Honeymoon Cove, Dec. 27 - Death and Resurrection of a Dinghy
This day saw strong winds from the start so we decided to run a line ashore to a large bolder directly upwind from our position. The bolder was perhaps 300 feet upwind so Chris rowed ashore with a lot of line, an activity that took way more time and effort that we are used to. Chris got ashore and using the third anchor line ran a 20 foot chain around the bolder and joined the end of the 3 strand 100’+ anchor line with another 200 feet of braided ½ inch climbing rope and had a very easy row back downwind to the boat where he secured the line with only a few feet to spare. Now if we dragged, we would take the island with us
After tying the dinghy alongside the boat Chris went inside for a bit when a very strong gust hit the boat. It lifted the dinghy up in the air and then crashed it into the corner of the solar panel frame. By the time he got the dinghy pulled In, the front of the dinghy was totally flat with a large hole right along a seam; this is the worst place for a repair on an inflatable. Working together we came up with a plan and using two overlapping patches we patched the dinghy. We would have to wait 24 hours to see if it worked.
Don came over that afternoon and took us back in his dinghy. It should be noted that Don’s dinghy, unlike ours which had a large patch in it, had a small patch……of unpatched area. If our dinghy had been mortally wounded with hopes of revival, by his own description his was a true zombie dinghy, it would not die. He was an expert at keeping that beast holding some amount of air for some amount of time, and not always at the same time. His solution seems to involve lots of various adhesives and sealants. Gorilla Glue is at the top of the list. His advice was not to buy an inflatable. We are taking that under advisement.
We had very nice “appies”, dinner and drinks. They were both such congenial hosts and conversationalists. There was lots to talk about and even some new Canadian words to learn, such as appies (appetizers) and Chris' favorite, WAFI. This is apparently a nautical expression common among the Canadian Coastguard. It refers to sailors. Hmmm how shall we describe it? It is an acronym. Wind Assisted F!@#$ Idiots. Does that make us and our rowing dinghy a PAFI’s? We were returned to our boat and slept quite well in spite of the howling winds due to the line ashore.