Sail­ing hol­i­day 2006.

Note: The daily entries of this post were writ­ten dur­ing the holiday.

This year we have real­ised that we don’t have enough money to ski­ing again. Some­thing that I was really look­ing for­wards to and miss tre­mend­ously. So, Francesca asked her dad (Nick) if we could join him on his yacht “Impala” and tour the Devon coast­lines for a week in May. He was only too happy to have us along.

Finally, the day came and we drove down to Lym­ing­ton to join him and his friend “Mike”. Mike is a very exper­i­enced sailor from Scot­land and was former owner/skipper of the Gem­ini, which is the boat that tours the Corry­vreckan whirl­pool (Link -> http://www.whirlpool-scotland.co.uk/index.html).

We settled in for the night by buy­ing the shop­ping and then headed down to the boat to make ready for an early sail. As usual the drinks came out and we all toasted to a great hol­i­day ahead.

Nicks boat is a 46ft Bav­aria Cruiser that sleeps 10. It has an engine cruis­ing speed of 9knts and the top speed under sail was 11knts, a record we hoped to beat this trip. It is quite cap­able of see­ing nick around the world and back and I have the sus­pi­cion that whenever he is in it he feels that urge to point her to the Carib­bean and be away!

Here is a shot from the Bav­aria website:

Our berth was at the front of the boat, a double bed right next to the engine and a nat’s breadth of ply­wood away from the next-door berth.

Very comfy beds ahoy!

Day 1

Sail­ing hol­i­day day 1

I wake from the nights drink­ing to find the boat mov­ing, some­thing I couldn’t miss this as the engine is away from my by only an inch. Cesca and I then dis­cover the first thing about the sea: sickness.

Amaz­ing sea­sick­ness that is best left to the ima­gin­a­tion. All I will say is it is like being full of food, in a wash­ing machine on fast spin and it wont stop for 6 hours.

After a few hours we decide to go back to bed. After the break I start to find my sea legs and am able to help out and take a watch as Nick ducks his head. Much of the hol­i­day, when rough, was swap­ping watches whilst the other got a quick nap. Finally, the bit­ing wind reveals Dart­mouth and we berth for the fist night along­side the quick dock ready for the morn­ing. I am writ­ing this happy and again with a glass wine in hand.

Day 2

Sail­ing — Day 2
Finally, my stom­ach settles down and Cesca and I can actu­ally help out.

And what a day we have had!

A won­der­ful wind blows in the quiet morn­ing and we quickly put up the sails. We sailed almost all day around from Dart­mouth towards our next berth of Fowey. On the way, and my watch, we get 29-knot gusts from across the bow (it was a bit windy like) and the whole she­bang lists wildly to port. I had the feel­ing like it would tip us over and my heart was in my mouth at that moment as Nick and I wrestled with the rud­der. We quickly pulled in the sails half way to lessen the wind and then swapped watches.

Cesca imme­di­ately sets the holiday’s speed record with 8.9 knots (wow that’s fast!).

Finally, the wind blows itself out and we cruise, under power, into Fowey then ven­ture out for the local pubs and a fish sup­per. Now, very well fed, I munch some chocol­ate and listen to some opera as I write (and digest). A very wind swept and inter­est­ing day!

Day 3

Sail­ing — Day 3

Well, a rest­less night being awakened by passing ship­ping boun­cing the hell out of us in the front berth. The morn­ing faired no bet­ter as the heads (bogs) were blocked and we needed to pump them out. Another “hands on” exper­i­ence we all will take to our graves, say no more than I am now known as Com­mander U-Bend and I didn’t have the worst of it!

Finally we set sail and hoved-to and got under­way. The sun came out and the rest of the day was won­der­ful sail­ing all the way to Mylor.

Very beau­ti­ful and peaceful.

Now we are wel­com­ing guests (old friends of Nick’s and Mike’s) on board for a din­ner party and I am drink­ing a beer. Bliss.

Day 4

Sail­ing Day 3

Ah what fun, a nice long lay-in fol­lowed by sail­ing dir­ectly off the dock in full “goose wing” formation.

Goose wing:

We then coas­ted across the 20-mile way to New­ton Ferres river under light winds while sun­ning on the deck.

Fun and relaxing.

Once we arrived at the river we pumped up the dingy, attached the out­board motor and went around the river inlets look­ing at the wrecks and fine sail­ing ships aplenty. Today is Nick’s birth­day and so we motored over to the local pub for a steak din­ner and some very fine Lebanese wine. Then, worse for wear, we came back to the boat and played cards for few hours before turn­ing in. Of course, Cesca won as usual.

Nothing-new there!

Day 5

Sail­ing — Lunch­time on Day 5

The day star­ted early with a nice little hang over from the nights fun. The boat was in com­plete fog in all dir­ec­tions, so it was on with the radar, out with the fog­horn and all hands on lookout.

The sea is amaz­ing in fog; dead calm and smooth as silk with no waves at all.

CLICK HERE for a movie of the sea in fog!

Really a won­drous sight to behold.

We made our way out of the river mouth and across to Fal­mouth, honk­ing all the way. Finally the strong sun burned off the fog and the mighty coast guard ves­sel at the mouth of Fal­mouth Har­bour came into view. We then man­oeuvred into the fuel dock and refilled the tanks at the crazy high prices here (60p v 48p in Scotland).

