Sykes – Kettering

A wonderfully calm night. The only interruption, a lone mozzie whose life soon ended after what seemed an eternity of torment.

A trip to shore for the dog ( she’s in the groove and not so stressed about 3 trips a day in the dingy now), a leisurely breakfast then made our way back to our berth at Oyster Bay Marina.

Not a problem….right! A quick easy trip across the channel with 10 knot southerlies ( even less near our berth ) and pop into G34.

We lowered the bow thruster under 4knots as we approached the marina and did our routine test of making sure it manoeuvres left to right when we engage the lever.

A very weird noise…..THEN…..no movement to port OR starboard. This is a problem for us.

Our rudder and propeller are a fair distance apart. Unlike many boats we are unable to use the “prop wash” to assist in steerage. There is none! No steerage to control the boat as it slows, virtually impossible when trying to reverse into a berth.

Darren quickly turned the boat around and rang Mick to see if he could give us some assistance on the dock when we arrived.

Mick/ Julie/ Callum and Alex generously made haste to our berth as we approached the marina. Thankfully there was little wind to deal with and after two tries, many arms, ropes, boat hook, pushing, heaving and not too much panicking we eased LaGecko unscathed into her berth.

Thank goodness and thank “The Kettering Crew” for assisting us in our time of need. AMAZING.

Big clean up, wash down, some boat jobs and a rig with the go-pro underwater showed us that the bow thruster propeller indeed was gone.

Headed to “Bombay on the Beach” an Indian Resturaunt at Blackmans Bay for dinner with the rescue crew 🙂