Shhh...

It seems like we have got away with it today. It has mostly been a nice, sunny and warm day but with little wind so plenty of folk have been tempted onto the water. Thankfully though they all managed to stay safe in our patch.

And what do the crew do when the weather is like this and there is no lifeboating to do? Well, we go afloat in some way (while monitoring our VHFs for trouble brewing). Becky, Gav, Kim, myself and the kids went kayaking. My wife, Liz, went swimming in the sea for the first time this year (1 mile wearing a wetsuit). Meanwhile, Dave and our newest recruit, JFL (I'll tell you another time!) were out in Dave's raider with their other halves cruising the bay. We all met up on the water for a chat before heading for some refreshments.

A good day.

Another busy weekend

It all started on Friday with the ILB tasked to assist a motor boat which had suffered engine failure a couple of miles to the east. An easily sorted problem. Nothing heroic but still part of the service.

Yesterday heralded another shout to recover a kayak which had been spotted drifting by a passing yacht. These sort of shouts tend to have an edge to them on account of the fact that there may well have been a person on board. In this case it was pretty obviously just a scrappy old kayak which had been set adrift by pranksters. It was duly recovered by Gav, Chad and Mark in the ILB and returned to the boathouse. If it is not claimed it will probably join our small but treasured collection of rescued craft (it certainly won't find a place in my kayak fleet)!

Life's a drag or, on the pull.

I've previously said somewhere that one of the most thankless jobs on the crew is the shorecrew role. Imagine.......your pager goes off.......you race to the boathouse (obviously observing all speed limits and road traffic laws on the way) then wait to be picked to crew one of the boats. If you aren't you are left with a skin full of adrenaline and little to do by way of using it up. Sometimes those left behind slip off home because they have other important things to do. Others hang around and find ways of amusing themselves until the boat returns. If it's a long shout this can be a pretty dull wait.

Once we have a rough idea of when the boat will return then there are a few jobs to be done in preparation..........one is to pull the winch cable to the bottom of the slip, link up the haul up span and coil the heaving rope. Pulling the cable down is a pretty heavy job and, it gets harder the further down the slip you go (as you are pulling more cable).

School trip

Swanage is a very popular destination for school visits. Because we are open to visitors during the summer months we are often visited by these school parties. Of course we love this, it is a chance to explain and describe lifeboat work to young people. We hope that this will encourage them to become lifelong supporters of the work we do. The photos here shows Mark, in his capacity as an instructor at a local field studies centre, showing a group of youngsters around. They were having a great time too!

Not Under Command

Last night was the last of the shore based exercises. It was the final chance for Jo, Becky, Ollie, Nick and Mark to swot up on their IRPCS before their assessment in a weeks time. To be honest it is a tough nut to crack, particularly when you get to lights, shapes and sound signals. Even with Rob's impressive teaching style and some input from me I thought I detected the odd glazed look by the end? Still, the carrot was there..........Stuart, landlord of the Anchor, has agreed to lay on Chips and Sandwiches after evening exercises. What a gent. Sadly this does then require us to sample some of his fine ale (try the broadside)!

We band of brothers.

Yesterday evening was the first 'dry' exercise that I have taken. The idea is that though most of the training we do necessarily happens at sea, some can be better achieved ashore in the boathouse. Becky, Nick and mark are all newish crew members, along with Tom we went over responsibilities for keeping watch at sea and how to properly use the watchkeeping equipment (Binos, night-sight, search lights, compass and radar). Obviously this was all broad brush stuff but sometimes even the obvious needs to be pointed out. We then did some dry runs through on how to rig up tows and how to deploy and recover the anchor. After a bit of practise throwing the heaving lines (Becky, she who makes everything look effortless, was scarily accurate) it was time to repair to the pub for a de-brief.

And that's the funny thing. There we were, a dozen or so young fit friends in our usual pub, the England football match was on, so what did we do? Naturally we left and went to another pub. One without a telly so we could chat about the important things in life (like boats, holidays, mountainbiking and having fun). We all agreed, life should be spent living not watching football on tv. And gradually we all sloped of home leaving just a hard core, Jon, Steve, myself and the awesome Becky. Happy to chat and plan the summer ahead.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother;
(William Shakespeare)