England to Spain

…to 11th October

As Britain slowly makes its tortured tortuous exit from the EU, Henrietta and I make a swift silent simple exit from England. We left from a sunny windswept Lymington pontoon one afternoon in early October – out past the Needles at the end of the Isle of Wight, and away.

It really was simple to leave: filled water tanks, fresh bread and milk loaded, toss off the ropes and we’re away. (There are some old newspapers aboard somewhere so I can read yet more of our collective Brexitosis saga should I be really desperate.) But it’s always exhilerating to think we could go anywhere in the world.

Three and a half months of English summer was a delightful spell, personally, and I did appreciate the beauty of verdant countryside, comfort of security, and general friendliness of normal folk, the cheapness of life’s essentials like food and clothes, efficiency of transport etc. (albeit a bit of a horror show on the public political front, but we shan’t go there – Brexitosis says it all). I wonder sometimes why I’m driven to leave. Friends and family, I shall miss. But then a cold wet autumn day and darkness drawing in, remind me that summer is a fleeting affair.

Final few weeks in England were busy, sailing west to Falmouth, then east to the Solent, seeing kith and kin along the way, fixing bits of Henrietta and me….Here are some photos…

Blink of history: then (1950s) and….

…now

Tom and Kim, near Brighton

..

Johnny (with hat) and Roz (Poole Hbr)

Then, with an unusual period of easterly winds, sometimes a bit strong, we set forth, west down the Channel, round the top left corner of France, and across the boisterous and charcoal grey seas of Biscay, to Spain. Nearly 700 miles non-stop in five days.

Now we’re in Muros, a pretty Galician town, nestled in a tranquil Spanish Ria.

And today I took a bus ride to Santiago de Compostela, to rub shoulders with fellow tourists. Some of them are walkers who’ve tramped a long way to get there.

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Streets of Santiago….

The walking pilgrims are mainly late middle-aged with giant rucksacks and walking sticks (poles, I mean). The men sometimes have grey beards and look earnest and honest. I admire them. Non-walking tourists and pilgrims are bulkier and outnumber the admirable few. A huge number want to ‘hug the apostle’ in the cathedral (my Spanish is limited, but I think this is what the sign said), and they join a long slow-moving queue. I don’t want to ‘hug the apostle’, so go in through a side door, and spend ages in a nearby cathedral museum instead. (There’s no beating Catholic art when it comes to advanced soul-wrenching suffering, with its endless depictions of arrows, nails, thorns, blood, anguish and pale-faced wretchedness. Even poor Virgin Mary doesn’t look too happy with her new baby. To lighten matters I always try to find a cheery face among the anguished – but it’s hard.)

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Anyhow, here are a few words from Henrietta:

I’m pretty happy to be dancing over the waves again. Wish I didn’t have this unsightly red kayak on my foredeck though (it’s M’s bargain toy from Southampton Boat Show!); and I wish M hadn’t mucked it up when leaving that Lymington pontoon and I picked up a dreadful scratch on my newly polished hull, from a metal plate protruding from the pontoon. Ouch, it hurt!

I’m glad to say that M’s spirits have picked up a bit now we’ve been away a few days. To start with he was a rather gloomy old grump, groaning with bruised bits of body and sore hands, sloppy sea legs and all round queasiness. I reckon he’d forgotten how uncomfortable life at sea can be: constant rolling, lurching, bobbing, splashed with chilly spray, slapped with cold winds, fingers numbed, muscles aching and not nearly enough sleep.

Basically, he needs to remember his good fortune in venturing forth with me. After all, he could be slobbing on the sofa in front of the telly, or dozing under a cosy duvet, or drinking draught beer in a squalid pub, or sitting in a traffic jam – like most sensible dirt-dwellers. As it is, he’s out and about usually enjoying himself and fresh air, and meeting lots of lovely people.

Here are some pictures of boats I passed last week (or they passed me):

“Waverley” overtook me at dusk

Fisherboat in Biscay

Tanker boat (friendly and gave weather forecast)

Afloat Again

9th September

I’ll tell you a little secret: Henrietta is 16 boat years old. That’s 32 in human years. She’s in her prime, beautiful, lithe and bursting with zest. I’m well over double her age, so well past my prime, zest less obvious. Henrietta can probably do somersaults and dance daintily almost anywhere. I can’t – and probably never could.

Sailing west (way back in July) from the Solent with George, we visited some of my favourite south coast haunts – pictures below:

Yesterday, in early September, was relaunch day (after a few weeks in Baltic Wharf Boatyard, Totnes). With one day of easterly wind, I sailed 14 hours west to Falmouth and, though Henrietta did dance daintily, I really felt tired, achey and a bit decrepit as I carefully anchored in pitch black darkness up a West Country creek. But that’s enough about aches et al; this is just an update on what’s going on with good ship H and skipper M.

Henrietta has some new bits and pieces. If you’re interested, that’s VHF radio, anchor, new batteries, some more stripey cushion covers and a TV and printer and yoghurt maker (thank you, Nigel)…plus a glimmering shiney polished hull and brand new antifouling. (Can’t think that I’ll get round to fitting the TV but it’s sitting there in a remote locker in Amazon’s delivery cardboard box).

