Someone once said to me if it's not worth waiting for, it aint worth having..

Yeah but like 12 months.. Are you mad ?

Yip it's been almost 12 months since I posted to this blog, it seems like an entire lifetime ago since we were crusing around the West coast of Scotland enjoying our sailing and the odd pub quiz...

Well, maybe not the pub quiz but you get the picture..

Anyway we have had alot on family wise this year, sort of too much to do and not enough time, the highlight of the year for us was the arrival of Benjamin James Nelson in April. 09.04.09 to be precise..!

So life is slowly getting back to normality... and our thoughts are turning towards getting back on the water.

We have actually started our day skipper theory courses that we bought lat year, to be honest somenights it has us like dazed kippers but hey that's cool...its a distance learning pack from NMCS and great it is too...

So it's navigation central here at home, and more good news is that we have booked our practical course for August... will we make it, who knows but we'll give it a shot.

so watch this space, again we'll post more pics etc as we go but it's close hauled and off we go for now.

Wish us luck..

Well, what can I say...

Simply Awesome.

We are back safe and sound, and 1000 humble apologies for the delay in writing this update.

So we set off from home to the beautiful island of kererra, home to Oban Marina, we were met there by our hosts Paul and Tom who were both from our sailing school. Once aboard we had the customary greets and tea, safety briefing etc etc and we settled in for the night aboard..

Up bright and early the next morning we set off for Loch Aline for lunch and some practice picking up mooring buoys etc, this was great and after lunch we headed off to Dunstaffnage for the night and a much earned glass of wine.

Dunstaffnage is a great place and the wide mouthed frog is a great place for a drink should you ever get there....

Next day we set off for Tobermory beating to windward (note the terminology there...!) up the Sound of Mull and we got to Tobermory before a whole plethora of race yachts came in.... so safe and sound we went ashore for a shower and headed to the Mishnish for a few bevvy's (are you noticing a pattern here !!)

From Tobermory we went to Coll and had a great sail over there despite the rain... by now we were helming ourselves and also taking reef's in, hoisting sails etc etc...

It was all good.... and the sail to Coll was the best day's sailing we had...

So more sailing, more crew work etc etc, and it was off to Bunessan where we anchored for the night, we had previously practiced this and it was a seemless operation !!

Bunessan was a small place and the third day with no shower, so by now we were all after a decent pint and a shower (the lovely wife included !!)

So off to Colonsay it was...and what a good idea it was... in principle..

Well we had great weather and some decent sailing albeit in light winds, down the Sound of Iona passed some of the most beautiful scenery so far..

We came into Colonsay where after looking at the charts, it seemed that there would be two visitors moorings available, these being alongside the pier adjacent to the side where the Calendonian MacBrayne ferries dock..

So we got there....

There was already a boat moored in berth 1 which didn't exactly leave us much room to get into Berth 2, however we managed and after getting an updated forecast and also speaking to the others it looked like all was well...

infact so well that some of our lot were jumping off the boat into the water to cool off and we also had a spin in the tender round the bay as it was so nice...

now.... did someone say pub quiz ??

Off we went to the pub, I mean come on... pub quiz on a remote scottish island how hard could it be....*Ahem !

We came last.... but to be fair it was actually the hardest quiz ever and we were convinced that half of Eaton and Cambridge were in the pub with their fancy hair do's and starched shirts, who were obviously far better schooled than any of us !!!

So back to the boat it was after a few beers, down the pier ladder ( not good after a beer or 4) and off to bed......


1:30am


KABOOM!!!!!

The wind had changed from SE to NE and was now blowing directly onto us causing the boats to pitch and bounce like crazy....

We were awoken by the yacht in berth one slamming into the rear of our boat with such force that their forestay was ripped clean off and we had some damage to the back of our boat...

So there we were, in our shreddies (underpants) with me at the back trying to fend off a a wildly bouncing Beneteau from doing yet more damage to our boat....

So we tried to move our boat forward by tying our lines a bit tighter, well there was us and the pier.......

There was only going to be one winner...

Our lines were a bit tight, so much so that we managed to rip one of our front cleats clean off the boat, leaving a large hole in the front of our boat....


This was not good.....


WHAT WERE GOING TO DO !!!!!

nothing for it,we had to leave..... at about 2am... in a howling gale.....

Great......

Our first week at sea on a novice's course leaving a mooring at 2am in a gale

Scared ?? Oh Yes......

So we get off our mooring, and out to sea bouncing and rolling like a margarine tub in a bath being filled with water at top speed....

I had to go on deck (clipped on) and get the fenders in and also to raise the main sail with the skipper....

That was hairy stuff...

Then it was 2 hour watches all the way back home to kerrera where we collapsed into our beds at about 10am....

Did we pass competent crew.....



YES.....

Did we at any time fell unsafe.....


NO....

Were we scared a bit....

Maybe....


But it was BRILLIANT !!!!!!

Dayskipper here we come....

Watch this space !!!!!

S,K,S & O

Evenin'

Here I am still at home, still waiting for the 19 days we have to wait til we are out there sailing to pass.

And well quite frankly I am bored, I mean there is only so much of Big Brother a man can take!

So I was just looking through some old photo's when I came across this pic, taken while onboard a 40ft yacht we chartered in Barbados. I have also posted more in the gallery.

More later when we return from our trip..

Enjoy.

Steve

Quote :
"You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water." Rabindranath Tagore 1861 -1941

For long enough now I have dreamed of having a boat, infact one of the very first things I told my wife when I first met her was that, I'd love to learn to sail and own a yacht one day.

6 years later we are about to start on that journey, infact we are booked on the RYA competent crew course on the 19th July for a week long trip beginning at Oban on the West Coast Of Scotland. So by the end of that we'll either be raring to go or scraping this blog, selling the gear we have bought on ebay and slowly going mad finding something else to fill our times with.

So who's going, well I am (Steve), my wife Karen and our eldest son Sam, oh and we have managed to rope in a good friend from our village to come too, a sort of more the merrier approach.

If all goes well there should be more here to read, we'll be posting more pics and updates on our progress, hopefully right from the start (Here!) through to owning a boat and eventually taking a year out to sail round the Med with the family...

So watch this space, it's going to get scary, interesting and probably quite mad in places.

Later

S