Repairs and a Walk

Dana had been absolutely dandy throughout the run from St. Vincent down the coast of Bequia. Then we bore westward and rode a following swell. While less choppy, it is a bit of a gut-churning motion with its gentle rise and fall. In response, Dana turned an interesting shade of greenish white. She allowed as how she was feeling queasy. She knew she was not at her best when, safely anchored in Friendship Bay, we determined it was beer o’clock and she was not remotely interested. She eventually retired below for a little lie down.

I prepared lunch while the manly arts of rigging repair were practised on the upper deck. Consultation, experimentation, innovation all got a workout. A broken shackle was replaced. A fix for the snapped weld on the boom carwas jerry rigged. (Later, under sail, both were to be found effective.) Post-prandially, we snoozed.

Late in the afternoon, we went ashore, planning to walk into Port Elizabeth, about 2 miles away. But first, we needed to lay in some ice. The Friendship Bay Resort has a dinghy dock, so we took her there. There was some discussion as to the availability of ice. We felt that bringing ice from Port Elizabeth would result in our arriving with a bag of ice water. Fortunately, the beach bar was able to provide. We trotted down there and WW purchased a lovely bag of ice. He went to return it to the boat while the EC and I started along the road to town.

It was a lovely ramble along narrow roads through the gathering dusk. We examined trees, fruits, flowers, birds. At one point Dana asked, “What bird is that?” listening to its singing from the brush. “That,” I told her, “is a frog.” She was suitably astonished. We stopped outside a hilltop restaurant to await our captain, who had still not caught up. He suddenly appeared from ahead of us...a chap we had asked for directions had been driving by and offered him a lift.

Port Elizabeth is a tiny town centred, as most are, along its waterfront on Admiralty Bay. We walked along, noting the position of important things like the bookstore and the market. Then we found an equally important bar, had a beer and called for a taxi.

The taxis are, for the most part, small pickup trucks with a shelter over the back and benches down each side. The driver hops out, opens the tailgate and in you get.

On the drive back we discussed what we’d do in a COB (crew overboard) situation. Opinions varied. The fact is, often enough, there is not much to be done. However, there are procedures to follow. Punch the COB button on the GPS, send out a mayday, switch on the EPIRB (electronic emergency position doodad that zaps a signal to Canada giving its position and information about the boat it is registered to), drop sails and turn the boat, etc. Dana was deeply offended by the thought that one might just carry on, as WW pointed out would be the sensible thing to do if one awoke to discover the person on watch was no longer aboard. Somewhere, sometime, that person had gone adrift. Odds are, you’d never find them in all that water, waves and wind out there. And so the conversation went, until we hopped out of the taxi, the driver was paid and he said to us, “Please. All of you. Please. Don’t any of you go overboard.”

That evening, we dined on a truly outstanding fish soup using the fumet I had prepared the day before. I served it with bakes which were well received by the EC. And so ended another day upon the water.