The day started with some light rain and ended with light rain. During the course of daylight hours we were entertained by various levels of rain ranging from light drizzle to medium downpours. No heavy rain came down, but there are more clouds and frontal passage promised for tomorrow so we might get that soon as well.
I used the early rain to wash down my decks and remove the accumulated salty crust from the stainless and teak and dodger coverings. I used a bucket filled with water and just a bit of Joy dishwashing detergent and scrubbed. The rain is only cold here when one is tired, so I was out there in my shorts and getting a free shower while exercising.
The new coffee from the Carib Coffee Roasters is quite good and packs a nice little caffeine kick as it is a light roast, that also helped me get going in the morning as I’d had too much to drink and too little to eat the night before.
Committee Boat “A” pickup
Today we picked up the 3 catamarans from Dream Yacht Charters at Jolly Harbour. I had 3 of the crew along – Rosie, Alec and Vaughn. We had a big taxi to take us along the normally scenic route along fig tree drive but because of the rain and cloud cover the views we got were quite limited. Originally we had an afternoon pickup scheduled and I was worried about timing coming back into Falmouth before the sun set but didn’t say anything, but fortunately Paul had the same reservations and did act on it. That was a great move on his part as we moved our timeline a few hours earlier and I was on the last of 3 boats to arrive and we made to the dock as the sun was setting.
We checked into the offices at DYC and it took a while to sort out the paperwork and payment issues and then we selected our boats, I chose the Bali 40 as I remembered the actual kitchen fridge on it and the big garage door that opened to make a spacious living area that I thought would go well for a committee boat. The VIP catamaran is always the nicest one and he got a big Lagoon and the final catamaran was another 40 footer. Of the 3, mine was still in the maintenance dock for unspecified work, another was in the process of being cleaned and only the Lagoon was ready to go.
Then the waiting started. At first we were on the dock in the light drizzle and hid under a tree as time went by and the rain got heavier. Little progress was seen to be made so we all headed to Petal’s and ordered lunch. That was not only very tasty but shortened the waiting time. After lunch we returned to the docks and our boat was there, but still locked and the other catamaran was sparkling clean and ready to go. All we needed now was to get our briefing and depart for Falmouth and the AYC.
The other catamaran was checked out first and departed somewhere around 15:30 and we then got our briefing, which was surprisingly thorough and well done, and were ready to cast off lines at 16:15. The steering position is elevated on the Bali but unfortunately we had no dodger and the rains showed no signs of abating so I knew it was going to be a wet ride for me. This was exacerbated by the discovery that my cheap rain jacket had delaminated over the years and didn’t even pretend to make the attempt of stopping the water coming through.
The engines are limited to 2200RPM and that gave 7 knots in calm waters behind the reef but after motoring halfway down the inside of Cades reef one of the engine alarms went off with overheating. I reduced RPMs to 2000 and that silenced the alarm but that meant that our speed, especially on the last portion going against the wind (and rain) and waves was somewhat slower. But we made it safely into the sheltered waters of Falmouth and there was a huge slot for us to dock at. Usually the last committee boat to arrive had to squeeze itself into a narrow opening between the other committee boat and stern-to race boats but they had added a finger pier and this left more space available to us – plus there are no longer floating balls with lines in the way of props.
Dinner
We got some free beer from our sponsors aboard and chatted with the other volunteers until dinner time came about and Irene, Neil, Rosie, Alec and I went to Paparazzi (where the Mad Mongoose used to be) for a wood-fired pizza meal. It was excellent.