There are days when I miss having a boat but not many. We had some great times and some exciting one's. But the cost, maintenance of it all was a lot to take for the relatively short time you got to use it.
One night that occasionally still haunts is is when we left the towy to go over the Carmarthen Bar and on to Caldey Island. We were late leaving due to engine problems and to be honest should have abandoned the trip. By the time we got over the Bar it was dark. We had bought one of these new (at the time) hand held GPS and were confident of finding our way as the buoys in Carmarthen Bay aren't or weren't at the time lit.
Unfortunately we lost connection and also failed to account for a very strong current heading South East around Caldey directly onto Spaniel Shoal. We heard a rushing of water and from the bow we caught sight of the large steel buoy flying towards us as we raced onto the shoal. We avoided the buoy by feet and good luck. Had we hit it the boat would have been sunk without a doubt. We immediately gybed and returned on the reciprocal course thanking luck for evading disaster. We now knew where we were and setting a course for an anchorage was now easily done. When we finally dropped anchor in Paul Jones Bay we had a stiff gin and tonic and blessed Neptune!
We had some hairy moments sailing but that was the most dangerous and to be honest unnecessary.
The painting is an old one that is sold.
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