Another year in review

Its come to that time of year again, where I review the year, purely out of self interest you understand, and look back on the best bits..... always a pleasure for me, because it makes me read the blog entries again, and remember the details that would be lost if I hadn't written it down! Jan was cold, but I had a lot of jobs to do.... prior to Christmas, i'd moved the winches, and needed to fit various bits... especially two new banks of clutches, which took time, but worked well.... However, Maggie had been lifted at the start of Feb, and with cool, but bright days, it was obvious that she needed scraping. This proved to be a mammoth job, and took 7 complete days with scrapers to remove god knows how many years of antifoul, re-prime, and re-antifoul. Along the way, I removed the horrible silver stripe from down her topsides, using WD40 and a household scouring sponge.... and repainted the stripe in a blue... I also polished and treated the topsides, so that she came up a treat. Early March, and she was re-launched and ready to go aagain. The weather however didn't play ball, and it was wet and cold, so on her berth she sat. As April approached, I decided that i'd better fit the radar, and many trips up the mast, along with real hassle threading cables, eventually saw it in and working, ready for Spring adventures. I also finally finished recovering the cushions, and she was starting to look good. As the weather improved into May, we did a few day sails, and started to weekend again, and had our first BBQ of the season at Bradwell in the freezing cold with ybw forumites!. At the back end of May, we headed towards Oostende. The weather wasn't very nice to us, and we were 2 days late leaving...... as it happened, it made little or no difference, as we then ended up stormbound in Ooostende for 4 days, finally dashing back via Dunkerque in a weather window... This was a final throwing of temper by the weather, and as we entered June things improved, starting with a fun 'boys weekend' where we dug our way into the Walton Backwaters at night (and low water), and then enjoyed some lovely weekends in varius other locations. July started well, and we cruised a few new places, with one memorable weekend where we tangled ourselves up with a large metal boat, and had to temporarily abandon our anchor to be retrieved later that day. As August appeared, we set off on our summer cruise, with a long (24hr) crossing to Holland, a delightful tour of the inland water ways, back via Belgium, and very relaxed. September saw SWMBO take Maggie with a few other female friends off, while we boys sailed of to the Deben in another boat, and then later in the month, me hitch a ride aboard a Beneteau for another boozy run across to Cherbourg. As it started to cool off again, I fitted the Eberespacher.... she was now really getting to be what we wanted, so naturally, we did the obvious thing, and put her up for sale..... She sold quickly, by the 8th October, and by 18th October had gone.... and we've spent the rest of the year trying to sell our house, so that we can downsize, buy a bigger boat, and start the work all over again in 2007... Have a Grand Christmas and New Year everyone, and here's to a fabulous 2007 sailing season!