At last, just when we thought the winter would never end a high pressure giving blue skies all around has changed everything. What a difference a day makes!!
Heading to Church Cave
One of the first jobs to do after a dry day was to head over to Church Cave to check what nature (plus last years visitors) had done to the path and the cave’s interior. Surprisingly it was pretty dry and apart from fixing the walkway hand rope, cutting away some brambles and picking up old candle holders, it had survived as it has done for many years. It was good to see the boats out fishing on a flat sea but only two.
Walkways all Intact.
Our Church Cave wedding is on Monday the 30th March so there is now not a lot of time to get things organised. Great to see the sun though.
Dry Harbour Tidy
Last week Calum, Irene and Seorais were over to give a hand with the end of winter tidy up. The fence around the Schoolhouse had served its purpose and was falling down. So the decision was made to remove it, gather all the plastic blown in, this winter and cut away the old willows.
Winter Fire
Nothing like a fire in the winter to work around, well below the tide line the ash will disappear with no mess left.
More Issues
As the weather showed signs of improving (and it was dry) we headed up to the Applenet mast to try and find the latest fault. No luck this time but we did find one of the terminals had verdi gris on it and damp inside the box. After replacing the ‘Tough’ switch yet again the system is back up and running yet again.
Casualty
Another overdue job was brought to a head when one of the ewes looked pretty sick, I had been hoping to pre-lamb dose the ewes earlier but weather was against us until last Friday. We gathered them in after a fashion and got them all done apart from the four escapees. MV Aspire was not far away and Calum headed up the hill while I unloaded the boat, we had another load of emergency fuel and the booze for the wedding coming, so quite a load.
Booze Cruise
We had a visitor who came on the boat who wanted to stay over but MV Aspire’s crew would not be available the following week so our visitor got an hour on the Island. There was a bit of confusion over the time she had so we gave her a call to get her back, she answered immediately and it turned out she was lost!!!! So the rescue squad got under way and after much running around, calling and phoning. Calum spotted our guest completely off the track and just about to enter the forest.
Looking for Linda!!!!
I headed over to the edge of the forest on the bike and quickly took her back to the boat, she had almost reached the lighthouse!! No worries though, it all ended well after a bit of a panic. It is not the first time that we have ‘lost’ a guest and for sure the terrain can be very confusing.
Saturday, with blue skies it was a very successful day. The sailing dinghy had had its annual damage courtesy of the gales so that needed rescued. I think it is now an ornament.
Here We Go Again.
But the Rona boat is not and the weather was ideal to start getting it together for the coming season.
Boat Prep’
All in all a good day, finishing off in the evening with the film ‘Mr Turner’ up in the cabin.
Invasion
Sunday, there was much to do in the morning but by lunchtime we had got up to date, Dan had phoned saying he was coming out with a boatfull on MV Stardust and around 2.30 pm they arrived. They had a beautiful sail (both ways) and we enjoyed good company for the next four hours. The ladies took a walk to check out Church Cave and I took a jeep load over to see the ruins at Dry Harbour, Neil (Vacman) was keen to find the ruin where his relatives had lived, he was holding a map of the ruins which was pretty straightforward so we ‘think’ we got there. I did notice that the chimney on this ruin which had been pretty precarious for many years had finally succumbed to the elements.
I’m sure it will not be the last bit of damage we will find after this last winters storms.
