A Life Afloat (Maybe)

Chapter 17

Yesterday's mental battering had left Pete with a reluctance to restart the graft that he was putting his mind through and he was somewhat slow in making a start on what was becoming a rather bright and sunny morning. Having had breakfast and made an effort to clean the 'van, he had opened one of the canvas seats he had for use in the heights of summer, should that ever happen and sat outside on the grass in the shadow of the trees that were just coming into bud, some, having actually started to show very young leaves. A sign that spring really had started to show itself, except for the general state of the weather, the days had managed to climb to the dizzy heights of twelve degrees at its peak but although there were still many early mornings when there was a frost covering the green grass of the land, this morning, it was rather enjoyable.

He knew however, that this pleasant, relaxed state of mind could not continue for long, for he had to return to those notes, the ones that he had put away yesterday in somewhat of bad mood. There they were, in that folder that was sitting at his feet, he had not yet had the courage to pick them up let alone to start studying them once more, maybe he was secretly hoping that a great gust of wind would come along and blow them all away, far, far away but sadly, there was only a gentle breeze, not even strong enough to ruffle the cup of tea that also sat at his feet, going cold, still, a cold cup of tea was better than no cup of tea. Bringing himself back to reality, he bent down and retrieved his notes, put them back down and picked up his cup of tea instead, got to get my priorities right, he smugly said to himself, as he drank his tea with great contentment and then, after finishing his tea and having placed the dirty cup in the sink in his 'van, ready for washing later in the morning it was time to get on with his studies.

All this had only delayed the inevitable, his return to studying those notes, he did this with some reluctance and began with, where was I? ah! Yes, those perishing buoys, the next set of those he had to struggle with were, the wreck buoys, definitely important, he muttered and cringed as he began to read, Emergency wreck buoys are placed above or as near to the new wreck as was possible, they were painted in yellow and black vertical stripes, they also had blue and yellow lights, just one thing, he thought, you can't be colour blind when sailing anywhere, if you can't tell the colours how on earth did you manage to read the charts, although he did notice with some concern that these new wrecks were not shown on any chart as they are temporary markers, question for Alec, how do you get notified of new wrecks?

Judging from his notes, he noticed with not a little relief, that there was only one more thing of note, IALA, why oh! Why is nothing simple, he almost ground his teeth in frustration, the International Association of Lighthouse Authorities were supposedly set up to unify things like this but they could not do so it seems, so there were now two systems, whilst IALA System A was used by the majority of the world, Europe, Africa, Australia and most of Asia, it seemed as though North America along with South America and some of their friend used IALA System B, the systems being opposite to one another, although both systems used red and green, they used opposites, crazy, crazy, crazy was all he could say. Leaving the best 'til last, the weather, we had so he read, the universal, Beaufort Wind Scale, for measuring wind speeds which in simple but predictable stages went from Force 0 which was calm, all the way through to Force 12 which was Hurricane Force, Peter knew that if one listened to the BBC on the Long Wave frequencies, there was several times every day, a weather forecast for the sea areas around Great Britain which gave this form of information, it included, together with the barometric pressure, not only the wind state but also the sea state and visibility, essential information to all sailors he would have thought, from the smallest sail boat to the largest freight carrying vessels.

He now knew, rather sadly he thought, that there was much more on the subject of buoys and buoyage that he had to hear and learn about. Surely, once he started to consider not only owning his own yacht but navigating a yacht on his own, then learning would become not only easier but essential. Distant dream it may be, but!, but!, if he ever got himself into the state of knowledge and learning, where he had sufficient knowledge to actually sail on his own, now was a dream not only to cherish but to aim for, Deep down inside himself, he now knew, without a solitary doubt, that living on board and sailing his own yacht was what he wanted, more than anything, not just to dream it but to live it.
For now though, it was time to bring a brief end to his studies.....