This post was published over 700 days ago and therefore may not represent current Outside Context thinking or opinion. Please, do not let that detract from your enjoyment of it! 
Sailing — day 5
Originally uploaded by Basho Matsuo.
Well, after the fueling we had a nightmare getting out of the habour. If it wasnt trainee helmsmen practicing docking and swooping in in front of us, it was the water under the boat. Or rather the lack of it; there is nothing more frightening in a yaught than a depth gauge reading 0.0 and the sea floor visible over the side! Worse horrors were to come as we then spent, after 2 hours in sun — sails up, 3 hours under motor through fog that was deadly close. Radar was the saviour again apart from one moment when only my spotting of a lobster pot and cry of “Hard turn a port!” saved us from serious damage (Lobster pots are the true foe of sailing, they are the dog turds of the sea). When navigating in thick fog of 25m visability it is vital that 1. You dont get a call from work in London asking hard UNIX questions, like Paxman suddenly leaping out of the sea with a “starter for ten” and 2. That you have in your kit a large plastic conch-shell-like instrument of doom upon which you bellow out whale call at 100db telling all unseen shipping to mind your course. Seriously, it sounded like a dinosaus mating calls across the glens. Eventually Cesca and I manned the front of the boat and lead us into the river inlet and we berthed for the night with wine and more cards.
