How to fill a day off the water

The forecast today as I mentioned was for a windy wet day so I decided to do some jobs.

The first thing to do was fix the throttle which was sticking. I had a word with  someone at the marine engineers yesterday and he sucked his teeth and spoke of dire possibilities. Come on, I thought I should be able to work it. So with some encouragement from Dylan (he suggested WD40 and patience instead of the big hammer I was going to use) I took it apart and found that the handle had slipped round and I was trying to put it in neutral with the stick in the wrong position. The solution was a bit of electrical tape, some more grease and a new grub screw - thank you Peter at C&C Marine.

Ok this is easy - next job to clean the black marks off the port side after my brush with the DRB Marine pontoon. All I have to do is pump up the second hand dinghy I bought sometime ago and then float it down the side of the boat and get cleaning................

Today I have learnt how to fix holes in an inflatable dinghy!

Two holes one in the bow section about 3 mm across the second in the starboard section took an hour to find and lots of soapy water.
Then the patches...

Well that was it - the instructions say leave for 24 hours before inflating.

So I went for a walk to Fairlie past lots of anchors and mooring buoys - a sort of outdoor museum

Of course it rained but I did get a shot of a wonderful rainbow

Fairlie is a lovely village - its views across the water only marred by the Hunterston Power Station jetty. Sandy beaches, Old Red Sandstone outcrops and beautiful rain washed pebbles which shone when the sun broke through.

It seemed I was walking on part of the Ayrshire Coastal Path where I found this wonderful litter ditty.

Back on the boat, the wind howling in the rigging and gently rocking the boat.
Good night.