Not just the canals

Its not just the canals that suffer from a lack of consideration by others, I now do the majority of boating on the sea and that is no different, there is a divide between a lot of sailing boats and motor boats, now you would think that all boaters at sea would look out for each other and help someone if in trouble, I have seen some terrible behavior from other boaters and in some cases down right dangerous acts put peoples lives at risk, a lack of though on peoples behalf can ruin what should be an enjoyable experience, several times this year I have come to peoples rescue, I towed a broken down power boat recently that was drifting in a busy entrance channel, it was obviously in trouble and several other boats who passed within feet of it totally ignored the chaps requests for help, I am no Samaritan don't get me wrong but I couldn't ignore someones request fro help, in another incident a couple of weeks ago, we were in quite rough seas and there was a very large sailing race in progress, I was on a course heading for a small river on the Solent and a small sailing yacht kept tacking in front of me, as I approached a chap on the boat was waving at me, I thought initially to pass him but then we saw a chap covered in blood, it was in fact the skipper and he looked in a bad way, the other two crew hadn't got much idea of how to handle the boat, they asked if I had a VHF which of course I had, I contacted the coast guard and then kept as close as I could to the boat to shelter them from the rough seas until the life boat arrived, what I was amazed at was the other sailing boats that ignored their plight and several were gesticulating to me to move away from the stricken boat thinking that I was causing them trouble, the Life boat arrived and I carried on with my journey, I suppose that with any sort of hobby like boating you will always have the minority of thoughtless people, it is just a shame that the minority seems to be getting bigger.

It started off a bit of a damp morning, no sun as such and when having a coffee this morning sat outside I could have sworn that I felt a bit of rain, however it has turned out to be a stunning afternoon, it got that warm that off came my jumper, and that is rare for me as I do feel the cold, and Fred actually got a sweat on when out on the wharf, It hasn't been a very busy day today, I know that Denise would disagree, she did have 16 breakfasts on the go early on this morning and she has been busy all day long, Angela even had to go and help her out at one point as the folk just poured through the door, the wharf has been a bit quieter today so that has allowed Fred to catch up with his outstanding pump outs and services on the boats that came back at the weekend and haven't yet gone out, Simon has been finishing off lots of small jobs on private boats, Steve has been finishing the repair work on a hire boat that he started last week and Mick has been making a new cratch board for a Private boat, I have had the chance to sort out paperwork for brokerage boats, I have listed two new boats for sale and answered lots of questions about other boats that we have for sale, no day boats out today so it wont be a late finish tonight.

Off to wash my car while the sun is out, until tomorrow.
Simon