Sickies

Horseshoe Bay, Maggie, Friday 26th August

Pete and I both have colds. At least Pete has a cold, but I am sure I have man flu! Runny nose, sore throat, headache that would kill a small child, no energy, general feeling of wanting to sleep and nothing else. Back in Sydney, this would call for a text to work to say staying home sick, followed by a day in bed, snuggled under the doona. On the boat it’s a bit different…

Friday morning, 7am, anchor alarm goes off. Breeze has been up most of the night and between that and the rain, I have had very little sleep, making my man flu worse. Wake Pete, who confirms we are drifting and we need to get the anchor up and reset. Grab any clothes handy, race on deck, Pete to the bow with the splogger (anchor remote control), boat hook and poking stick, me to the helm, to start the engine and make sure dinghy is on a short line.

Raising the anchor starts and stops as Pete has to keep breaking the pile of chain to ensure it can go down the hawse hole, that’s why he needs a poking stick, but eventually we get it up, find a new location and reset the anchor. We check out transits and watch for about 45 minutes to check we are set, and then I retire back to bed, while Pete takes apart his fishing reel to find the problem. Eventually Pete comes back to bed too, and just as we are drifting off to sleep, WAH! WAH! WAH! The anchor alarm goes off again 😫

Repeat the process above, but this time we let out a shed load more rode, with about 50 meters of chain for a maximum depth of around 8 meters. This time I watch transits for about an hour, and again am convinced we are ok. Can’t face getting into bed and we need to eat, so I cook up bacon, egg and cheese sarnies, and we have another cup of lemon and ginger tea to ease the raw edge on our throats. Thank god I bought all those lemons!

This time it seems the anchor is going to hold. Another cruising lesson bought home to us about enough rode. We are so used to anchoring in locations we know well and in generally benign conditions, we tend to skimp on rode. We won’t anymore!

The cloud has cleared and it’s now a beautiful sunny day, with a good breeze to keep the temperature from getting unbearable. If I was well, I would be in the dinghy exploring all the lovely little beaches that are so near us, but all I want to do is sleep. I compromise and while Pete stays below out of the sun, I crawl into a bikini and spread cushions in the cockpit, dozing in the sun. Several more lemon and ginger teas later, and a berocca, I feel marginally better and put up the hammock chair. I have signal to my iPad, and mum and dad are on line with Skype, so I place a call and they pick up. Somehow it always feels better when you have your parents around, and a half hour Skype call with mum and dad, brings both Pete and I back to something close to living.

We manage sundowners – a little glass of rosé each and a block of blue cheese with a pear and crackers. We can occasionally taste the blue cheese! I cook up the last of the chicken thighs on the bone with coleslaw and left over Greek salad. The last thing I feel like is cooking, but I know we have to eat. I can’t smell or taste anything, so it’s hard to know if it’s doing us any good, but I have to assume it is! We follow dinner with a cup of tea and a tim tam and Lindor balls, then I retire to bed at 8.

The breeze is picking up again, and I can’t sleep with the creeks and groans coming from the anchor snubber and chain. Before Pete comes to bed he lets out another length of chain as we do not want the WAH! WAH! Wake up tonight! Eventually the breeze eases off, Pete stops coughing and we both get some sleep, and we never get the WAH! WAH! Wake up!

That’s what it’s like to have a sickie on the boat! 😷😷