Saturday- Day of two halves

The crew of Tenacity woke at approximately 8 o clock (we had been given a lie in) with a somewhat lack of enthusiasm with our greasy hair and sweat ridden bodies. We brushed our teeth and walked into the kitchen to find Ian slaving away beating fourteen “eggsellent eggs to accompany our awesome toast” (Quoted from Ian). We then planned our way from Loch Gair to Portavadie, put the sails up and tried making the most of our light wind.

We unfortunately forgot to fill in the logbook and ended up taking our first log at 11:25, we did a 3 point fix and got an almost accurate picture of where we were located with the help of David. We headed fourteen miles to Portavadie Marina and dropped our sails just outside and motored in, it was a very snug fit. We quickly started to clean the boat and prepare for our lunch of wraps made by Jack and Sid (They were perfect). Afterwards we managed to get a free shower (thanks to Portavadie Marina for their nice hospitality), towels in one hand washkits in the other we marched down the long pontoon to the nice warm showers that we had been starved of for four days. We showered slowly trying to make the most of the rare occasion and went to the loo that did not have to be pumped by hand we dried our hair and admired the complementary hair straighteners that had been placed in the Gents toilets. We all five walked into the restaurant area to find Ian and David drinking their coffees. We walked back down the long platoon hung our towels out to dry and were quickly set off to sail.

We exited Portavadie and set up our sails and had a small incident whilst trying to clear the fenders, this incident shall not be mentioned. We then navigated our route to Burnt Isles through the West Kyle of Bute. The dinner chefs (Avraneel and Jack) then headed down at 5:30 to get started on Avraneels’ speciality of vegetarian Dhaal which took up every pan pot and lid in the galley. We still had just enough room for the kettle which was requested heavily by the deck crew. We then managed to have a cracking sail with Peter once again taming the beast. We got close to Burnt Isles and anchored at about 21:00 and the Dhaal was just about ready, the crew headed down took their seats and waited patiently for their fried sultanas and onions mixed into their tasty rice with a Dhaal topping which was perfected with a massive amount of help from Avraneels mother which we are greatly in debt for. Afterwards we were questioning what had been put into the suspicious Dhaal as we were all a little giddy after it had been consumed.

There had been quite a bit of banter on the boat before the Syrup sponge pudding was started with the custard made very well by David. We ended up with one final piece of sponge that was settled by a good game of rock paper scissors which was won by Ian to the distress of the other crew members. The two extremely unlucky individuals who had been chosen to do the washing by our amazing rota (Sid and Peter) then had a mammoth task of cleaning which has so far not been finished at 23:43, they are still working hard. Off to bed now for the majority of the team with still some men on cleaning, hoping for a good day of strong winds tomorrow to have some fun.

Read more about Sail Training on board Tenacity of Bolton at http://www.tenacityofbolton.org/