Why, when you're spending a night at anchor...

[Twister_Ken]

Why, when you\'re spending a night at anchor...

...does the tide and/or the wind change at two bloody forty five in the morning?

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[Johnjo]

Re: Why, when you\'re spending a night at anchor...

And usually accompanied with heavy rain, next quiet anchorage a couple of miles away!
By the time you are settled again, your wide awake and no chance of getting back to sleep!

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[upstream]

Re: Why, when you\'re spending a night at anchor...

for the same reason that having never picked up a placky bag, old rope, net or other debris, I decided to fit a rope cutter, just in case.......first sail...your right..and I've pick it all up ever since. me thinks I'll take it off and reverse my luck.

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[graham]

Re: Why, when you\'re spending a night at anchor...

does it take until just after you get comfy in your sleeping bag for one of the halyards to start tapping.(and strangely your the only one who can hear it??)

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[Magic_Sailor]

God is watching...

...you specifically.

He's waiting until you've entered your deepest rem sleep (about 2 to 3 hours after you dropped off).

Then, depending on the sort of day he's had he gets around to doing something about it.

If he's had a bad day he thinks "I'll get him" and changes the wind and tide.
If he's had a good day he thinks "Let's have a laugh" and changes the wind and tide.

Reasonable hyposthesis? Sorry God; Only a joke /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

Magic

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://hometown.aol.co.uk/geoffwestgarth/myhomepage/travelwriting.html>Click for website!</A>

 

[Eudorajab]

Re: Why, when you\'re spending a night at anchor...

Just to make sure that you are kept nicely on your toes. Nothing like a dash for port at 2:30 in the morning away from a lee shore and against the tide to get the ol adrenalin flowing !!!!

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[Violetta]

Why?

History does not tell. But, as far as tide is concerned, I hope you are not being taken entirely by surprise? There are these wonderful things called tide tables......dashed clever. You should try them sometime. Of course, in the muddy orient, we wait until the tide serves. When it's not busy changing at two fortyfive it improves the shining hour by serving instead.

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[Twister_Ken]

Re: Why?

Vi,

Not saying it turns unexpectedly. It just turns inconveniently.

Too late to stay up, to early to get up.

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[Violetta]

I know that, m\'dear

Any gent with the good sense to obtain a luverly, luverly Twister is, de facto, well versed in the ways of the sea. Just messing around........

In my youth, a tide that turned at twofortyfive in the morning could be most welcome, as long as it turned from ebb to flow. It meant I could put my old Dauntless gaffer on the mud for the night and enjoy a proper snooze without having to get up every three hours to pump the creek back where it belonged. It's an ill wind........

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[oldgit]

Re: I know that, m\'dear

What a novel idea.The tide being able affect your plans.What an interesting life you old rag and stick persons lead./forums/images/icons/laugh.gif

<hr width=100% size=1>My little Princess/forums/images/icons/laugh.gifthe 33 of course.

 

[Violetta]

Waiting for the tide

I wouldn't swap it for anything. It is an activity most assuredly invented for us, when in the most benign of moods, by her upstairs. It is one of the most enriching things that life has to offer.

While we wait for the tide, we talk and listen, make lifelong friends, help and support each other, enjoy each others' company. We converse, we laugh, we play, we share, we discover. We slow down. We yield to the rhythms of nature, rather than our own frenetic, hard-driven timetables. We relax and live in the present. We pay attention to our surroundings. We notice and wonder. We enjoy the moment and what it offers us, without a thought for all the other things we could and should be doing. We know that She will send us water, in Her own good time. We know we may depend upon it. Our souls our nourished.

How sorry I am for all you poor, impoverished creatures who just jump in your boats and go. You will never know what you are missing.

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[Observer]

Call me pedantic...

But isn't the tide "taken at the flood" and the CURRENT "when it serves"?

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[Violetta]

I\'ll not call you anything

Since I haven't a clue what you mean. But it's not just currents the tide brings us here, it's the very water (or, as it is technically known, the very oggin) itself. Quite handy for sailing on, we find. Mud's OK, but a bit viscous for truly satisfying progress, don't you know?

<hr width=100% size=1><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by Violetta on 04/04/2003 21:39 (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[Observer]

Re: I\'ll not call you anything

Sorry,Vi.

I was trying to appreciate what I thought (knowing you are well and widely read) was your oblique literary reference (which I'm sure you'll now recall).

"There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.
Omitted, all the voyage of their lives
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves;
Or lose our ventures."

(From Julius Caesar - and quoted from memory, so may not be perfect.)

As well as the nautical theme, which attracted me when I first encountered it and made me want to memorise it, it stands out as possibly the most "metaphor rich" passage in all literature.



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[Violetta]

Alas, you flatter me

The voice in my head was not that of the Bard, but that of the old shellback that told me, some 40 years ago, we would put to sea "when the tide serves" and not before. And taught me, while we waited, to make an elegant, tapered eye splice. (Hey, Oldgit - anyone ever larned you to make one o' they?) But I agree with you about the lovely passage from Julius Caesar. There ain't nothing like a Bard, I always say.

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[Observer]

No, no. I sit at your feet.

You are absolutely right. Contemporary life is fast enough when we're engaged in 'gainful' occupation. Using time given to us by incident of tide or weather to make something which is both pleasing to the eye and utilitarian is doubly satisfying.

If only I could persuade our children that quietly watching and waiting is not a waste of time. God - I must be getting old.

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[NigeCh]

Because of Murphy

as a rider to your post, why is it that no matter how I arrange sailing holidays thoughout the year, when I go sailing in the summer the wind never blows and in the winter it's always blowing a hooley to the extent that the winter crew always get seasick and are useless.

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[Windfall]

Re: Because of Murphy

yes, and why on a passage West is the wind in my teeth....turning only in time for my journey home?



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[duncan]

Re: Because of Murphy

please advise me, and I expect others 'stinkies' when you are planning to holiday this summer so that we can avail ourselves of this wind free experience..../forums/images/icons/smile.gif.....but I sympathise, I always end up with the wrong weather for the current plan and have had more flat calms trying to make passage on a rag and stick than wanting to cover ground on the MoBo. All part of life's rich tapestry........

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[NigeCh]

Windless tmes

Don't sail around Easter; nor June 8 to Jul 6, nor October 2 - 16 .. I tapped the horlogistic barometer and the above windless dates fell out. They are good for the UK south of the Solway Firth.

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