Logbook
( logbook )
07
Logbook
Three boats, three berths, and the people who come back to them. The logbook keeps the stories that do not fit on the harbour board.
Three boats,three seasons.
( ketch, 9.4 m )
( ketch, 9.4 m )
The ketch that came back
Marta and Joe Ellery keep a ketch of 9.4 m at Tomari Marina. She is a wooden boat, and the berth that fits her is talked through with Tomas Reyes rather than assumed from the length alone: 9.4 m sits in the Pontoon B range, 7.5–10 m, where the season fee is €2,340 and the depth at low water is 2.4 m. They had been away along the coast and came back on an ordinary season afternoon. A crew member took the line at the cleat, the springs went on, and the ketch was back on the North Quay of Wrenhaven as if the pontoon had been waiting. Joe coiled the last of the warp the way he always does. Marta went below only after the boat had stopped moving. In the morning Ines Marlow walked past at the usual hour, between the fuel berth at 06:30 and the outer moorings, and the ketch was one more boat on the round. Nothing about their return changed the season dates. They are still 1 April to 31 October, the deposit is still 25%, and the balance is still due by 1 March if the next season is signed. The Ellerys like that the marina did not make a fuss. A berth here is walked every morning, and coming home is included in that walk.
( dayboat, 6.2 m )
A tiller, one coat a day
Nadia Haddou’s dayboat is 6.2 m, which places her on Pontoon A: up to 7.5 m, 36 finger berths, 2.0 m at low water, season fee €1,680. Through the quieter days she has been in the yard shed, putting varnish on the tiller, one coat at a time, in the raking light from the window. Henrik Vale’s yard is used to this kind of slow work. The 25-tonne lift and the €240 lift-out are for boats coming out of the water; Nadia’s job is smaller and stays on the bench. She walks down from the shed to A when the coat is done for the day and looks at the boat from the pontoon. Water and 16A power are there if she needs them. She does not hurry the varnish, and the marina does not hurry her. Requests for the next season open on 10 January, and she will be in Ada Okonkwo’s book like everyone else. Until then the tiller dries, the morning round passes the finger at 06:40, and the dayboat waits, 6.2 m of her, on a berth that was chosen because it fits.
( sloop, 8.8 m )
Home before the weather
The Osei family sail an 8.8 m sloop. That length belongs on Pontoon B, among the 28 berths from 7.5 m to 10 m. They came in at dusk, before the weather, and a crew member took the line at the cleat while the family settled the sails. Mei Lin Choi’s evening check is at 21:00, so a boat that arrives in the last of the light is seen again before the quay goes fully quiet. The office had already closed, or was about to: in season it shuts at 19:00. VHF channel 12 is how they made themselves known, the same call a visitor uses when waiting at the fuel berth. The Oseis are not visitors on the €3.20 per metre night rate; the sloop has a season berth, and the pontoon key is the one they were given on the first round after 1 April. What the dusk arrival shows is the ordinary version of the place. Someone is on the pontoon to take a line. The depth at low water on B is 2.4 m. The round will come again at 06:30. They were home before the weather, and the berth was where it was supposed to be.