First high water was at a sociable 07:43 and there would be sufficient water to get out of the dock from 19:30 - 20:00 which would allow me to get onto the mooring with the last of the flood tide. All good except it would be dark with no moon for my return.
Saturday broke with intermittent light rain and little wind so I was expecting a straight forward albeit damp departure from the trot mooring but it was not to be, the pick up line swept under the boat and caught the keel, the first time it has done that, so I had to get back on the mooring, disconnect one end of the line to clear it, now under time pressure to get off the mooring before the stand / second high which would be a bit lower and fearing a repeat I left it like that and later went back in the dinghy to reconnect everything.
With little wind and on the last of the first flood getting onto the piles was relatively straightforward although there was a narrow gap and a tricky left / right turn between the pile and one of the clubs launches, unfortunately the part time bosun's were not starting work until 09:00 or they could have moved one or more.
On the piles, in a little under 2m of water now a long wait for the stand to end and the tide to drop 1.5 metres before I could start work in knee deep water, wearing waders. |
Touching forward - the dock floor slopes down to the river. |
1.6m of water and the aft lashing to the pile had to be eased so that the stern could drop. |
The line going to the second launch in the pic and was a big help, if there had been more wind I would probably have run my long (100m) line over to the finger in the next door marina and turned the boat there before going out into a stronger wind and tide. A berth at that marina would be about six times what I pay for a mooring 2 cables down stream and that is not cheap. |