Commodore
January 1, 2021

The new year starts with us scuttling back to safety after Rowan got scuppered!

It was a windy night with torrential downpours every now and then that woke us up. It’s an endless up and down, opening and closing the hatches. It gets too hot leaving them closed.

I decided to do a little housekeeping before our guests, Phoebe and her ‘friend’ arrived on board. I wanted to clean the draining area under the wooden cover (Rowan says this drainage area is called a scupper), between the cockpit and the saloon. I removed the large wooden cover which leaves a deep gutter with some holes to let the water drain out. Just as I got the cover off Rowan announced breakfast was ready, so we sat down to eat and I jokingly said I wonder who will be first to fall into the scupper. The noisy cat next to us had left about 10 minutes earlier and Rowan spotted their mast on the other side of the island and realised they were going through the reef at the tricky exit in this wind. He leapt up to watch them on the chart. Boom, he fell in the scupper and sliced a huge chunk out of his heel on one of the holes (it has a remarkably sharp edge). Thank god he didn’t break his foot (again!) or his leg! Thankfully I had some extra large steri strips, a big melolin plaster and lots of Micropore tape to stem the flow! So annoying, not bad enough for stitches but he is going to have to keep it out of the sea for a good few days!

Phoebs and Daniel went and did a grocery shop and got a taxi back to where we had dropped Phoebe off near Parham. The only problem was this time the wind was howling. We tried to anchor as close as possible to the jetty where two other boats were moored but it was futile, in the thick gooey mud of the mangroves, we could not get a hold in the wind. We finally had to go quite far away and shelter behind some land and Rowan had a very wet bouncy trip in JeldiJeldi to pick them up. They did remarkably well keeping our returned clean laundry dry, and keeping the 4 big grocery bags in tact, and the luggage! It was good to get them on board and leave the area. Rowan said the people on the dock who had been watching us avidly, were all S Africans, and said we didn’t have a chance of anchoring there.

We thought we would go back to Big Bird Island and try and tuck behind the island. There were 5 boats there and not a lot of space to swing in the roaring wind without hitting another boat or coral. I’m afraid the wimp that I am, I wanted to head back to where we had been in calm waters, overlooking Oprah’s house! I think we all agreed it was massively less stressful for our first night all together.

Poor Daniel got the newcomers interrogation, which he survived with flying colours. Fascinating to hear about his Hungarian upbringing and his sailing escapades on Lake Balaton (80kms long and 5kms wide) where he has had many holidays. They were exhausted having danced the new year in until 4am! Phoebs doesn’t often get a hangover but I think they were secretly very grateful we were in calm waters for the night.

Happy New year to all of you followers, feel so honoured that you keep reading the tales of PolePole, which all just started as a promise to Hannah!