Despite the previous night's Jolly, I was up at 7 to rejoin the fight with the windless. Mick had reminded me that the symptoms were similar to a previous occasion and that we 'fixed' it by cleaning the contacts in the solenoid control box. He also pointed out, not for the first time, that aggressive use of the windless would hasten the final demise of the contacts. Of course, what I should have sussed when it played up the first time, was that it was an early warning of the thing wearing out and bought a new one, but I didn't!
Hopefully, I wouldn't discover that the contacts were now completely burnt out . This time the job was made particularly unpleasant by the fact the anchor chain locker, where the solenoid is located, was now full of anchor chain covered in the Armdale Arm's goey, foul smelling mud!
Fortunately I had a full hot water tank (all of 5 litres) and so could have a shower afterwards. Laundry though would have to wait.
Anyway I got the control box out and cleaned up what was left of the contacts and after two attempts at reassembling and reinstalling it, it seemed to function OK. Mind you, that's what I concluded after cleaning and re-installing the deck switch.
I must; a) buy a new one ASAP and b) test it again BEFORE I need to use it in anger.
Zora and Linnea left for Cape Breton whilst I was in the middle of all that and so I took a break and waved them of. I do hope their passage to Greenland goes well and without major mishap and maybe I'll meet up with Rhys again next year. Hopefully, Bonny will visit Ireland on her way home next summer.
By the time I had finished the job, tidied up and had some breakfast it was 1030. There was still time to make the highly recommended Shelter Cove, some 35 miles to the north east and so I decided to leave. I phoned John to say my goodbyes and hastily plotted a route on Navionics on my phone and also on OpenCpn at the chart table.
I then motored down Jeddore Harbour which took a couple of hours. With a light to moderate south west wind we then had a pleasant if slow sail up the rocky coast to Shelter Cove. Once again, I escaped the fog even though it was quite overcast.
The entry into the cove would be directly into the wind and so when a quarter of a mile off, taking care not to get close to the many outlying rocks I got the sails down and motored towards the entrance.
Something was wrong though! The detailed locations of rocks and land marks mentioned in the pilot didn't quite match up with what I was looking at. And where were those two beautiful back to back beaches given such prominence in the pilot?
Suddenly I realised why they were nowhere to be seen. This wasn't Shelter Cove but somewhere else entirely. What an absolute plonker! Despite having all the mod cons and only having to follow a pre-set route on the chart plotter, I had still managed to get lost after travelling all of 30 miles or so.
How on earth did that happen? User error of course but I was still puzzled. Luckily the weather was benign and there was still plenty of daylight left so I did a quick about turn, found a decent area of rock free water, set the engine to dead slow and went below to study the chart plotter. Sure enough, we weren't at the entrance to Shelter Cove, but to Long Creek on Wolfe Island, about 8 miles north east of Shelter Cove.
In my haste to plot the course that morning, I'd used a much to zoomed-out view to locate Shelter Cove and had chosen the broadly similar Long Creek by mistake. Having done that, I simply plotted a route to it to avoid the various rocks and shallows.
Lesson for slow witted sailors - don't rush planning a route. Fortunately, the only consequence was an unnecessary diversion. An hour and half later in the late evening light, we motored through the entrance to the real Shelter Cove.
Very beautiful (and of course sheltered) it looked too. You'll have to read the next post to find out more about this wild mysterious place and about a pretty extraordinary coincidence that took place the following day.
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