Zapuntel – Saturday 2 June 2018

Last night after we posted my blog we had a bit of luck.  Just as we were going to bed I suggested Richard try the shower tray pump again.  I don’t know why I thought this was a good idea, but low and behold it worked!  So I don’t know why it wouldn’t work before. Perhaps we have gremlins aboard. Anyway that is another thing I don’t have to worry about.

We were so comfortable in Ilovik that we were reluctant to rush away.  So we went to the shop to buy fresh bread a croissant and had a leisurely breakfast and didn’t leave until 9:30. Perhaps we should have stayed another day as we are getting ahead of schedule now.  We will have to take more time in places.

But we set out to another island anchorage about 15 miles away.  Again we put up the sails, but this time the wind was so light that we were only able to sail for about 1 to 1 and ½ hours and even then only doing about 3 knots.  We even put out the fishing line, but caught nothing.

This anchorage has very little here.  There is a tiny village (looks like about 6 houses) and a pier.  In summer (we are not sure what it is now) the pilot book says there are buoys on the village side of the anchorage, but there are none there now. So we have crossed over to the other side of the gap between two islands where there are mooring buoys.  We have a look at what we have to do. The buoy has a small ring on the top.  Big enough to hook with a boat hook, but not big enough to use the yellow peril.  Besides it is clear these are more buoys that want to be attached from underneath, not on top.  So I decide to try and lasso it as last time.  This time I use the boat hook to keep the line out and when Richard got the buoy in the right space I managed to catch it.  Then Richard swam out and we attached our line to underneath the buoy where there was a stainless steel ring. I really don’t understand why they don’t put such a ring on top and make it much easier to attach.  Oh well.  We watched others.  Mostly they caught the buoy from the stern on a boat hook, lifted it and then attached the line and walked it forward.  We could do that.  It does have the advantage of Richard being able to see where the buoy is to steer to it.  But I am not sure I have enough hands to do it.  Mind you later this afternoon a Polish boat came in and attached the buoy that way single handed!

The weather here is not as hot as it has been.  There is a bit of cloud about and the water temperature is only 23C.  I thought about going for a swim (one of the purposes of being on a mooring) but I chickened out and just had a quiet afternoon in the cockpit.  We were waiting all the time for someone to come and take money for the mooring.  When it got to 7pm we thought maybe we would get a free night.  But no, the man came shortly after and took our money – about £25.  We now know to say we are under 11 metres (which indeed we are by .02 of a metre) and get charged for a ten metre boat.  They seem happy enough with that, so why shouldn’t we be.

We must slow down now.  We will probably stay in the next few ports for two nights at a time.

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