MALDON MUDLARKS

Geoff dislocated his finger not on THIS last adventure but the Thursday before when a friend accompanied him on the weekly Thursday Grumpy Old Men in 3 boats outing. The winds were pretty strong as also was the tide and the waves when they came to moor the boat and tie up at the end. He had trouble getting hold of the mooring rope. They both had a go at it and swapped around with the other on the tiller. It is very tricky as the boat is so close to other boats. But the rope got caught around his finger. He spent 6 hours at emergency. It still has to be strapped to the next door finger and it is worse when he changes the bandage.

Here is the saga of last Thursday and Friday July 8th and 9th 2008: Thursday was full of things that lead to mistakes. For a start, although ERic had left a message on our phone saying we were going to Maldon we did not listen to it but we were under the impression had had said they planned to go to Heybridge Basin. If we had known that we would not have taken Redshank as we have a deeper draught than the other boats and it would mean raising our keel as much as pos which is not easy and involves 360 turns on a handle. When we saw the lead boat, Bluebell with Derek and Bee in, go on past the Basin we called over to Falcon crewed by Brian and Eric "Are you going to Maldon" when they said yes that was the first we knew but needless to say we carried on. We could have been OK but 2 more things led to trouble. Eric called over for us to moor midstream and they would pick us up. Well we went too far in. We should have moored as soon as he said that. There were some mooring buoys and some big boats moored to them so we thought we were safe and moored to one and Falcon picked us up. We went in Falcon over to where all the barges were and moored up alongside a Dutch barge and Bluebell moored alongside us. If we had then gone to the pub for lunch straightaway things could still have been OK but we took a while before we all got off the boats and came over to the pub. We had some good beer and food then got back on Falcon who took us across to Redshank. We could see immediately that we were on the mud but didn't worry as we could still raise our keel. Well I guess that was a third thing, we could have raised the keel before we came in but we didn't want to keep the others waiting. Anyway it was a hell of a job raising the keel with it being stuck in the mud. We abandoned that idea and tried to rock the boat free while the other two boats tied on to us and tried to pull us out. By this time there was quite a crowd along the prom watching us. In the end the water was going so fast that we had to make the boat safe and get into Bluebell who was the only one who could get anywhere near us. Meantime we had already gone free of the buoy and couldn't reach it again so we put an anchor down. We set off in Bluebell feeling sad at having made so many mistakes. Then lo and behold Bluebell got stuck in the mud off of Heybridge. It was so shallow there you could see the bottom. We tried all sorts to get free but apparently what we should have done was to have immediately jumped out the boat and pushed it in the direction from which we had come. THIS WILL BE GOOD TO REMEMBER FOR NEXT TIME. We had to blow up the rib and transfer to the last boat Falcon who had been waiting out in the river. This took 3 journeys and made a hell of a mess in Bluebell with mud everywhere where mostly Bee had been walking in mud and getting back on to sort things out. So we were left with one boat out of 3. So there were 6 in the last boat with the rubber dinghy towed behind. Of course we were late and missed the launch so had to get us all back to the jetty in the ribs. Geoff could not remember tieing off the anchor. So Eric, Geoff and I went back to Maldon Thursday night when it was getting dark with the rib. Eric and Geoff went through the mud with the dinghy, put it in what was left of the river and rowed over the other side. Geoff had to go on all fours up the mud bank to the boat to check whether he had tied off the anchor. Well he had!!!!!*********####~~~~ So he went back on all fours to the dinghy they rowed it across and then looked exhausted to bring it up the mud the other side. So I went in to help. Immediately fell on my butt in the mud but carried on and we managed to get the dinghy back up the mud bank. Again we drew a crowd. There were some Morris Men dancing at the pub but we had a bigger audience. Then we went in a childrens paddling pool to use a pump to pump water to get ourselves clean. It was one of these pumps that drive wheels and send water in all directions for the kids to collect in their buckets. Took a lot of pumping which I did. Then back where the car was parked by the barges the kind Dutchman from the barge that we had tied up to earlier in the day came out with a hose and we hosed the dinghy and ourselves down properly before getting in the car. Geoff had to get down to his underpants. Got home and put all the clothes to soak.

Friday we drove to Mersea. Carole - Eric's wife drove us plus Derek and his daughter Bee from Bluebell back to Maldon. We were a bit early for the tide so we all went in the pub for lunch. There were 5 of us so it was two goes in the rubber dinghy to get across to Redshank. We managed to get the engine going (I forgot to say that Geoff couldn't start that when we were trying to get out the mud the day before). We raised the anchor and set off and had a lovely sail. It was still windy (I hadn't told you how windy it was on the Thursday and not only windy but rain. Pelting down with rain. In fact that was another reason we were late getting to Maldon as we were all soaking wet just going in the launch to get to the boat and then Derek and Bee from Bluebell, came into our boat for a coffee to wait for the rain to stop. Needn't have bothered as it rained later anyway. We only had 1 waterproof with us so Geoff let me wear it but it meant that when it was raining he went down into the cabin and left me up there on the helm. There was an almighty gust of wind and all I could do was let go of the helm or I thought we would go over. So that took a while to sort out the flapping sails and Geoff ended up getting wet anyway) Back to Friday. Yes it was so windy that we only needed a small part of the jib out. We went down river to Bluebell and set the others off on the dinghy - Eric, Derek and Bee. We waited while they sorted everything out and set off. Then we put the jib out again but I have not been used to doing this in such wind and I was not quick enough and didn't tie it off so the whole of the jib flew loose and the rope that you pull to put it back round the roller furling with got stuck tight and we just couldn't release it. Especially with Geoff's dislocated finger. He left me on the helm again while he was trying to sort it. He had to cut the rope but still we could not roll the jib in. Then Bluebell came up and almost rammed into us and Eric jumped in to help. We had to actually take the jib off. In fact Geoff had been going to do that next before Eric came aboard. I know we had a mainsail but it truly was too windy to put it up. So we came back on the engine. Thank goodness we had enough fuel and didn't even have to top it up as that would have been hard with the boat tipping up in the waves and wind. But so noisy and disappointing to have to use an engine. But coming in to the mooring I was glad Eric was on board as it was tricky again to catch the mooring. Especially as at the end it seemed as though the engine was dying and we only just made it in time.

The next day I was supposed to help at The Red House Fete where the church had a stall but I was so shattered I didn't help. It took me two days to get over it. So what will this Thursday bring? They reckon I can go out in anything now!!

The end of this sorry tale is that we did not go out the next week. Geoff quite rightly was worried that until his finger got better that if anything happened he would not be able to get us out of trouble. We never seem to get any easy days with a gentle breeze any more!!