I have done a lot of eating and drinking and shopping, and, more important, it’s been an unaccustomed treat to see lots of friends and family, visit London, Cambridge and Berlin plus watchRio Olympic prowess and read newspapers. (A few photos here to summarise)

The ‘plan’, for what it’s worth, is to have experts in Falmouth fix some snags (rigging and SSB), then sail east to Solent (boatshow and sociability), then west to Devon (hospital stuff), then, all being well, south to sunshine, before it gets too cold in northern Europe.

(Photos below: – Relaunch and sailing west, misty down river Dart, exit Dartmouth, Eddystone LH, fine playful dolphins en route……..)

South Coast, England

20th June to 5th July

Route Azores to Exeter

When you return to your home country after a spell away, first impressions count. My impressions of my home country  were that it is very affluent, tidy, organised and generally friendly and often beautiful, with a population of industrious efficient good-natured people, huge numbers of whom are constantly on the phone. Such is the nature of generalisations. As ever, I am out of touch with the majority. I know little of northern cities or right wing zealots. I’m privileged to meet mainly sane and moderate sailors.

A few weeks ago I knew one reason for returning to England was to vote in the EU referendum because I knew I’d be cross and sad if the other side won and I’d not had a teeny weeny say in trying to stop it. Deary me, even though I did place a cross to remain, I still find I am cross and sad, very sad, with the outcome. I don’t even take comfort from thinking the Brexit crowds will have to stop whinging about Brussels, or bureaucracy or immigration.They won’t.

I shan’t dwell on the EU business too much as millions of excellent professional writers have filled the column inches (and miles) with their own analyses. It does occur to me though that in voting to leave, the nation has behaved like a cigarette smoker who knows it’s very very silly to smoke and may lead to fatal cancer, and certainly ill health, and yet, despite knowing the consequences has an uncontrolled death wish. He smokes just as he votes; it’s bad for him, but he can’t help it. You can take the analogy quite a long way. Some people don’t seem to believe the ill health that will come about; and there are cases of people who even think smoking is healthy (remember the Marlborough ads?). And don’t forget there are the greedy tobacco companies like Gove Chokers Inc. whose vile vested interests try to tell us that smoking is actually a very good idea if only we’d listen and buy his brand. And then, us older folk, a majority of whom voted to smoke, are tainting the air and good health of the younger generation, a majority of whom voted for fresh air. …but this analogy has gone too far….

It’s all too depressing to contemplate for long. I am of course seriously fortunate in being afloat on a sailing boat. In theory I can distance myself from the nonsensical arena of British politics. But I like Radio 4 and cannot resist reading the newspapers.

Familiar places like Needles, IoW

Kingswear

Anna on watch again

Fowey

Gig rowing practice

However, moving on….as I type this, there’s the beautifully sweet sound of terns squeaking as they dive and fish around my anchorage – off Newtown, IoW. A cool English summer dawn had me up early, revelling in the fresh calm clear morning light. (This is in sharp contrast to the busy throngs that were out and about for the Round the Island Race on Saturday.) From Falmouth, I’d sailed east to the Hamble in the Solent, where I’d booked to attend a radio course. Overnight stops and short day sails, stopping in familiar haunts: Fowey, Dartmouth, Weymouth, Swanage, Lymington and now, off Newtown. It’s been really good to see friends along the way, and enjoy the company of Anna and, now George on board. (I’m back in Lymington to upload this lot.)

It’s just over a year since I bought Henrietta. We’ve sailed over 12,000 miles together, visited 23 countries and 46 islands. There’s now some maintenance needed for both of us. We’re heading back to Devon to get on with it, and delight in that county’s beauty and charm. (Small comfort that Exeter and Totnes – the two places for Henrietta and me – voted in.)

If you’ve followed Henrietta’s little adventure over the past ten months, thank you. Like lots of solitary people, I quite enjoy scribbling away. With few people to talk to, it’s a way of sharing experiences. It’s also a way of venting thoughts that otherwise are liable to fester and go mouldy. Even worse than barnacles on Henrietta’s bottom would be mould in my brain.

Terceira to Cornwall

6th to 17th June

After a bus trip to Praia on the island of Terceira (when it poured with rain all day but still looked pretty – though not nearly as fine as Angra), I left next day, bound for Britain. Nine and a half days later, just after midnight, I rounded the Lizard and reached Falmouth.

Falmouth was packed with boats. It’s Classics Weekend – meaning dozens and dozens of beautiful old sailing boats all over the place, but impossible in darkness to find a spot to stop – and so I meandered in moonlight a few miles upstream to a calm anchorage in Channal’s Creek, overlooked by National Trust’s Trelissick House, and then in the peaceful early hours enjoyed a giant glass of Antiguan rum.

French catamaran overtakes me on the way

…and there’s a ‘low’ over Britain

It had been a varied ocean voyage from the Azores with busy days and nights, almost continuously (or so it seemed) reefing/unreefing/altering course. Mainsail clew tore off its webbing straps when half way, so, until managing a crude repair, I sailed with only the genoa for almost 500 miles.

For me, ocean voyages are far too long. In fact, anything more than a day trip of about 40 miles is too long. I’d rather have a good night’s sleep, have an early morning and leisurely pot of tea, see if the weather looks cheery and, if so, set sail along a pretty coastline with sunshine and birdlife for a few daylight hours, reach a calm and secure anchorage, have another pot of tea, later watch sunset with fresh food and a glass of plonk, then go to bed. In short, I don’t like the dark; human beings are meant to be asleep at night when it’s dark, not hauling in sails and watching out for ships. But the world wasn’t made that way, so before long I’ll have to do more of these long ocean trips.

