Yesterday evening a sudden change in the wind resulted in a small boat getting into considerable difficulty as it was swamped and lost power as it tried to return to Blakeney Harbour. Fortunately the three men on board managed to escape safely to The Point, though in a rather cold and wet state, and the wardens were on hand to help them recover and return to the mainland. The boat was left stranded on the beach and suffered quite a pummeling from the waves during the high tides over the course of the night before we could work on re-floating it this morning.
As we waited for the waters to receed so that we could get to work today, a quick look around the bushes revealed this Bluethroat, probably a young female, one of quite an impressive arrival of these scarce migrants along the East coast in recent days.
Once the tide had gone down, we set about sorting the boat out, and getting it off The Point as soon as possible. First job was to bail out the water and sand that had accumulated inside overnight.
Then, using the tractor the boat was pulled out of the sand that it had sunk deep into, and dragged down to the waters edge where it was re-floated on the high tide this evening, before being towed safely back to harbour for repair work.
After closer inspection, Paul found out what had really gone wrong, the boat had a leek in it!!
-Joe Cockram
UPDATE: News article about the boat: Fishermen helped to safety after boat sinks at Blakeney
Terrible, terrible joke. And yet, I'm still laughing! I bet the crew weren't though...
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