It's a horrible day, the weather is dreadful, and Beverley and I are not only suffering from SAD, we are depressed as we have how gone sailing for a few days. Not only that more storms are on the way. When will this dreadful weather stop. However with the bad weather all around, we just have to get on with it and sort jobs to do.

Checking the lines

When it is a horrible day, our lines are a major concern, so Beverley checks the lines on a regular basis. We have several lines to secure the boat for a berth, with a finger pontoon.

• Spring Lines - These are used to make sure that the boat only goes forwards or backwards by a certain amount
• Bow Line - This goes from the bow of the boat to the pontoon, this line and the stern line stops sidewards movement of the boat
• Stern Line - This goes from the stern of the boat to the pontoon
• Halyards - Where you can keep these away from the mast, so that they do not slap the mast in a storm. Where you can't then adding a large sponge between the line in question and the mast helps a lot
• Fenders - Used to protect the boat from other boats and pontoons

Once the storm hits then even simple tasks like pouring the coffee can be fun as the wind gives you a lean of 7° lean in your slip. I accused Beverley of being a wuss, just because she was complaining about the lean, when we both know we have had to get on many a time with Salty Lass leaning at 10°. Although we want to be out sailing, realistically it is much better to be in wishing you were out, than to be out wishing you were in.

RNLI Advice Onboard

We had found out that the RNLI were offering free safety checks for boats, so we had invited the local safety officer to do a check on our boat. It was a very useful session, and at the end of it, we had a huge list of improvements that we could make to Salty Lass, to make her safer. Now it was time to start working on the list, so we started with a smoke alarm and a carbon monoxide detector, which was two of the items of safety equipment that we needed, but really, you need your own list so book your own safety inspection today

Life on a boat

Glasses - Beverley and I laugh a lot, one of the things we were laughing at this week, was the fact that I had bust yet another set of glasses. This means I now have one pair of good glasses and four pairs of busted glasses. One more bust and I will have no more good pairs on the boat.

Washing - Washing is also a job that you need to deal with. We had had guests aboard the Lass for a few weeks and they simply generated a lot of washing like bedding, also as we had guests, we had not done our own washing, so it all just mounts up, but like everything else, it is just something you need to deal with.

Water - When you don't have a water maker onboard, then you have to fill up the tanks on a regular basis. Normally, I don't have an issue filling up the tanks but one day the water hose was playing up and insisted on spraying water everywhere. Of course Beverley filmed my predicament, because I was creating a localised rain shower for the Lass