After a weekend in Truro and Falmouth, it’s as if I’ve never been away. People I meet in Cornwall are as delightful as those I’ve met anywhere. Fine food is good, varied, cheap and plentiful. Scenery and wildlife is wonderful. And, since arrival here has coincided with both Classics Weekend and a shanty-singing festival, the streets and pubs of Falmouth are fun and busy, and chocabloc with hairy sea salty folk and lusty bearded singers, and beautiful women’s choirs too and quality buskers. Anna came and joined me in Truro so it’s been a treat to have company and shared experience once more. (In case you’re interested, first experience was Wetherspoons, Truro, for fish and chips and pint of Doombar – it really is as if I’ve not been away!)

Falmouth is busy

with shanty singing and…

…classics..

Flores, Faial, Sao Jorge, Terceira

25th May to 6th June

Images from Azores….

Walk on Sao Jorge…

The Azores islands are lovely: people civilised, warm, friendly and welcoming; countryside fresh green and bursting with early summer zest; interests abound in walks, history, buildings and people. I’ve visited four of the islands; there are five others for another time.

Flores, my first landfall, was charming and I loved walking on sunlit rural roads with hydrangea, wild rose, sweet pea, canna lilies and more adding colour to the hedgerows, listening to tuneful birdsong, and feeling solid ground beneath my feet.  With a gaggle of well-kitted German walkers I enjoyed a delightful cliff walk a mile or two from the marina – but blow me, marinised leg muscles feel mighty stiff afterwards.

Then a bus ride to the capital, Santa Cruz, which has a modern and fascinating whale museum (making use of the defunct whale factory) – and not a lot else  (you mustn’t get too excited by the term ‘capital’).  It’s not a good port for yachts and we’re told not to go there (see photo below).

Whaling boat in museum (tubs have 700 metres of rope for harpooned whale)

Alas! Even Flores’s  little marina suffers from wave surge with NNEasterly swell and Henrietta’s strain and discomfort shortened my visit; four of us yachts leaving earlier than hoped for for the sail 130 miles east to Horta. (The islands are well spaced.)

Horta, on the island of Faial, is one of the world’s busiest yacht transit centres. Apparently around 1,300 boats call in each year. I reckon a large part of the 1,300 were there at the same time as me. The place seems to have become the key Atlantic sailors’ cross-roads with all manner of yacht from almost everywhere. Constant movements, bustle and excited shouts as friends recognise one another. There were no free berths for Henrietta and the anchorage was crowded, so after a troubled spell rafted alongside others next to a quay, I didn’t stay long. But it was a shame to move on so soon as Horta, the town, was beautiful: lots of charm and colour, good shops, marvellous cafes and bars and more. And I met up with several others whom I’d met earlier in the year.

The day I left Horta was very windy and very wet, but much more comfortable for me on Henrietta than running the Azores Trail Run, one of those super-arduous mountain marathons from a cloud-swept caldeira, which was taking place on Faial that same day. (I later met a sinewy Swedish/German couple who’d taken part.)

Next stop  after Horta was Vila das Velas on Sao Jorge (Sao has an accent I can’t do on laptop) where Jose manages a little marina. Jose, like all the staff I meet, is helpful, charming and knowledgeable – even coming out in cold torrential horizontal rain as I arrived, to help me tie up. Spent several days here as it’s friendly, has good walks etc. Hired a car to see more of the place than buses allow.

I left the island of Sao Jorge after a week and sailed next to Terceira, the third biggest Azorean island, just glimpsing the Azores’s highest mountain (and Portugal’s too), Pico, as I headed for Angra do Heroismo (its inhabitants had bravely resisted the Spanish invaders a few hundred years ago and were later given the title ‘Heroes’ – indeed the island was the only bit of Portugal that was not conquered) .

Most of the town (city really) of Angra is now well-deserved UNESCO heritage stuff —-full of really fabulous buildings, decorous stone cobbled streets and exquisite public gardens….one of the most marvellous places I’ve ever seen…and I don’t use the word ‘fabulous’ lightly….though I acknowledge perhaps its beauty is magnified by way of contrast with the architectural deserts of Eastern Caribbean.

Two particular things hereabouts remind me of my age. One is whaling; amazing to think it was big business in many places, including Azores, till 1980s, when nowadays it seems so barbaric and so unthinkable to kill magnificent whales (unless you’re primitive or Japanese, I suppose). The other is being reminded of the recent colonial wars that Portugal fought in 1960/70s; with many little Azorean settlements having a memorial for the young who died fighting in Angola, Mozambique or Timor (and I can remember hitching a lift myself with a lorry full of Portuguese troups in Mozambique as recently as 1974 – maybe it’s not recent anymore!)  Had we been Portuguese, we’d probably have been conscripted.

……at this point I realise I’m just wittering on…not of much interest to anyone except me…(The photos scattered in this post try to show more)

Without the detail, next stop, all being well, will be Scilly Isles or Cornwall (1,200 miles). Just waiting now for a patch of better weather….Meanwhile it’s been good to have the company of Alex and John on a handsome yacht, Free Spirit, and others heading for Europe too. They told me of this tourada (a sort of sociable bullfight in the streets of Angra), picture below.

