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

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.

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

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

Off the charts sunset.

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

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.

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.