Never a dull moment

 Coming out of Carlingford Lough yesterday the engine suddenly seemed to lose power and sound very different.  After some checks we came to think it was not the engine that was the problem but the propellor.  We pondered our options.  It was not really possible to return to the marina, the tide would run strongly against us - we wondered whether to return to Howth with the wind behind us or carry on a bit longer and see if things improved. We put the engine in neutral and sailed - this went swimmingly only it was not really in the direction we needed to go, which as usual was into the wind. 

After a while we tried putting some power on and the propellor seemed a lot happier so we gradually sailed and crawled out way to Ardglass marina.  The approach to our berth was dramatic.  Slow down shouted Alan and Roger to Mike, who had the bad luck to be on the helm at the time. The way you slow down in a boat is to go into reverse.  Mike tried that only to hear the kind of noise that says all is not well. The manager of the marina met us and kindly offered to try to find us a diver to investigate the cause of the propellor problem - Ellie and Steve where are you when we need you!? In the morning the problem became obvious - there is a huge amount of plastic wrapped round the propellor.  No wonder it was unhappy.  The diver is hopefully coming this afternoon.  Fingers crossed it gets fixed.  

Last night after all the drama, we ended up in a Chinese restaurant and were perhaps over enthusiastic in our ordering. But it was good to relax together after a very long day. 

This morning we discovered the drama wasn’t over. Alan found his belongs rather waterlogged in his storage space under the mattress. It turned out the pvc water tank had a leak and with all the heeling yesterday the water had dripped into Alan’s space.  If this had to happen, this wasn’t a bad place or time as we had a laundry with a tumble dryer and a hardware store to buy some tape to fix the leak.  As I write this, this seems to have been successful. Yet more crossed fingers. 

If all is well with the propellor once the diver has been, our plan is to leave for Bangor (near Belfast) at 7.30 tomorrow morning.  Fingers crossed!

Photos of the plastic and famous people who visited Ardglass! 

P.S.  diver has arrived and removed yards of plastic sheeting, some trapped round one of the blades. All now sorted. Hooray

Carlingford to Ardglass        34.7 nms