But before I go, I’ll just say that the sharp contrast of Europe’s western islands with the islands further south and west across the Atlantic (Bermuda, Caribbean) makes me truly grateful for my good fortune in belonging on the European side. And whilst the British Isles are my home, and I like them well enough, I know they are merely a part of many European islands, each with their own distinctive histories, cultures, interests, problems and delights,  but each insignificant in the wider world. I’ll aim to be back in Britain in time to vote. (It would make me very cross and sad were the ‘other side’ to win, had I not had my one teeny weeny say in trying to stop it.)

And on a less important note, I’ve now owned Henrietta for exactly one year. Nearly 11,000 miles sailed since then, and I cannot think how many different anchorages and islands and countries. Perhaps I’ll add them up one day.

Bermuda to Flores, Azores
5th to 24th May

BVI to Azores track

One of the Bermuda radio stations asked the question, “Is Bermuda still boring?”. It seems there had been some concern that people might think so. Personally, I think the answer’s ‘no’. When I was a tiresome child, my mother would often say that it’s only the boring who are ever bored. While usually true, in Bermuda I found the trick was to think of yourself as inhabiting a kind of pastel Legoland.
The best thing about the place was certainly the friendly helpfulness of local people. Almost everyone went way beyond normal courtesy in wanting to help. The rest of Bermuda was pleasant enough. As I said, I just felt I was in a sort of pale imitation of Legoland: neat tidy buildings were pink, powder blue and cream (rather than bright Lego red, blue and yellow), and people smiled and were black, white and brown; there were clear labels like ‘Bank’ and ‘Bar’ on symmetrical buildings. There were yellow sandy beaches and very little litter, and even the uniform palm trees, fronds blowing in harmony, might have come from a Danish drawing board. Of course I shouldn’t judge. I was there for less than five days. It rained hard for two of them.
I was anchored up a creek in St George’s Harbour, a big natural harbour with the World Heritage St George on one side. It’s the second town and when the sun shone and cruise ships were in, it was busy with tourists crawling past neatly painted old buildings and perusing high quality nick-nack shops. When it rained it was empty and I went for a super soggy walk around the top end of Bermuda, buffeted by gale and horizontal rain, all a bit reminiscent of some childhood summer holidays in Lyme Regis – which coincidentally is twinned with St George’s.

The capital of Bermuda is Hamilton. It oozes wealth and complacency and alcohol. I visited by bus a couple of times hoping to find something out of the ordinary. But there isn’t much that I found: big smart shops with enough posh wristwatches to garland everyone a few times over, big square colonial buildings, lots of bars with pretty much wall-to-wall ‘happy hours’ and herds of motor scooters. This place makes its money with insurance and reinsurance, and other mysterious forms of money-making paper-pushing, so what was I expecting? I cut short my second visit to Hamilton as the rain was unremitting and two shops in a row had said goodbye with the cheery bastard English phrase, “Have a good one”. (Am I the only one who feels grumpy when this is said too often?)
Then later, as I rowed out to my anchorage a big man on the jetty near his big house shouted in tax-exile American that I was anchored among moorings with big chains that I’d probably snarled. “You won’t be able to get your anchor up; you’ll have to cut the chain, lose the anchor. No way will you be able to get free…..blah blah”. I said I hadn’t wanted to pick up a private mooring in case an owner came along (most were not being used), and he said something along the lines of “Quite right, they’re private”. To save you any more of this, I’ll just say that there are a lot of these dog-in-the-manger moorings in the area, unused but effectively making it difficult to anchor. My anchor was fine by the way.

To end on a brighter note, I’ll restate that with the one exception of ‘big man with big house’, people were delightful. I was given lifts without asking; people took me to show me round; bus drivers smiled and helped; shopkeepers were out-of-the-way friendly. But I left. Yachtie rush-hour for Bermuda was starting nd whereas there were ten yachts as I arrived, there must have been over thirty by the time I left.

Oh! I should also tell you too that I met a lovely young couple on a huge catamaran, Ocean Swift, which he, not as young as she, had built. They came aboard Henrietta for a meal and told me of working in Antarctica, where he’d built those amazing hut things that rise on their legs as the snow builds up, and in Falkland Islands and places where you and I shan’t ever go. They’d cruised at high speed all over Scotland and Ireland too, so we shared memories and opinions of the wondrous British Isles. Anyway, their catamaran was 44 ft of streamlined fibreglass (he’d even made the moulds for the hulls) and it cruised at about 15-20 knots. Another of the extraordinarily talented people you come across who you sense could fix anything anywhere with whatever was to hand. I said as we parted that our paths might not cross again for a while. They go too fast.

Sailing out of Bermuda is not like sailing out of most places. You cannot quickly leave their border surveillance system. They have the most amazingly powerful VHF transmitter, radar and AIS detection network I have ever come across, and it’s not until you’ve sailed over 200 miles that you cease hearing their broadcasts and inquisition of approaching boats. (But even with all their powerful equipment and 24 hour staffing, many boats seem to sail in and out not answering radio calls . It does I suppose show how very difficult it is to control your maritime borders – whatever the wishful thinking of Brexit xenophobes.)
And then I sailed east across the Atlantic. It’s about 1,800 miles to the Azores, and not as straightforward as westward sailing in the Trade Winds further south that had taken us the other way to the Caribbean. This time I aimed for an undulating path eastwards, between eastbound gales to the north and calms to the south, which is pretty much what sailors have always done.

