibiotics the best chance of doing their job. Despite the lament, I feel strangely proud of what is actually a pretty irrelevant personal achievement.

The weekend looms and I find myself still hobbling around on a set of crutches. My foot is improving, but still hurts and won't bear my weight. Ironically, it's a little over a week since the fifteenth anniversary of my breaking it. As my Grandad used to say any time we used to injure ourselves as kids, "You'll pay for that one day, son"

Thornbury, Sept 2010

It happened the weekend before a planned trip up the Severn Estuary from Thornbury Sailing Club to Frampton Pill that I'd organised with friends from Frampton-on-Severn Sailing Club. The break saw me relegated, despite my protest, disappointment and ingeniously having semi-waterproofed the fresh plaster-cast by wrapping it in a bin bag and securing it with duct-tape, from helming Dad's Wanderer dinghy to a spot as cameraman in the rib that was accompanying the Frampton fleet up channel.

Severn Estuary, Sept 2010

My son Ben stood in for me as helm and did a great job in my absence. The estuary is really just a big muddy river, but we were all just lake sailors, and any big muddy river with a 15m spring tide needs to be taken seriously.

Frampton Pill, Sept 2010

Once we were all safely landed in Frampton Pill and recovered to the sailing club, I did then steal a Hansa Access 300 from Sailability fleet, so did actually get some sailing in before the end of the day, crutches, bin bag, duct tape and all.

FOSSC, Sept 2010

This weekend I have a couple of gigs; a Bristol pub this evening, and then a beer festival in Stroud tomorrow afternoon. The need to be at the latter for about 1300 to load in would preclude me from karate tomorrow morning, even if my foot were recovered enough to train, and it's patently, frustratingly not.

However, if the rigours of being on my feet for a couple of gigs Friday and Saturday don't completely cripple me, assuming I can still pull a sailing boot over my ankle on Sunday morning (the swelling has definitely gone down a bit) then the plan is a race the Albacore with my young friend Alex. Getting the boat in and out of the water might be a bit of a challenge, but I'm sure Alex's dad will help. Once afloat, my theory is that with the Albacore I should be able to get from one side of the boat to the other through a tack or a gybe by way of a judicious hop, if necessary.

The photo at the top is, of course, Charlie. Laughing, I think, at his Grandad's plans for the coming weekend. The remaining photos were from three weeks ago, the last time I got out on the water. There was no racing scheduled, so Amanda and I decided to get a bit of practice in with the Lasers instead of sailing the Albacore as usual. It was a good day, still warm and a light wind with the occasional lively gust for entertainment; a fun bit of sailing.

Petrella: Salcombe, August 14th

In the end, we had a fine couple of weeks in August. The first week with Nik and Dad we made passage west, out to the Helford and back, via Falmouth and Fowey. Then I had to take Nik home for the second week, as she'd been unable to secure more time off work. 

Once I had her settled back at home, I returned to the boat and Dad and I found a gap in the second week's weather to head out east to Salcombe and back.

I'm not a huge fan of Salcombe town, though I admit as I grow more familiar, the town grows on me. But the pilotage to enter the harbour past it's sometimes formidable bar is engaging, and the harbour itself it gorgeous.

Although very popular, so you invariably end up rafted up on a mooring buoy alongside one or two other boats of similar size. Which I don't really mind.

There are options to anchor. We got quite used to anchoring with Calstar, but I've not done it with Petrella yet, although the previous owners did so a lot. That is, perhaps, something I should remedy.

We got back to Plymouth on the Friday evening, just ahead of some lively weather due in for the weekend. I retired to my bunk fighting fit Friday night, but Saturday morning I awoke to find myself unwell with, of all things, a nasty UTI.

Back home on Monday, the doc put me on a week of antibiotics. It knocked the infection on to the back foot but evidently didn't entirely clear it. The Saturday following the final dose of the first course, it came back with a vengeance. 

Another week of antibiotics, and a CT scan at the local hospital. The latest course of antibiotics are now complete and feel like they've done the job this time, but I'm waiting the results of the scan which I should have by next week at the latest. That I've not had a phone call in the meantime asking me to pop in to discuss them I count as a very good thing. No news has to be good news.

To top it all off, last Friday tendonitis flared up in my left ankle. I had two gigs over the weekend, so tried to show it due consideration and keep my weight off the foot as best I could, but the show(s) had to go on, so consequently it got quite nasty by the end of the weekend.

It's getting better now, but I'm still hopping around on crutches. I found myself sitting in the dentist's waiting room yesterday trying not to stare enviously at how easily people were able to just walk normally.

I'm optimistic I'll be fighting fit again for the weekend, another couple of gigs, karate Saturday morning, then racing at the lake all day Sunday. I haven't done enough of either this last month.

Anyway, I actually only intended to publish the photo of Petrella at the head if this post with a brief explanation, just to cheer myself up, and not the soliloquy of self pity that followed. But I'm going to leave it here, so that when I read back in a six-month or year or whenever, as I inevitably do, I can remind myself how lucky I am to still have my health and mobility.

I have the weekend of the September 19th free of gigs. Fingers crossed for the weather, my main ambition right now is to be fit enough to enjoy a final weekend away with Dad and Petrella before the winter really starts to close in.