Living with the unexpected...

There I was, just arrived at the tip with the mornings labours in the back of the land rover, when my pager went off. So I did a quick turn around (and grabbed a shiny pink bike I'd spotted for one of the girls), then headed down to the boathouse. On arrival I was greeted with groans about the fact that it was a shout to a RIB stuck on a pot-buoy and 17 miles out into the channel at that! It took us an hour and 20 minutes to get to where we had been led to believe the boat was (another story there), then a further 20 minutes to actually locate the vessel before we could begin our work.

Of the three persons on-board, one was suffering pretty badly with sea-sickness so we decided to take all three off and put a crewman aboard. All routine stuff so far. After a bit of manoeuvring we gave up with the grapnel and decided to set up a tow to give the boat a pull to see what would happen...as luck would have it, it came free!

And in a nut shell, that is how Matt and I managed to find ourselves 17 miles out into the channel this afternoon heading North towards Swanage doing 37 knots in a 7 metre RIB with the broadest of grins on our faces! Needless to say, the journey home was a dam sight more fun than the journey out.

I am of course delighted to report that all three persons on the vessel were returned to the boathouse fit and well. Their boat will remain on our lifeboat mooring overnight. Meanwhile, they were chauffeured to a local hotel by my wife Liz. All part of the service!

If you want to read the grown up version of this story, try here.


(No picture I'm afraid...I didn't happen to take my camera to the tip!)