Nowadays I have a radio and try to download and interpret weather faxes. In the old days, sailor folk looked at clouds. So I did that too, and coupled with a brilliant book on weather forecasting, reckon I can see what’s coming – in the next few hours anyway. In summary, there’s been a bit of everything in the spectrum of ocean sailing: some sail-flapping calm, wallowing without steerage, fine spirit-lifting reaches, spray sparkling beats and several hard rough days.

Rough days culminated in two days and nights when wind never dropped below Force 7 and was mainly F8/9. I knew I was too far north but I was nearly there and unprepared to sail the wrong way for 200 miles completely to avoid the storm. As you may know, one of the great delights of sailing is the contrast from a day of brisk wind and choppy sea to an evening in a calm sheltered pretty anchorage. Nowhere have I felt this contrast more acutely than on reaching, yesterday, the charming tiny friendly marina in Flores after two days and nights of very rough testing sailing.

After a few days of gales the North Atlantic grows very wild, and though my pictures cannot capture the sheer magnificent panorama of massive breaking ocean waves, I can say I was overawed. It’s best not to think about it too much – the ocean waves are too massively powerful and magnificent, and sometimes threatening – but I spent much of the time below in bed reading books, washboards in and everything tight closed, as waves crashed around and for a while we maintained over six knots with no sails up at all. Henrietta probably hasn’t enjoyed it any more than me, but she’s behaved beautifully. Apart from some frayed rope and torn dodger and a few bruises, nothing has failed.

Anyhow, I’m now moored at Flores in the far west Azores, 15 days after leaving Bermuda. Goodness, I love Europe! This little bit of it, the furthest west of the Continent, is fresh tidy honest friendly. The tap water tastes nice, bread is not sweetened and red wine is less than two euros a bottle. The marina captain’s mother does my washing (for a fee) and there’s a shower (albeit cold water). After 12 hours sleep I’m fresh, have friendly French and Norwegian neighbours, and am off to explore.

Virgin Islands to Bermuda

25th April to 5th May

Video doesn’t show the lightning as it was….but it shows it isn’t always sunny!

Henrietta can write this post. I’m tired.

H: Yes, M seems a bit listless and subdued, generally rather frazzled I think. He groans and grunts sometimes too, which I consider a clear and pathetic sign of old age and minor injury.  Can’t really see why he makes such a fuss though. He’s lucky to be sailing with me, and the sun has been shining most of the time and he’s been sitting and lying about a lot reading and eating. If he wasn’t pottering about with me, enjoying the fresh air and magnificent ocean, he’d be fretting about the British weather and dirt-dwelling anxieties like the EU referendum or rubbish on telly. Better for him to be at sea, I reckon.

Anyway, once again I’ve done the really hard work of sailing us north – 850 miles north from the British Virgin Isles.

For some reason, M thought Bermuda was close to the Caribbean, just up the road as it were, a kind of geological afterthought to the Caribbean. So it was quite a surprise to see they’re so far apart, not apparently linked geologically in any way; indeed with some ocean chasms over 7,000 metres deep in between. To put it another way, Bermuda from Virgin Islands is half way to Canada, or in a European context, the equivalent of crossing the Bay of Biscay from Land’s End twice. (Enough geography for one day, but it goes to show how unrealistic we are about distances once we are away from our home patch. Here’s a quiz question for British pubs: To the nearest 50 miles, how many miles is it from Barbuda – near Antigua – to Bermuda?)

The start of our trip was fine until the first evening, then fine again till the third evening. On the first and third evenings there were some very alarming thunderstorms. I know M was really scared. If I had human feelings I’d have been scared too. The thing was, these storms were huge and covered the whole horizon with near constant lightning flashes and continuous rumbling and roaring and growling. M suffered a sort of sensory overload: the sight of wild lightning over white-crested waves, endless electric flashing in blue white slashing sizzlers down to the sea and brightening the dark clouds overhead; the sounds of fast sailing splashing coupled with roaring and cracking; and the feel of massed raindrops and hot electrified air on naked skin – all this magnified ten times with the arrival of darkness. M was below trying to distract his fears by washing up dishes when a harsh and deafening crack and flash blinded the sky, an explosion right with us. I cannot believe I was hit and know I wasn’t but, whatever, the windvane electrics have stopped working. (M guesses a cut-out in the transducer has been triggered by proximity of shock. M himself was just a bit shakey. Were he not teetotal at sea, he’d have had a stiff drink to calm his nerves.Instead, he put more clothes on; I think he thinks if you’re going to be struck by lightning, it would be more dignified to be properly dressed. Human beings!)

However rare the occurrence of direct lightning strikes, it does not lessen the sense of powerlessness and, whereas sailors can plan and work to lessen the dangers of storms and ships and fog and rocks, there is almost nothing a boat can do to escape the risk of lightning. Us boats, we just cross our fingers – or we would if we could.

After the thunderstorms there was very little wind and what there was was from ahead; and  we wallowed around a lot with sails flipping and flopping; very frustrating times. M has a bit of an aversion to the engine; me too – bad vibes; and also there wasn’t enough diesel for more than two days of engine. So wallowing around it was. We looked at clouds, downloaded some weather charts, tacked this way and that, wallowed a  bit more. And I know that for a while M thought of abandoning Bermuda and going straight to the Azores nearly 2,000 miles away (but he didn’t fancy up to three weeks with half a cabbage and one carrot to eat, then tinned stuff and lentils.)

After eight days we got to Bermuda.

