Today we went out for a Boxing Day sail to the neighbouring Island of Herm for a spot of lunch and a pint. Despite the near freezing conditions and wind chill that left all of us with no feeling in our hands after a few minutes we managed to sail across in a fairly respectable time. Our fist challenge after dropping the anchor was get the outboard motor fitted to the dingy and get it started. This may not sound to difficult but I think it was last started about 5 months ago! Despite our best efforts it refused to start – I even remembered to switch the fuel line on correctly this time!!
After having to row in it was time to queue for drinks and then when we realised that we had to buy food vouchers at the bar, queue again for those before queuing for food. We had just about enough time to eat the partially raw burgers and “poached” sausages before heading back to the boat. With Daves’s engineering expertise we eventually managed to get the motor on the dingy running and keep it running before getting back to the boat.

It was a fairly relaxed sail back with the spinnaker up and almost 8 knots showing followed by the quickest packing up of the boat I have ever seen. Hopefully it will not be quite as cold tomorrow for the Sunsport Marine Iceberg race although the weather forecast shows a wind chill of -1 so that should be fun!