Friday 30^th October

At 4.00am last Saturday, Impossible Dream arrived safely in Lanzarote at the end of her delivery trip from the UK.  Julian and team cracked open a couple of bottles of Pol Roger champagne to celebrate which apparently had the desired effect as they watched the sunrise.  Good choice of champagne but a trifle early in the day for me. My thanks to Julian, Geoffey, Roger, Jenny and Nick for so generously giving up their time to help.  They are all now back in the UK and Impossible Dream is safely moored in Rubicon Marina awaiting our arrival in 3 weeks.

Susana & I were treated to a day at Ocean Safety earlier this week.  OS supply and service a whole range of safety kit including liferafts and lifejackets. Apart from being given a tour of their facilities, Chris Waterman spent a few hours with us going through the contents of our liferaft and other safety kit we have on board.  I’ve been sailing all my life and had no idea what was in a liferaft – have you?  It was quite an eye opener, particularly how the different makes and models vary from each other, so too the different distress flares which all seem to use a slightly different firing process.  I just presumed all liferafts for example had food, water, fishing line etc, but not so.  I may be sounding a bit like a newly-converted safety-geek, but I’m extremely grateful to have the opportunity to learn about these things in the warm surroundings of OS, rather than struggling to work out how to operate a piece of equipment whilst struggling in an emergency situation at sea.  Next time you drop your liferaft or lifejacket in for a service, ask to have a look around, you’ll be amazed.  And thanks to OS for our fantastic new KRU lifejackets, that was really kind. 

Just over a week ago, the Spinal Unit in Salisbury where I was treated immediately after my accident, celebrated its 25^th anniversary (I was one of the first patients admitted and spent 10 months there)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             ).  It was opened in 1984 by Charles & Diana, in fact their photos still hang in reception either side of a commemorative plaque and the unit even carries his name, the Duke of Cornwall Spinal Treatment Centre.  So, which Royal to ask back 25 years later to celebrate it’s quarter century?  I guess there was a lot of discussion at the highest level, after all, you couldn’t have Charles and Camilla with a photo of Di hanging on the wall behind them could you?  Someone somewhere made an inspired choice and opted for Edward, Earl of Wessex.  I’d not met him before but he seemed a decent enough chap with a strong family resemblance, even his mannerisms are like his siblings, the hand-wring, the cufflink-twiddling, the faux-pas'…!!

Right, off to do some Christmas shopping now. I’m not going to get many other opportunities before we go.