Back to M……

Bermuda seems wealthy. The little town of St George’s, where we cleared in, is immaculate with smart pale-painted colonial style buildings, and bevvies of cruise ship wrinklies wandering hither and thither, and a smattering of ocean sailors (though probably less than ten, as I’m here before most). It’s another UNESCO World Heritage Site and, more useful for me, the local supermarket has Waitrose tea bags.

If you happen to sail this way, I should tell you that Bermuda monitors its coasts with big-brotherly diligence. I was called on VHF  when at least 20 miles away (told I was being tracked on radar and AIS). I gave them lots of details – even the number of EPIRB (something that took a lot of hunting down as it’s a 16 digit hexadecimal that I don’t carry in my head). Planning to arrive at first light I was asked to delay to let cruise ship through. Anyhow I’ve been such a fine model of maritime good behaviour that the traffic control folk have been helping me ever since: telling me to turn round when they saw I was going the wrong way for customs dock, then suggesting this little narrow creek behind Smith’s Island for sheltered anchorage in the coming gales.

There are some very smart and discreet houses for neighbours, only the sounds of barking guard dogs, and drone of ride-on lawn mowers (and sometimes a jet doing things at the airport nearby). I think we’ll be here a few days as the forecast is not promising. Too early to have seen much of Bermuda, anyway. I’ll head off now to be a wrinkly tourist myself.

OOOHHH! Cockroach bulletin no.2 – None seen. Bait traps all over the place.

EThe answer to that pub quiz question: 900.

St Martin to Virgin Islands

10th to 22nd April

Track to BVI

Not sure if I told you already but I’m now a member of two different boat-related clubs. This is pretty extraordinary for someone who is very much non-clubby. (Clubs for the most part seem contrary to the spirit of independence and self-reliance that are surely among the attractions of sailing. Clubs too can become exclusive, cliquey and self-important, even sinister or threatening to outsiders. They should I suppose be approached with caution.)

Whatever my opinion, I’m now a member of both the Cruising Association and the Ocean Cruising Club. Impulsive decisions perhaps, but I’ll give them a try. A good-natured fellow sailor (in fact more than one) persuaded me I was missing out by not joining; they’re a very good way of meeting fellow sailors and learning lots of useful stuff of course. And sure enough I have now met many experienced and knowledgeable sailor folk, and delightful people, through these groups. Furthermore I have two additional colourful burgees to flutter from aloft.

This is all by way of telling you that I’d been sailing northwards to attend a Cruising Association gathering in the British Virgin Islands (BVIs in local parlance). When, a month ago, I sent an email saying I’d like to be there, I had a reply to say I shouldn’t expect too much: last year only two boats turned up, and one of them was a day late. I thought this sounded like my sort of low profile club.

Anyway, after a long slow overnight sail from St Martin, I reached Virgin Gorda to find lots and lots of Cruising Association boats loosely gathered at the agreed anchorage. There followed an unprecedented few days of sociability. With at least six different nationalities, and I guess over 25 friendly sailors on about a dozen boats, with an age span of four or five decades, I’ve delighted in two delicious meals ashore, a party on the beach and final on-board gathering, at three different anchorages on three different islands, over about three or four days. We’ve now pretty much scattered to go our own ways; but for me, it’s always heartening to rediscover that I like people; I really do – I’m just a loner by circumstance not inclination, I suppose.

I’ve now moved from BVI to USVI. The stars and stripes courtesy flag is a bit small but it’s up there, dangling limp from the starboard spreader. I am surrounded with Americans of all shapes and sizes, but almost universally warm, friendly and approachable. (Americans want to be liked. For the most part, they seem likeable.)

What to make of the Virgin Islands? Well, I suppose unless you have visited them, they all look more-or-less the same. Like a herd of dairy cows, from a distance they appear roughly similar. But again like dairy cows, once you get close and look carefully and wander round them, they are very different from one another, each with its own identity and colour and idiosyncrasies.

So far, it’s St Croix in the USVI that seems the most idiosyncratic so I’ll tell you a bit about it. St Croix used to be Danish until the Americans bought it. It’s 40 miles south of the other Virgins and my pilot book says it’s the biggest Virgin, twice the size of ones you may have heard of like Tortola and St Thomas, which makes it nearly as big as the Isle of Wight. And it is surrounded by the largest island barrier reef system in the Caribbean, and thus has fantastic diving and snorkelling – and some challenging navigation. (Incidentally, they pronounce it St Croy (with American accent) not St Kwa (with French accent). “Christiansted”, the capital, is apparently “considered by many the most beautiful town in the Caribbean”; though that seems crazy to me. It’s not that amazing.

You may have known, but I didn’t, that the USVI are American Territory; in contrast the BVI are of course independent. I had even needed my US visa to visit. I like it here in St Croix because it’s quite empty, a bit artyfarty (St Ives crossed with Palm Beach), very friendly even by Caribbean standards, and it seems to cheerfully blend the USA with the island’s history. There are some really fine Danish colonial buildings: shaded colonnades and courtyards, pastel coloured half-timbered houses, open spaces. All now overlain with American efficiency, shopping malls and eating places and big cars…..though they drive on the left but keeping their left-hand drives.

For some reason there don’t seem to be any charter boats and the big catamarans that dash about elsewhere in the Virgins are absent. Instead, as I write this a horse has just swum past with its owner, snorting as it goes – we’re anchored at least 100 metres offshore. Horse swimming seems to be very popular here. Horses not catamarans!

