Birthday Weekend

It's hard to believe another year has gone by and that this 28th birthday was only my second birthday ever away from home! I had an absolutely lovely weekend with Ed with some rather exciting moments and some nice relaxed ones too.

We left London early Friday evening and drove to Tollesbury in Essex where Ed volunteers with an organisation called Fellowship Afloat Charitable Trust (FACT). You should go and check out their website, they do some pretty awesome things and are a wonderful group of people! The organisation is based on an old lightship out in the marsh and they do a whole variety of activities with lots of different types of groups. Saturday was a sail away day where members of the general public could come for a day and get a taster of what sailing courses with FACT are like. So I signed up, and Ed was volunteering as an instructor. Sadly, Saturday morning had thunderstorms coming through so we got to have a go at archery and team challenges instead. I can't say I was too sad as I had twisted my knee running for a train earlier in the weekend and therefore didn't mind a less full on morning!

After lunch the sun had come out though the wind was gusting up to 30 knots and at the limit of what FACT goes out sailing in. The decision was made to go sailing though so we all changed into wet weather gear, separated out into crews, and were ferried by power boat out to the dinghies moored in the estuary. I was in a boat with Ed (of course!), a father (Andy), and his 11 year old son Robbie. Now, I was rather nervous about going out in a dinghy - I haven't been out in little boats since I was about 14 after a traumatic experience in a one person boat in Dunedin harbour. Ed had assured me that he hadn't purposefully capsized for at least four years and everything would be just fine...

When we got out there and were busy setting sails etc I was definitely wondering if this had been a good idea as I know enough about sailing to see that the wind was marginal and the other two crew members had done very little sailing. I was also unsure how much my knee was going to allow me to do so I spent most of the sailing sitting in the middle of the boat doing not much. I had a go a steering (it was amazing how quickly I remembered how to steer using a tiller) but I wasn't able to help with stopping the boat heeling over on her side. This was very stressful as I don't like the boat leaning over on an angle and then being completely passive definitely had me justifying all my reasons for not liking little boats!

Things then got very interesting because Robbie was having a ball leaning out and getting as wet as possible. At one point he was on the low side of the boat, we leaned just a little bit too far, and next minute - Robbie had fallen completely out! I was very impressed at how quickly Ed realised what had happened and actually managed to haul him back onto the boat in under a minute. I think Robbie got a bit of a shock and the rescue boat came and picked him up to get him into dry clothes. We were then down to three in the boat which wasn't too bad because Ed and Andy could balance us very effectively between the two of them.

We'd been out for a couple of hours and the signal came to head back to the lightship which meant tacking in zigzags back up the river. Now, one minute I was sitting in the middle of the boat, and the next, I was lunging for the side as our lovely, tippy, little boat capsized! It was very useful for us to have blown a bag up and attached it to the top of the mast at the start of the sail because it now meant that the boat couldn't tip any more than 90 degrees so all three of us were sitting dry on the side of the boat. It was very difficult to get her back up though and the rescue boat came and collected Andy which left Ed and I to try and get the boat back up. Please remember that I don't weigh a lot so it was really just Ed! We did eventually manage it and I stayed reasonably dry the whole way through so can't really complain. We did also have to sail the boat back with just the two of us which I am pleased to say I managed quite happily. Only major downside was looking down at my hands and realising I was leaking blood everywhere ... the boat has barnacles on the bottom which I hadn't paid much attention to and my left hand fingers had been sliced open. They are all fine but we were met at the lightship by staff toting plasters!

While all of this was rather more full on than I had been expecting I am actually quite glad we capsized and that I was forced to properly sail for a bit at the end. It showed me that I could cope just fine in those situations and maybe it wasn't as bad as I had imagined it to be! The day ended with a BBQ and Ed and I played Settlers of Catan with friends of his in the village until quite late. It was nice to see some stars again and a partial eclipse of the moon!

Outside the lightship

On Sunday, my birthday, we had a relaxed start before driving to see an old estate, Audley End house. The weather was rather overcast but plenty warm enough and we had a very chilled out day exploring the grounds and looking all through the house. We had a picnic in the gardens and just enjoyed spending some uninterrupted time together. I also heard from a flat I had gone to look at earlier in the week to say they were keen for me to move in later in August. They are a group of Christians in a nice house just out of Guildford so I am relieved to have that next step sorted - just need someone to replace me in my current flat!

All in all, a very good weekend and a lovely birthday!