Well what a different weekend!

With Sirenia sinking mid week, we put together a working party to help Clive get the recovery task moving....

So we farmed the kids off on parents, and headed down Friday evening.... what a strange experience going down to the boat with the kids arguing in the back!

We had a leisurely Friday evening, including a rather interesting trip to the Shipwreck bar, where SWMBO and I sat and enjoyed a quiet drink, and rediscovered the fine art of conversation that isn't interspersed with a "stop that!" or a "will you sit down and behave!"....

And then an early night.

Saturday morning saw us away early (in the car) and a short trip to Felixstowe Ferry, where we sampled the famous Felistowe Ferry Cafe breakfast, and then set too on Sirenia.

What a state she was in. Poor Clive.

Initial challenge was to untangle the rigging, and remove the seriously bent mast from her. The mast head (she's a fractional) was bent at 90 degrees, and there was a further 30 degree bend at the kicker.... and as for down below... I can only say that anyone who owns and loves their own boat would have been heartbroken at the sight.... everything was where it shouldn't be, there was between 1" and 4" of thick brown mud coating the entire boat, the headlinings hung drooping throughout the boat, and every bit of her was wet and stinking.... there were crabs in the bilges, and oil had floated from out and under the engine and coated the entire boat.

Seacocks were opened, the log pulled, and a gang emptied the contents out into a soggy pile in the boatyard.

We then split into two gangs... one started the painful process of sorting through this pile and cleaning what could be saved, and putting the rest into a heap for disposal, the other gang ventured below with a pressure washer and sump pump and started cleaning...

We washed inside from bow to stern removing hundreds of kilos of mud which slowly drained out of the boat, and then repeated the process...

Along the way Karen produced world class bacon and sausage sarnies, and liberal quantities of tea and coffee....

By the end of the day, a boat had reappeared from the carnage.... yes, she still stank.... yes, there was still a bit of mud below, and yes, she was saturated... but at least she looked less sad.

My blog has been a bit diary format, and lacks the expression of 'feeling' and 'state of mind' that some others have delivered, but i'll just slip for a moment into that mode, by observing that Clive needed the help, and we rallied around him.... it wasn't the physical help, it was the psychological help that counted.... I was proud to be part of that group... a group of good friends, that today proved their worth. Saturday evening, we celebrated in a strange kind of way. We all went to Levington, sat,  swapped sea stories and sampled the beer.

It was a grand evening... a celebration of a sense of achievement, and a sense of friendship and comraderie. It's a long seafaring tradition that when someone needs help then other seafarers come to their aid. Today we upheld that tradition and it made me feel good about myself.....