Tender moments

Yacht tender, Leigh on sea., originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

Took the opportunity, while visiting relatives in Leigh on sea over Christmas, to go for a walk along the cockle sheds in 'Old' Leigh. This dinghy made for a bit of foreground interest, but also reminded me of how much hard work it was to have a boat on a swinging mooring (as opposed to in a marina, tied to a pontoon).
After driving from home, through holiday traffic and being charged a ridiculous fee to park, launching a dinghy and rowing out to a mooring might seem to be the pleasant start to a day of boating happiness.
But only to those who have never had to launch a dinghy and row out to a mooring.
I have had dinghies stored vertically in racks, upside down on jetties, and horizontally in dinghy parks. I have had inflatable dinghies in the boot, GRP dinghies on the roofrack and wooden boats on trailers. And they have all, without exception, either tried to kill me, injure me or destroy my self esteem.
I dropped a 10 foot GRP dinghy on my head as I took it out of a rack in Bowness, slipped a disc while taking an allegedly lightweight marine ply pram dinghy off the roof of my car and broke two fingers while launching a boat from a trailer in Brightlingsea. My tender capsized as I stepped out of it and threw me into Alresford Creek, I once punctured an Avon inflatable on the tiniest nail in Western Europe and I have lost count of the number of times I have set off in front of a jetty full of ice cream eating daytrippers and had my outboard die on me after 20 yards, dropped an oar overboard or filled my boots with water as I step ungracefully aboard.
So, unsurprisingly, I now confine myself to stepping ashore in a marina with proper mooring posts, pontoons and a free car park.
I may be old and stupid.
But I know my limitations.