What a boring rescue! No helicopters or anything, they just towed her away and into port while we talked bollocks and watched. Oh well. We spun and hauled anchor before paddling in across the tide, taking evasive action from a WAFI on the way. CEFAS Endeavour was out too and I laughed thinking about the last time I’d seen her, stranded at the mouth of the harbour when I’d called up and diverted a pilot boat to rescue an abandoned jet-ski that was floating their way and I was cycling along the promenade (a strange thing, calling the coastguard and not telling them it was kayak snapper! Bicycle Snapper would have been plain wrong so I didn’t say my name at all).
Now, we KNOW there’s submerged concrete pilings here, big, jagged, nasty ones that run for most of the length between those groynes. We know that they don’t have a lot of water over them right now. We also know we’re bored fighting this tide and so we go in slow, looking for any swirls or broken water that will show us where they’re closest to the surface, looking for any that uncover between swells. Good recce, we both landed as though we’d pulled Jordan (we didn’t touch the sides).
A bloke came over and talked to us when we landed as always happens here. We chatted for quite a while. I haven’t the faintest idea what we chatted about or who he was or which conversation we had. In fact it might be the week before that I’m thinking of when we trolled the harbour approaches for bass and spoke to someone. Coffee. That’s what was missing. Si had cider in the car but we went home instead.
Thursday 28 June 2012
Scuppered…28/06/2012
‘yeah but I’m shagged. I’m going to sleep first. Half ten?’
The times were far better when I knocked off but I really wasn’t up to it. I slept immediately and getting up was a struggle. All work and loads of play makes mark a knackered boy! But I cracked on and let Si know I was running late. Bad move two was changing launch at the last minute…we met and Dogger and headed straight out (with no electronics) dropping anchor, I think, in the hole. Now, it looked flat and it sort of was but the tide was screaming! We were coming up to mid flow, on the flood and we had both wind and swell running with it as we sat facing downstream. Neaps my arse! This was worse than last week but the anchors held and I dropped down the 4/0 Vikings with squid on one and bluey on the other. Smut? Roker? Pout?
It wasn’t long before the stern dipped alarmingly the first time. It was a funny sea and one that had me ever so slightly dubious…Marty called up, could see us from the clifftops. I told him the sea was shite, nothing like it looked; he tactfully told me I was stuck there for the next three hours! Now a real mate would have launched his boat, driven twenty miles each way in it and come to our rescue with his pants over his trousers but not Marty. He just took the piss. So we sat there with me deciding to carry on fishing even though it was running too quick for me to be confident of a fish and not that sure about spinning around right now if it wasn’t necessary. Besides, I was up, I was full of coffee and the sun was shining. My arse went down again.
Cleveland Princess were about, ¼ mile offshore from us. I’d spotted them when I’d come out. Nice chaps they are, not only do they have a respected charter operation but their eating establishment is good too…and they give us a wave now and then. I lodged it in the back of my mind that they were there just in case. I might have called them to see how they were doing too but I’d left the VHF on again and it was dead, not that I’m bothered, security-wise, as I have the phone and PLB anyway.
Funny twitches. Roker? Moving uptide? Hmm, I can chat to Si. That’s that then, it’s picking up and I’ve just slipped and drifted though it soon settled again. Maybe it’s getting jerked out every time the stern drops. I changed baits and chucked them out again.
It was quite a bit later when I started to drift at a constant, but slow, rate. Okay, so I had two choices now. I could wait for the anchor to bite again or I could use the lessened pressure to spin myself around with more confidence…I chose the latter option because the fishing was shit and I was getting bored and really couldn’t be bothered to redeploy the anchor in what I reckon was around 4 knots. I span, hauled and went over to raft up with Si so that he could do the same with some extra stability (not that I doubt his capability but with this flow it’s an option worth using and I’d called him over to do the same for me a week or two prior).
I paddled for a while before I got to his position, the tide wasn’t much fun to go against and arrived to him telling me that Cleveland Princess were in difficulties. It had just come over the radio that they’d got a sleeping bag fouled around their prop. Random. I’d seen them up-anchor and start to move but hadn’t really registered that they had stopped again so close. I rafted up with Si and called up the coastguard to offer assistance thinking that I was low to the water and might be able to clear the prop or could always take the boat under tow . No need, the Spirit of Lowestoft had been scrambled and so we stayed there, chatting to watch the show. I was needing coffee.
What a boring rescue! No helicopters or anything, they just towed her away and into port while we talked bollocks and watched. Oh well. We spun and hauled anchor before paddling in across the tide, taking evasive action from a WAFI on the way. CEFAS Endeavour was out too and I laughed thinking about the last time I’d seen her, stranded at the mouth of the harbour when I’d called up and diverted a pilot boat to rescue an abandoned jet-ski that was floating their way and I was cycling along the promenade (a strange thing, calling the coastguard and not telling them it was kayak snapper! Bicycle Snapper would have been plain wrong so I didn’t say my name at all).
Now, we KNOW there’s submerged concrete pilings here, big, jagged, nasty ones that run for most of the length between those groynes. We know that they don’t have a lot of water over them right now. We also know we’re bored fighting this tide and so we go in slow, looking for any swirls or broken water that will show us where they’re closest to the surface, looking for any that uncover between swells. Good recce, we both landed as though we’d pulled Jordan (we didn’t touch the sides).
A bloke came over and talked to us when we landed as always happens here. We chatted for quite a while. I haven’t the faintest idea what we chatted about or who he was or which conversation we had. In fact it might be the week before that I’m thinking of when we trolled the harbour approaches for bass and spoke to someone. Coffee. That’s what was missing. Si had cider in the car but we went home instead.
What a boring rescue! No helicopters or anything, they just towed her away and into port while we talked bollocks and watched. Oh well. We spun and hauled anchor before paddling in across the tide, taking evasive action from a WAFI on the way. CEFAS Endeavour was out too and I laughed thinking about the last time I’d seen her, stranded at the mouth of the harbour when I’d called up and diverted a pilot boat to rescue an abandoned jet-ski that was floating their way and I was cycling along the promenade (a strange thing, calling the coastguard and not telling them it was kayak snapper! Bicycle Snapper would have been plain wrong so I didn’t say my name at all).
Now, we KNOW there’s submerged concrete pilings here, big, jagged, nasty ones that run for most of the length between those groynes. We know that they don’t have a lot of water over them right now. We also know we’re bored fighting this tide and so we go in slow, looking for any swirls or broken water that will show us where they’re closest to the surface, looking for any that uncover between swells. Good recce, we both landed as though we’d pulled Jordan (we didn’t touch the sides).
A bloke came over and talked to us when we landed as always happens here. We chatted for quite a while. I haven’t the faintest idea what we chatted about or who he was or which conversation we had. In fact it might be the week before that I’m thinking of when we trolled the harbour approaches for bass and spoke to someone. Coffee. That’s what was missing. Si had cider in the car but we went home instead.
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