November 3rd, 2013

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Sunday November 3rd, on the Hard again.

Sunday, November 3rd, 2013

A costly lesson in humility. I motored out, yesterday morning, very little wind, gorgeous weather. I set my course for Barcelona, 198 degrees. But I had not studied my charts well enough to clear the admiral buoy and strayed in an area full of crab pots; one of the pot lines wrapped around the propeller and stopped me dead. I was not but a  mile from the harbor entrance. It cost me $ 500 (€ 345) to have the coast guard bring me back to Port Camargue. So, just forget that all the miles I have sailed qualify me for some sort of glorified status. I decided to unwrap the rope on the hard rather than try to have a diver get it off. Because I had planned to haul out anyway before crossing the Atlantic. I knew that the last epoxy puttying of the keel, back in Amsterdam, had not cured properly, but it would have been very difficult to remove at that stage. I also lost most of the anti fouling on the bottom of the keel in the occasional canal/river groundings. The port here was able to lift me out immediately. But I had no engine, so I decided to sail. But there again I screwed up, led the genoa sheets wrong…. Fortunately the Capitainerie came to my rescue and towed me to the travel lift. I re-epoxied the keel and several other scrapes on the hull and the Gypsy air-gun hole in the cabin side. The epoxy I bought here worked great, perfect cure.

I rode my bicycle to Grau du Roi for mass but it is again in Aigues Mortes at 11 a.m. so, I excused myself. I still have not got the SailMail or the AIS working. Chip Adams is trying to guide me through the SailMail problem, he suspects that the control wire was resoldered incorrectly after all. I plan to be relaunched tomorrow and then hope to get a decent weather slot to get south. It would have been a lot of motoring yesterday and then the wind came up late at night, gusty, from the SW, right against the direction I need to go.

 

Just another sunset in Paradise