A Cycle to the Artic

A frosty morning to go and check the boat, I pedaled 10 miles over icy back roads and when I got to the sea there were large blankets of ice flowing down with the ebbing tide, it reminded me of the ice fields of the Arctic on a much smaller scale! I parked the bike and gingerly waded out to the boat, underneath the water I could see the white of the ice still frozen to the gravel. I walked around the boat inspecting the hull and slipped, nearly ended up in the water as some submerged ice made the ground like glass. I climbed into the snow that lay in the cockpit and undid the lock, amazingly inside was ok, no leaks, only a small patch of snow inside, how did that get there? As I lifted the floorboards to see into the bilges I could hear the small pieces of ice scrapping the hull as the ebb took it along. The antifouling paint was scraped off in many parts of the hull down to the fibreglass itself, on the starboard side where the sun had got to it; on the port side where the sun could not reach the ice was over the hull half way up the boat with ‘veins’ cracked into the ice. I am not sure if the cracks were part of the ice or that the paint had cracked due to the cold. A line of ice showed where the water level had been. I made myself a coffee and noticed how neglected she looked, the weather was taking its toll on her and she badly needed some TLC. When spring comes she will get painted and a brushed up. The surrounding area looked beautiful, ice and snow covering the shore line, Scotland looking pink in the sun light, the few birds were searching for food, it would be nice to linger but I had a 10 mile cycle ride back home and it was already past 2pm and sun went down at 3.45pm.