The one where Matthew nearly loses a finger/anchor/shoe

So I started my two week holiday – I was hanging out with emma the day before and was gettin’ a bit nervous about going solo, so she said she’d come for the first day or so. Thanks Emma!

Left under bright blue skies. VACATION STATION BITCCCCCHHHHESSSSSSSSS

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A short hop to Sidney Spit. Of note we tried out the spinnaker pole for the first time, polling out the jib in light dead down wind.

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It was a pain in the arse, but will (probably?) get easier as I do it more often.

After a while the wind died even more and it became glassy calm. Look at my arty reflection photo

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The sunset at sidney spit was amazing – I took a bunch of photos with my DSLR so will develop those at some point

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Off the charts sunset.

Anyway the next day we poodled around salmon fishing, failed to catch any fish, and then anchored in coal island

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The next morning I dropped off Emma at the customs dock in Sidney and I was on my own!

I sailed almost all the way to Saltspring, Wing on Wing for half (which made me feel like a BOSS) and then broad reach the rest.

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Then it was time to anchor – first time I’ve done it solo.

It was all going ok until I stuck the boat in reverse to back down on the anchor. So far so good, it stuck. Then I decided to let out some more anchor rode (scope). While the boat was in reverse still. So I unhooked the rode from the samson post, and of course it started paying out real fast, as the boat took off backwards. I could JUST about hold it with one turn on the post, but I couldn’t manage to get another turn on, and my grip kept slipping – and I was pretty afraid of losing a finger. Note the end of my rode is not attached to anything either so I was in very real danger of losing all my ground tackle if I couldn’t manage to get it firm. Meanwhile the rode is slipping more and more through my hands – so I did the only thing I could think of – I took my shoe off with my free hand and jammed it through a loop in the rode, which tightened up and got jammed around the samson post. I scurried up to the cockpit and put the boat in neutral, and then let a HUGE sigh out.

Lesson learned, and safely anchored in a bay near Ganges Harbour.

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Matt

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