Rambling on a bit again so I’ll stop…

NO! First I’ll tell you about the cockroaches. (Trouble with single-handed sailors is they don’t have people to talk to all the time, so some of us drivel on with the blog – and our personal diaries – quite a lot. Hence, you’re going to hear the start of the cockroach saga.)

Cockroaches. It started a few days ago when one came out of the bag with potatoes and miscellaneous vegetables. I reacted quickly I thought, grabbed spray and sprayed, slapped briskly, smacked wildly, lashed out with weapons at hand etc. But not quick enough for the little beastie, who disappeared, scurrying ever so fast into a cupboard. Next night I had Spanish friends aboard for a meal; and el cockroach was spotted again, lurking furtively by the sink. Quickly and with the combined energy of English and Spanish forces, the intruder was ruthlessly despatched and buried at sea (thrown overboard). European unity can deal with any problem.

Is that the end? Trouble is, I do not know the reproductive system of cockroaches. Might that dead one have needed a mate to give me baby cockroaches, in which case that may be the last chapter of the saga? Or, do cockroaches come preloaded with millions of fertile eggs, in which case Henrietta will be overrun, and I just await the patter of tiny excited insect feet? Meanwhile, a friend has advised a bait of boric acid and milk, so we’ll try it. Anyway, I don’t really know why I’m making such a fuss. These are tiny cockroaches, not a bit like the brontosauraroaches that used to invade Javanese bathrooms. I’m not a wimp; I just don’t want uninvited visitors.

That’s it for now. I’ll give an update if it’s needed.

Dominica to St Martin

25th March to 9th April

Life on board Henrietta has become busy, after a few slow weeks. It’s worn me out a bit so not much time to update you. The itinerary, south to north, has been Dominica, Les Saintes, Guadeloupe, Antigua, St Barth, and now, St Martin.

Summarising – Dominica: delightful, thanks to warm friendly people and wild unspoilt lush mountain scenery. It’s a poorer island still rebuilding after the havoc of last year’s storm (12 inches of rain in six hours had washed away roads, bridges, homes and more). Fellow sailors included three other singlehanders (and I’ve not so far met very many). One, a young and quiet ‘retired’ USAF man, ex Afghanistan, whom I asked, “Have you ever broken the sound barrier?” gently said “Yes, F15s do that. A few broken windows here and there”, and I felt I shouldn’t ask more questions. He volunteered that he liked the slower pace of his boat with minutes to react to hazards, not milliseconds; and also that Mr Trump was not his cup of tea. Another, a dignified Swiss gentleman, a retired lawyer singlehanding a vast yacht, speaker of numerous languages, tidily dressed and a good looking vegetarian was trying to find his girl Friday – fascinating stuff! My neighbours when I returned  after a day out were the Chandlers on Lynn Rival. With their unwanted celebrity status following Somali kidnapping I did not acknowledge recognising them, only noting that we’d both joined the Cruising Association. I could go on and on, but (a) this is meant to be a summary, and (b) you don’t really want a diary of everything I did and everyone I met. Suffice to say, I liked almost everything about Portsmouth (the main anchorage) and the island of Dominica. Indeed, it was so active with walking, touring and viewing and so sociable with colorful, generous, interesting fellow sailors that I sought solitary respite and moved on to Les Saintes, a few miles north.

Iles des Saintes includes Bourg des Saintes, which is a busy colourful thriving French town with anchorage, chic boutiques, quality restaurants and crowds of day-trippers. It also includes Ilet a Cabrit, a tiny island unoccupied except for happy healthy goats. It used to have a few forts to keep away the unruly and aggressive English, but now they’re just crumbled ruins covered in goat droppings (the forts, not the English)

Then, north again for a couple of windy days and nights swinging wildly in the popular Guadeloupe anchorage of Deshaie. (It was the fourth time I’d been there, but it’s convenient for customs clearance – an ever-present chore with entry/exit in all these new countries.)

On next to Antigua and the unexpected pleasure of meeting up again with crews of both ‘Tern’ and ‘Tudor Rose’. The former I first met in the Canaries, and they kindly have me aboard for rare treat of a truly exceptional veggie supper. The latter, not seen since Portugal, includes Simon and Holly and Scrumpy (their wonderful spirited Jack Russell); they’re refreshingly young, indomitable and enterprising – though plans a bit modified now Holly’s pregnant. Click here for a link to their blog.

Next stop, St Barth. (About 80 miles north of Antigua, it was further than I can sail in daylight, so crept out of Jolly Harbour, Antigua in middle of night so as to arrive at St Barth in daylight.) To suggest, as does one of the tourist brochures, that St Barth may be”…hip and sophisticated or…discreet and laid back” seems to miss the main point. I reckon it’s just plain super-rich. It oozes wealth and quality, pure platinum. There’s a yacht size limit in the harbour of 60 metres and that keeps out the vulgar giga zillionaires – who might be Russian I suppose. Anyway, St Barth makes St Tropez look shabby. And if you’re one of those people who think labels matter, this is for you. Personally, I only wanted coffee, a baguette and a new pair of swimming trunks. And sure enough, I enjoyed my coffee and then saw a lovely pair of trunks, azure blue and patterned with many colourful fish, I asked, “Combien pour ces pantalon?” (which is schoolboy French, I know), “185 euro, Monsieur”. At which point I smiled and must have looked weak and pale, as Madam added in English “ah! but they are very fine,.Monsieur”. I’ll wait for Marks and Spencer’s, I think.

