21st July

PILGRIM’S PROGRESS. 

21^st JULY- FORT AUGUSTUS, SCOTLAND.

Pilgrim speaking here!!!  Hi good people, I am now moored in Fort Augustus, having sailed under canvas the eighteen miles of Loch Ness. It was lovely having the engine turned off, enjoying the silence and just being moved by the wind. Unfortunately there was no evidence of the monster, although one point, I did hear the Captain say, “I think the Loch Ness Monster must be under the boat according to our depth gauge we are in very shallow waters”.  I waited with excitement, to think the Loch Ness monster was under my hull.” But then the Captain, realized that the Loch is so deep, 100m+ the gauge wasn’t responding properly. I felt some what disappointed.

Anyway today is a ‘rest day’, Her Holiness, (Jeanette) will no doubt have a book in her hand, for most of the day. The Captain as always, when he gets a bit of spare time, after planning routes, cooking, doing the laundry, gives me attention.  Her Holiness, I have to say DOES DO THE WASHING UP, SHES’S ALSO VERY GOOD AT POURING WINE!!! This morning he is trying to repair a winch, that for days had loose fittings, her Holiness had noticed that they were loose days ago and had failed to mention it to the Captain. It wasn’t until he quickly had to change from one winch to another because the direction of the wind had changed, that parts of it had gone over the side of the boat……..and are now sitting on the bottom of Loch Ness!!!

Her Holiness then decided to tell the Captain that she had noticed the top of the winch had been loose days ago……..the rest of the trip down along Loch Ness, was shrouded in a heavy atmosphere…….in fact you could have cut it with a knife.

This morning we all said Morning Prayer, and in the silence after the Gospel, I was reflecting on my favourite Psalm, which is Psalm 93, in which………

JEANETTE: Hang on a minute I’m the one that’s meant to be doing the spiritual reflections.

PILGRIM: Well, lately you’ve not written anything spiritual, so I thought I might do it for a change. Let me have a go, you can proof read it and if you don’t like it you can delete it.

JEANETTE: Mmmm ok.

PILGRIM: Well, that put her in her place.

As I was saying, the writer of Psalm 93 is reflecting ( Her Holiness likes that  word…….that’s why she’s slow on writing blogs…..she says she likes to reflect……I call it sloth.) The writer of Psalm 93, is reflecting on God’s greatness. But my favourite verses of the Psalm, are verses three and four.

“ The seas have lifted up, Lord,

the seas have lifted up their voice;

the seas have lifted up their pounding waves.

Mightier than the thunder of the great waters,

mightier than the breakers of the sea

the Lord on high is mighty.”

I like to recite this to myself when we are ‘White knuckle sailing’, and we’ve done that a few times since we left Ramsgate. When we are motoring or sailing against Force 6, Westerly, and the Captain is holding the tiller with both hands, Jeanette is clinging on to the roof of the wheelhouse.

This Psalm reminds me that no matter how fierce the winds are, no matter how big the waves are that God is mightier, and that we are safe.

There have been a few times when I’ve seen her Holiness’s face turn white with fear. The first was when we were sailing towards Inverness. We were approaching Kessock Bridge, as the road bridge was approaching, it seemed as though my mast wasn’t going to go through the bridge. I heard the panic in her voice when she asked the Captain, if he was certain that the bridge was indeed higher than my mast.

Then when making our way down a small canal, towards Loch Ness, Jeanette took over the tiller, while the captain went into the cabin towards the front. In the corner of her eye, she saw a sign, but didn’t register for a few moments what was on the sign. (Her Holiness is a dreadful daydreamer.)

The following scenario occurred:

Jeanette: Oh heck, those signs were about electric cables going over the canal……something about height of masts.

Masts appear. Her Holiness looks at mast and height of looming cables. The grip on my tiller gets tighter…....we move closer to the cables…….Her eyebrows rise….eyes almost popping out from under them.

Jeanette: Oh God, we’re going to hit the cables.

Because Her Holiness is not concentrating, I start to move the rocky bank of the canal:

Pilgrim: We’re gonna crash!

Jeanette: Oh God we’re gonna be electrocuted……..we’re gonna die……we’re  gonna die…….Chris get back here now.

Pilgrim: Oh, my beautiful red paint work, we’re gonna crash.

Chris starts making his way to the back, ‘Whats up?’.

Jeanette: We’re gonna hit the cables……….Oh heck we’re gonna crash.

Pilgrim: We’re gonna crash.

Her Holiness realizes we ARE NOT going to hit the cables, makes a quick manoeuvre…….we all hold our breath..(I don’t breath…but every inch of me was expecting to crash.) I suddenly start moving towards the middle of the canal again…….  

Jeanette: Huh……I got us out of that little situation……I knew I could do it!!!!!!!

However we still have the issue of the broken winch.