Skipper’s View
the moment when it dawns on you that if you want to go sailing next summer, you'd better at least go and look at your boat, establish it still exists and plan a few odd jobs. I recall when I had my boat in. You see, I like to actually row my tender to my boat instead of faffing about with a motor and while in theory this should have been fine, this fancy new tender just isn't designed for it. I imagine there are coracles that can be rowed much more effectively than this. The point of it is to strap an outboard on the back, row three metres offshore and fire the damn thing up before zooming into the distance - annoying everyone at the heretofore peaceful anchorage into the bargain. The final denoument came in October when, exasperated at rowing slowly nowhere in shallow water, I got out - a couple of beers worse for wear I admit - and dragged the wretched thing. It was dark and my toe managed to locate a very sharp rock. The rock responded to this by slashing my toe to the bone and breaking it. In fact, first job of the spring is to clean the wretched dinghy of all the blood and then sell it. In the meantime the search for an Avon recommences. This brings me to another point. The whole thing made me feel dreadfully old. Suddenly I am one of those fogies who says 'well, they don't make them like they used to'. Not only that, but I spent half the winter walking with a limp. A walking stick is the next obvious solution.