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St Barth has that delicious peaceful hush about it that comes with great wealth. I think it’s because very rich people get others to do the shouting for them. It would be undignified for billionaires to raise their voices.

St Barth also has a lot of ‘bespoke’ places that can do ‘bespoke’ things for you – if you are rich enough, that is.

Trouble is, I’ve always had a problem with ‘bespoke’. It reminds me of a childhood spent living next to a big housing estate where a young lout named John B. used to live. He and his gang of fellow louts used to follow me on their bicycles as I cycled down Victoria Road, Wargrave. They’d then overtake, shout insults and hurl sticks and things into the wheels of my bike, trying thus to ‘despoke’ me. And in my mind, ‘despoke’ and ‘bespoke’ have forever been intertwined.

You, of course, may choose ‘bespoke’ because you have a big wallet and impeccable good taste. To me on the other hand, you may simply be yob, slob or snob.

And now, after an overnight stop at the uninhabited little island, Ile Fourchue, I’m in St Martin, near the top of this chain of islands. St Martin is part French and part Dutch (St Maarten). I’m anchored in the French bit (better bread) but was advised to go to the Dutch bit for a haircut (better/cheaper haircuts). Therefore caught bus to Philipsburg, found very much a back-street barber….very friendly and with three foot dreadlocks that he’d taken 14 years to grow. He was from Dominican Republic and spoke lots of Spanish, little English, no French. I speak no Spanish. Upshot was I’ve now got virtually no hair: most vigorous haircut of my life. (No photo to follow.)

My father’s birthday

Today is 9th April, my father’s birthday. He’d have been 100 today, but he died more than 42 years ago, when he was only 57.

I think of him often as I sail around as I know how much he’d have loved some of these adventures. He never had my good fortune though. For a start he was born in 1916 when his father (my grandfather) was in the First World War trenches. When my grandfather received a telegram telling him of the new arrival, his fellow officers said it was a shame he’d not see the new baby son – casualties were so high at the time – though in fact my grandfather did survive – until he was 96.

And then, my father grew up through the 1920s and 30s with the traditions, conventions and constraints of the British middle classes at the time; hence he was almost bound to enter the army. That’s what men like him were expected to do. There weren’t the many choices open to my generation. Not that he disliked army life; he probably enjoyed much of it. After all, it gave him wonderful opportunities for cricket and hockey, both of which he played very well. It’s just that I think he was at heart a pacifist. He was fully involved with the British Legion after he retired from the army, so he believed in that; and I know he was always solicitous of his men’s well-being; and he kept many friends from his army days. In those days too, before, during and after the Second World War, you did travel the world, (I know for example that I was conceived in Pakistan, borne in Singapore, and lived I think in Germany, Egypt and London – all before I was five).

But army life can’t have suited him very well as, apart from his peace-loving nature, he was never keen on senseless obedience and unchallenged conformity and, after attending a War Office colonel’s tea party in the early 1950s, he impulsively announced he’d leave as soon as he could; “….otherwise” he told my mother, “we’ll become like them” (N.B. I like to think the modern army has done away with the ritual aloofness that he’d so disliked). He and my mother were, I’m sure, devoted to one another and had been married in 1945; she accepted without question his decision to leave the army.

Unqualified for civilian life, but using his knowledge and interest in sport, he tried work as a sales rep for Slazenger or Dunlop, before acknowledging he couldn’t sell anything. ‘Sales’ was clearly a dead-end for someone with his qualities of honest generosity and openness. Instead he became a driving examiner, commuting for many years on his little Lambretta motor scooter into Reading. It must have been soul-destroying work, but for five and half days a week, he persevered year after year with patient good humour.

At that time, we were all introduced to the idea of owning and sailing boats. An early heart attack meant my father was advised to give up cricket. He took up sailing, instead – I believe it was deemed less stressful. We had a little all-purpose dinghy, Henrietta II, that we used on the River Thames, or trailed down for holidays in Chichester Harbour or Lyme Regis. Just imagine: five of us, plus dog, tent and camping gear in a 13ft dinghy, with temperamental Seagull outboard and inefficient gunter rigged sail, for weekends in a tent on some sand dunes at East Head, Chichester (National Trust own it now and camping’s not allowed.)

Eventually my father stopped being a driving examiner; and we moved to the South Coast (after a brief and dismal year near Bedford); where he started a driving school. We had a mooring on the river at Lymington in Hampshire (home for our 17ft Silhouette, “Henrietta III”). Then, a few years later, I’m sure with a happier and more comfortable life than ever, he died. I was a 23 year old engineer in Africa at the time and never knew until long after the funeral was over.

I’ve always felt sorry that I knew him so little. Partly that’s because, as a typically self-absorbed teenager I was insensitive to the qualities and needs of parents, but also because he was by nature a quiet and modest man, and didn’t talk much of his childhood or early adulthood; he wouldn’t have wanted to bore you with his own thoughts and concerns. I think too he was essentially shy, unambitious, and reserved. He never wanted to make a fuss or boast about anything.

Whatever his abilities and limitations, when I think of my father now, I know two things for certain. I inherited his joy of sailing; and I’ve been a million times luckier than him in being able to indulge my passion. (He would never have dreamed that one day, one of his sons might have a yacht like the current ‘Henrietta’. I’d never have dreamed it either.)