Interesting

Day 115

Spent the day with a good friend today, the mother in law took Tia for the day whilst Trisha and I went aboard a Beneteau 473 as we sailed up and down the River Mersey 🙂

I say up and down, I dont mean length ways, I actually mean width ways! Due to the low cross winds, we had to tack to and from each side of the Mersey just to get anywhere! Took 4 hours to sail about a mile! But it was all good as we was only aboard to give Trisha a taste of life on a boat. She even got her hands dirty with a few rope pulls, tying up to a lock, helping lower the mainsail, making lots of cups of tea and at one point, I think she even tidied up the ropes! Good work Trisha.

Trisha was all wrapped up but still complained about the cold (it was 10 degrees celsius) and I started to believe that the dream was over!

I was worried, because this was the first true real obstacle for our dream. Getting her out to sea.

The night before, I calmly told her that there was no pressure on her, if she didnt like it, I wanted her to tell me, yes it would hurt, but we would move on, she means too much to me to carry on regardless of her feelings. I would never go without her or Tia and I don’t have the experience (or courage) to actually go alone.

She kept her thoughts to herself, but I did see a glimpse of a smile every now and again. I made a few errors myself, I untied a rope that was keeping us in place, I was curling up cables too small, and my hat wasnt big enough for my head! Trisha had to remind me on a few occassions to curl up the excess rope after tacking…….

After we helped pack up and stowed everything away, we gave our friends tea bags, sugar, milk and a crate of Budweiser as a thank you for his kindness. We met after he contacted me after reading about Trisha having no experience on a boat at all (except the Mersey ferry lol) If the world had more people like him, it would be a better place! I wish I could tell you his name, but we both feel that others might try and milk his kindness for their own needs and he doesnt need that, noone does. All I will say is thank you from the bottom of my heart for your kindness Mr Beneteau 🙂

We climbed into my car to go home and pick up Tia and Trisha turned to me and said “I liked it” Those 3 words said it all 🙂