Dreams

"Six days shalt thou labour and do all that thou art able/And on the seventh day holystone the decks and overhaul the cable" is typical black humour of the old sailing navy. Both the tasks are seriously hard work and provide no sabbath leisure. "The cable" then was a huge rope 6 inches in diameter and 200 yards long to which the anchor was attached. Overhauling was to inspect, clean and repair it. My boat "Christabel & Sheila", like most modern vessels has her anchor attached to a length of chain, in my case 50 metres of it. Like any metal object on a boat it tends to quietly rust away in its damp locker. Today I hauled it out on deck, chipped off the rusty bits painted it with linseed oil and restowed it. As I sat on deck engaged in this mucky job, I day dreamed of gliding into the calm water of a remote uninhabited Scottish loch and dropping anchor and chain into the glass clear water and relaxing in the cockpit with a wee dram. Bring it on!