Cesca is ashore get­ting rolls for lunch and I am sit­ting here enjoy­ing a short break before get­ting on with my duties.

Sail­ing — day 5

Well, after the fuel­ling we had a night­mare get­ting out of the harbour.

If it wasn’t trainee helms­men prac­ti­cing dock­ing and swoop­ing in front of us, it was the water under the boat. Or rather the lack of it; there is noth­ing more fright­en­ing in a yacht than a depth gauge read­ing 0.0 and the sea floor vis­ible over the side!

Worse hor­rors were to come as we then spent, after 2 hours in sun — sails up, 3 hours under motor through fog that was deadly close. Radar was the saviour again apart from one moment when only my spot­ting of a lob­ster pot and cry of “Hard turn a port!” saved us from ser­i­ous dam­age (Lob­ster pots are the true foe of sail­ing, they are the dog turds of the sea).

When nav­ig­at­ing in thick fog of 25m vis­ib­il­ity it is vital that 1. You don’t get a call from work in Lon­don ask­ing hard UNIX ques­tions, like Pax­man sud­denly leap­ing out of the sea with a “starter for ten” and 2. That you have in your kit a large plastic conch-shell-like instru­ment of doom upon which you bel­low out whale call at 100db telling all unseen ship­ping to mind your course.

Here is Mike play­ing the instru­ment in ques­tion, CLICK to listen!

Ser­i­ously, it soun­ded like a dino­saurs mat­ing calls across the glens.

Even­tu­ally Cesca and I manned the front of the boat and lead us into the river inlet and we berthed for the night with wine and more cards.

Day 6

Before:

Saling — Day 6

After:

As I write this I am sit­ting full of shell­fish and fit to burst with food, Today we have sailed and tacked all the way around to Brix­ham and The Poop Deck res­taur­ant, owned and run by my favour­ite Uncle; Tony.

We are joined at Brixham by Cesca’s cousin Charles and his girlfriend Cath. They spend the rest of the voyage with us and get the train back home from Lymington on Sunday.

The food there is of massive quant­ity and of the highest qual­ity. Cesca and I shared the Sea Food Plat­ter, which is an amaz­ing amount of shell­fish. It was won­der­ful to be able to see Grandma Bell and my, cous­ins if only for a few short hours, I can’t wait to be down here again.

Tomor­row brings the start of our jour­ney back home and for some of us the early 4 am watch. I fall asleep now in a mel­an­choly mood, the hol­i­day is com­ing to an end and soon my land legs will have to be found again (I sway on land at the moment). It is a moment of peace and a nexus for the com­ing home­ward jour­ney, for a final port away from home it is strange to come to the place I know the best; Brix­ham, and some of the people I love the most.

Day 7

Sail­ing — Day 7

Today has been the best sail­ing so far. We motored around from Brix­ham towards Poole via some won­der­ful cliffs and coast­lines. Around the point we came across the “rough waters” that had caused the event marked in the paper a few weeks ago; the boat wreck and res­cue of two people off the cliffs. I can quite under­stand why the skip­per of that boat became frightened as the waves here are in a per­man­ent state of extreme chop and you roll down one and up the other mag­ni­fi­cently, which is both fun and ter­ror indu­cing at the same time.

Even­tu­ally we made it through this and I took long turn at the helm get­ting us up to 9 knts and tak­ing us into Poole harbour.

I spend some of the time learning to tie knots correctly.

Slip:

Bowline:

Reef:

Ropecoil:

After some well deserved drinks we all turned in and got some equally well-deserved rest. Last day tomor­row and we have much to do once we get back ashore.

Final day

Sail­ing — final day.

So the final day is over and the trip is done (the parts on the waves any­way). What can I say other than we have truly flogged-the-Oggin’ in almost all sea conditions.

My impres­sions? Well, there is some­thing intrins­ic­ally “blank­ing” about stand­ing watch on deck alone, by which I mean my mind is slowly ground to quiet and silence and becomes, well, blank. Like I am an Etch-a-sketch being shaken gently against the wind so that the pic­ture (the stress­ful pic­ture that work and mod­ern life cre­ates) is dimin­ished and even­tu­ally gone.

A wel­come blank­ness into which I can pour what I want and I find that sud­denly I can, to switch meta­phors, see the wood from the trees. I like sail­ing. I like it a lot.

How­ever, It has its prob­lems as far as the stand­ard hol­i­day check­list goes. As whilst I can say that it is social, fun, excit­ing, travel to the unknown & back again and fairly cheap, it is also very tir­ing (my body is think­ing that work will be rest after this!), slightly claus­tro­phobic (it is impossible to have a private con­ver­sa­tion or tryst aboard ship), a hol­i­day gov­erned by someone else (Cap­tain says jump; you jump, obli­gingly, but jump none-the-less) and a high learn­ing curve (I finally learned the knots by the time we pulled back into lym­ing­ton!). And that is leav­ing out the sea sickness.

It is I sup­pose very sim­ilar to one’s first ski trip in these respects and I take heart by that thought, as the second and sub­sequent ski adven­tures are fun and later ones where you have mastered the art are pure bliss. I very much look for­wards to future sails and will be bet­ter pre­pared for the chal­lenges involved men­tally and phys­ic­ally. So it is to be recom­men­ded to all and savoured by those pre­pared to step aboard with oppor­tun­ity to go fur­ther than a days jaunt.

Best regards to all!

James and Francesca