Getting ready for the season

I had some Amazon gift vouchers and they have now been spent. Arriving in next few days will be some lomo dry bags, lomo sailing gloves (long fingered) and a 30lt lomo dry rucksac. My old overboard waterprof dry rucksac has given up the ghost after four years. The welds have gone in four places and so it is no longer airtight. It will serve duty as a walking sac with dry bags inside but it will no longer float when sealed and so I won't use it in the boat. 

Lomo products have a good niche reputation amongst outdoor instructors, kayakers, I have met and motorcyclists who do touring. I know a couple of long distance cyclists who like their products as well. They are reputedly well made and very, very reasonably priced. So I have taken the plunge and will report back on them when they have been tested. 

I have decided against fitting a hatch in the top of the forward thwart. There is a cross brace in the way making it complicated. I will pack everything in dry bags and use the two vertical side thwart 10 inch circular hatches instead.

If I put Vaseline around the threads it will waterproof them fairly well. It is just a greasy pain doing it everytime I open them!!

In the meantime I sit here recovering from a traumatic experience this morning. Poor old stacey, our aged motovespa died on me........it started back firing, bogged down and lost all revs........from 40mph to nothing in thirty metres......in the middle lane of a three lane slip road with traffic doing 40mph either side of me. No one stopped, cars dodged me beeping horns and there I was stopped in the centre lane. I would like to thank the morrisons lorry driver who from 100m away saw my dangerous predicament, pulled to straddle all lanes  gently moving side to side at a slow speed and then used his emergency indicators to slow everything behind him so giving me a space to push stacey to the left hand side verge and crash barrier area before I was mown down.  I think he saved my life this morning. He then passed by with a smile and a wave. What a kind gesture and much appreciated. 

A very traumatic experience.....hence some retail therapy. 

As for stacey, she is very poorly at a scooter mechanic who is trying to find out what is wrong. 

Oh dear!