04/10/2012

After two months either out of the water or tied to a pontoon while various bits of minor surgery were carried out on her, Little Else is now back on her home mooring. We moved her yesterday once we were sure all our new plumbing was working. One unforeseen issue was having to replace our manual bilge pump, which was extremely corroded and well past its use-by date. It's amazing it was working at all last season.

Ju and I took advantage of the opportunity while on the pontoon in good weather to paint most of the deck. One-third of it remains to be painted, so we need to get that done sooner rather than later.

The boat is now almost ready for the new season!

This is a painting in water colours that Abby did for us last year of the moorings in Loch Craignish, seen from the top of the hill at Learagoligan. It has pride of place on our living-room wall.

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03/11/2012

Ju and I attended this very popular event in Oban last night, and managed to catch up with lots of people we know, and people whose paths we crossed for the first time last summer on our Orkney cruise.

The surprise of the evening was Ju winning the Royal Bank Cup for the worldwide class in the Cruising Log Competition in 2011, for her account of her trip sailing on Donata Polo from Plymouth to Panama! Ju's name is engraved on it in distinguished company, including that of the legendary Rev Bob Shepton, who sails to Greenland with ice-climbers!

Here's Ju with the cup, which will now sit on our sideboard in pride of place until next year!

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03/08/2012

Little Else still sits patiently on the hard in the boatyard, waiting for a bit of work to be done aboard before she can be put back in the water. She doesn't like having her stern pointing into the prevailing wind/rain combination of the south west, but that's what she has to contend with for a while. We are monitoring a couple of leaks that have shown up in the coach roof as a result. Meantime we are doing as much as we can to get the boat's equipment prepared for the new season by taking the removable bits home to clean/polish/repair/update/replace. As you do! More when there's more to report.

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