26 April 2008

17 nautical miles

The wind was really really nice today and had a very enjoyable sail with a friend of mine Alec. Alec comes from the islands north of Scotland and boats are part of the lifestyle up there. But they normally have outboards, so as we sailed off from the coast he remarked 'It's so quiet sailing!' Yes, it is and that's one of the things I like about it. I'm not sufficient of a purist to say I would never have a motor - in fact a motor would allow longer trips so that if necessary could motor back - but I do enjoy the quiet of the sailing.

I'm not sure my sailing was the best I sailed, but it was just great to be out on the water and enjoy God's creation and chat with Alec. Actually I suspect the chatting had more to do with my lack of sailing standard, but then this is 'cruising' and I was happy that my confidence is such that I am comfortable sailing and chatting without worrying about whether I am luffing all the time.

In the morning [cyan track] we sailed up towards Dhekelia and in the afternoon [yellow track] we sailed around a moored tanker and the buoys for the tankers. I did have to concentrate a little more on the sailing later in the afternoon as the buoys are made of metal and between a fibreglass boat and a metal buoy the buoy wins! Seriously though there is one floating pipeline in the water that is not buoyed and so you do have to look out for that. It appears as just a black floating log on the surface.

A nice final run in to the club. One thing to try next time is a line to hold the boat on the launching trolley as the boat tended to jump off and was therefore slightly difficult to get up on the slipway... hampered too as we were using my 4-wheel drive to pull it up as there was nobody from the club about so we couldn't use the electric winch.