Off the island again

We had perfect weather today – perfect for our boat outing! Elza and Sarel have a small boat, and we’ve been trying to find a time to get out there together, so when they phoned earlier in the week to ask if we could do Friday, we jumped at the chance. The wind of the past week had died down to a breeze, and there was not a cloud in the sky. It was hot out there, but with the breeze and a slight ocean spray we hardly noticed it. We met up with them at the docks at 10 am. Because of the depth of the water there are no piers at James’ Bay, so all the boats are moored along ropes, and you have to get a ferry to the boat you need to be on. So our boating day started with a short ferry ride to Lady Sarah. Sarel and Elza have bought a small rubber dinghy, which they just received this week from the Cape, and today was its first test run. Sarel was very excited about his new toy, which means that they can anchor their boat somewhere around the island and go ashore, using the dinghy to get right to the shoreline. He took the dinghy out to the boat, and once we were all on board and comfortable, we set off into the seas. The day turned out to be a comedy of errors. The first thing to happen was that the boat’s engine cut out, but Sarel managed to get it going after just a short time – he suspected an air bubble in the fuel tank. We sailed to Lemon Valley, where we anchored and then Sarel first took Nick and the boys ashore, and came back for Elza and me. Nick and the boys were already swimming when we got back. We took our lunch ashore, so after a bit of exploratory walking around, we came back and enjoyed our sun-warmed ham, tomato and cheese rolls, dangling our feet in the water. Because both Sarel and Nick had afternoon engagements, we didn’t tarry for too long. Elza and I were taken back first, but Sarel soon realized that in the excitement of testing out his new toy, he had only put in enough petrol to test it, and that quickly ran out. We were but a stone’s throw away from the shore when the little engine cut out and that was that. Sarel had to “row, row, row his boat” all the way back to Lady Sarah, and it was quite some distance. We decided to take Lady Sarah closer to the shore and anchored her again, so that it wasn’t so far for Sarel to row to collect Nick and the boys. While they were gone, Elza realized that the anchor had somehow become disconnected from the rope which was tying it to the boat, so all that was anchoring us and preventing us from drifting into a nearby outcrop was a piece of blue rope floating on the water, which was hardly effective. Fortunately Sarel came rowing along before Comedy Error #3 became Tragedy #1. With the dinghy secured to the back of the boat, we put out in the direction of James’ Bay. It was a refreshing ride back, enjoying the spray, sea breezes, the smell of the ocean, smell of diesel smoke…uh oh, too much diesel smoke smell…and the engine sputtered out again, this time refusing any efforts at resuscitation. We simply had to drift a bit and radio for help. Since we were quite close to the moorings at James’ Bay, it didn’t take long for someone to come and tow us back to where we should be – the blue line between two white buoys is their boat’s address. And in all that time we didn’t see even a single fin of a dolphin…but it was a very enjoyable day, and certainly memorable!