Back in the river

Easter is a movable feast, its timing determined by the lunar calendar. Conveniently, this means the Easter public holidays always coincide with spring tides and therefore provide a suitable time to start the sailing season. With help from D we took Bonita out of Faversham creek to her mooring on the Swale on Easter Monday. 

The winter covers keep the decks dry but she does accumulate quite a lot of dust and dirt after spending a few months by the quay. Last winter unfortunately the covers also provided a cosy home for a number of pigeons who left plenty of evidence of their occupation. The picture shows D working hard to clean the decks while I am steering the boat down the creek trying hard to keep carefully to the likely line of greatest depth (a useful concept known to geologists by the German word 'thalweg'- a term never found in nautical dictionaries). 

So is Bonita any better for her winter improvements? Speed under motor doesn't seem any better with the new folding propeller, but the chattering noise caused by the blades of the old propeller wobbling around in their housing has now gone, so no doubt that is a good thing. There's still quite a bit of cleaning, tidying and painting to be done, but its good to be afloat again.