Settling back into life afloat in Kilmelford

Having braved the M25, British Airways to Glasgow (only one not three hours late this time) and a city centre Premier Inn, we followed the advice of John and Tina (remember, John was the man with the nice knees who received several inappropriate propositions after a picture of them appeared earlier on here). They are fans of a Weatherspoons breakfast deal. For the non UK readers, Weatherspoons is a big pub chain who offer very well priced food. So, fuelled by the cheapest brekkie in Glasgow (it just has to be) we braved the coach back to Oban. Then a ram raid on Tesco before treating ourselves to a taxi back to the Yacht Haven using the cash we saved at breakfast time..... The cab was a life expired Skoda, driven by a young English guy - the south Oban English ghetto we mentioned earlier. We said "driven". Hurled along the windy roads with gay abandon is probably a better phrase, but we survived as did the shopping.

The boat was fine, bar one scuff mark from some nice person's dinghy that will polish out. Patrick was looking intent and had clearly been taking his guard penguin duties most seriously:

He was a touch sniffy with us at first, perhaps because we had abandoned him for over 2 weeks. We didn't phone, we didn't write. Sorry Patrick:



However, he warmed to having people back on board when all the blinds got opened up and he saw his first daylight again.

So good to be back in what felt like home / normality. We are sure that to all the landlubbers, that sounds most strange - it probably is actually.

Tuesday was a day spent washing off the accumulated grot of the last 2 weeks and generally getting organised again. The boat had gone Hawaiian. She had grown a grass skirt around the waterline that needed serious scrubbing to remove it. All done from the RIB too -  the captain might need an osteopath soon. Later on, a blast across the Loch to Melfort pier in the RIB helped blow out the cobwebs and remind us what this cruising life is all about. Lovely late evening views from the boat deck too:

Maintenance news: Well, whilst the boat was "laid up" in Kilmelford, we had a long running irritating issue fixed. The guardrail around the boat deck on the starboard side had been clonked by the first owner of the boat. He had an enormous RIB with an equally enormous outboard fitted and we think he let it swing into the rail. The aft stanchion base had been moved a bit and someone had put lots of nice silicone sealant around it. However, in the winter we found out that water had been leaking past this into the moulding below. How? Well the water froze and pushed a trim part off the bottom of the fibreglass moulding.

Having seen the quality of the work the Yacht Haven guys were doing on other boats, we asked them to remove the rail, refit the stanchion base and sort out the split in the gelcoat. They did a great job - calling several times to check that the proposed repair method was OK with us. Colin, the boatbuilder, was amazed to see how thick the superstructure mouldings are when he was making an access hatch - nearly a half inch. Yes, the Nordhavn is built like the proverbial brick outhouse. The hull is even thicker of course....