Tomahawk will not end up on the beach again!
Jamie very generously lent us a length of super heavy chain from his 46-footer. He won’t be using it while he’s away, so we went out in the freezing cold and dark to hook it up to our own chain. Now the boat is weighed down by all that chain, plus it won’t chafe through the way the rope did. That means we can leave it out in English Bay without having to worry.
Meanwhile, the weather isn’t as wet as it was this time last year. That’s a good thing.
On the downside, we couldn’t get the engine going when Jamie and I were out, so he had to give us a tow with his dinghy. Due to the extreme cold and the fact that Jamie had time constraints, we decided to leave Tomahawk rafted up to his boat overnight. Jason went out in the morning and dropped the anchor in an appropriate location, once again with the help of our guardian angel Jamie. The engine wouldn’t start then either. Internet research has revealed that gas doesn’t vaporize well in the cold, so that could be the issue (also the fact that we haven’t started it up in a little while). Hopefully it will work fine once the weather warms up a bit more.
Our own dinghy appears to have a small leak, so it is currently sitting on the boat. Good thing we got those kayaks! Even without a vehicle, we can carry them down to the water from here and paddle across. We don’t have spray skirts, though, so we tend to get a bit damp. We haven’t actually gone all the way across the bay with them, but we did take them out for a spin on Jason’s birthday last month.
Once spring hits, which is late February here, I’m sure the kayaks will get a lot more use, as will the boat. We are thinking of taking proper sailing or even cruising lessons, if we can save up the cash.
We thought the chain was a better idea than getting an anchor this size!
