Poets, painters and puddings. These three things make the world as it ought to be.

Rum Punch and Steel Drums

The weather was balmy the sea felt softer we were on our way. Due to the incicent with the water and the oil, we had very little fresh water on board, and our water  maker had stopped working. The captain had me washiing down the interior of the boat with evian water whilst the crew went dirty or had to have salt water washes in the sea, you can imagine how pleased and rather uncomfortable we were. It was on this trip that I experienced my first squall, described in the dictionary as a breif turbulant storm. You could see it on the radar, a large mass of rain and a terrific amount of wind. I  had no idea what was going on and was handed the helm, and I did not know until after that it had been put on automatic pilot. Here I was alone in the cockpit everyone else had run inside for cover. The captain yelled, keep an eye on the boat. I held on to the helm and was soaked by the rain and battered by the wind, I was terrified. It wasn't until a giggling face opended the cockpit door and beckoned to me to come in, did I realise that I was the but of  their amusement. There isn't much you can do in a squall as far as I remember, apart from bringing the sails in and riding out the storm, which does not last long.

We had Christmas at sea, it was pretty uneventful. We took out the champagne had a glass each, we had one satelite call each to our families, I cooked a Christmas meal and then it was all over. We couldn't wait for Antigua and fresh water. It was getting closer and closer, the weather was warmer and more humid and land was at last in sight. We sailed into English Harbour one balmy afternoon. We moored the boat, got out the heineken, put on Billy Idol, got the fresh water on and set to washing down the boat and cleaning the interior, I still hadn't set a foot ashore.

Friends from Palma, friends that I thought I would never see again because I was so new to yacthing, appeared on the boat with their tales of the crossing, they wondered why we had taken so long, as they had left after us. Should we tell them or not, certainly the Casablanca story was a good one to tell. Boat cleaned us showered, mosquitos biting, friends arriving, steel drums drumming, rum punch calling, we put on our clean clothes and were ready to party. We did not have to go far. Not a bad thing. My legs wobbled as I touched land and I felt quite giddy, I had lost my land legs and got so used the motion of the sea, that I found it hard to stand up. The Galley Bar was full of friends and happiness I was glad to have arrived.

Visiting Kristi

I am sitting at my desk in my lovely warm living room listening to the birds happy in their spring time song.  The almond blossom is finally showing itself and beautiful it is too. I am at home on holiday, I have just spent a very peaceful weekend with my freind Kristi who lives near to Orange right in the heart of Vaucluse country side, surounded by vinyards with Mount Ventoux in the distance, still snow clad.

I finished work on the friday, took the long and boring train ride home, changing at Nice. I don't know why the train seemed to be on a GO SLOW it stopped in places I have never heard of and travelled slower than a snail, and by the time I got home I was irritable and fed up. Saturday morning up early excited about my visit to the Vaucluse. I arrived in time for lunch and because we have not seen one another for an age we spent all our afternoon and evening chatting and catching up. The mistral was blowing hard, we took the dogs for a walk with the wind blowing against us. I thought it would be nice to go sight seeing the next day. But the wind oh the wind made sight seeing a very uncomfortable thing to do, and all we could think of was lunch.

We found a great restaurant just as we were giving up thinking we would never find anywhere and had a delicious three course meal for just 14 euros per head. I needed a snooze after that. More chatting and the Krisit's family came home. I drove home on the monday morning.

Now I am home I am trying to make the most of my time off. working full time, makes me realize quite how precious time off it. Yet yesterday I managed to waste time. I want to fill my days with as much joy and as much creativity as I possibly can so that I can go back to work knowing I did the best I could possibly do.

As I have no where to paint I have set up a studio in the kitchen down stairs it is not ideal but is working for now and I have four paintings on the go which is very exciting. I hope I get to fisnish them. With no thought of an exhibition or the pressure of having to sell them I feel a freedom of spirit that I have not had for a long time whilst painting. It doesn't matter what they look like, it doesn't matter if anyone likes them, it is just the feeling of the painting that counts for me. I am trying not to read anything in them, not to intellectualize to analyze, to worry  and find meaning, to find words that make up the meaning of the painting. To find words that make meaning out of the emotion. It doesn't matter. Peace is what matters. In a mind like mine that is always distraught with anxiety and worry to find peace is the ultimate freedom, the ultimate bliss, it is enlightenment, it is untangilbe, it is without words and without meaning and it is with God.

So God bless you all and may today be a day of peace.

The Port Authority, The Fishermen and the Deck hand

The boat was awash with people, led by a man in a long grey dress with beads around his neck a purposefull looking book and a superior kind of hat, the rest were in an array of colourful garments and from the local fish boats which were also colourful and adorned in brightly coloured cloths and rags. The port stank of dead fish and the water was barely visible through the large patches of oil.

The important man strode down into the boat into the salon, much to all of our suprise everyone else came to. Then came the communication problem, they did not speak English we did not speak Morrocan. We were stuck. The captain wanted fuel and help, and it would seem that the important man and his followers wanted the deck hand who they obviously thought was a george Micheal look a like, as they cried out George. We managed to astertain that, thought they could not understand we wanted fuel, they did want to buy our deck hand for a certain number of sheep and a few camels. We teased, Tom, we thgouth that was a good exchange. Tom hid in the head. Meanwhile the captain had managed to communicate that he needed a taxi to take him to the British Embassy in Casablanca. He and the still disgraced first mate went off by taxi, and four of us were left on the boat for what seemed an eternity. The important man and his followers settled down in the cock pit to await the captains return. The fear Ihad felt of these strange people being aboard our boat had left me, they obviously meant us no harm and were only curious. It cannot have been often that a luxoury yacht had entered their port.

Teas, coffees and sandwiches later, our captain oh our captain, arrived back with a gentleman from the British Embassy. Passports, boat papers, official business was under way. We eventually filled up with fuel in our one good tank, and hoped the wind would take us to Antigua. We left that night, Tom just managed to stay on board we persuaded them we would not sell him, besides were was the room for camels and sheep on our boat.

Finally it felt as if we were on our voyage, no more land for two weeks, just the ocean and us. The wind wasn't very helpful, we spent many a day just flopping around in the water, stopping for a swim  , no other boats in sight lagging behind our schedule, we would be having Christmas at sea....

Casablanca and the Fresh Water Mistake

(one of the boats I worked on)

Casablanca and the Fresh water mistake.

We left the Canaries fully loaded with fuel, fresh water and food, now we were really on our way. Two weeks and god willing we should be in Antigua just in time for Christmas and having fun with our friends. I was very excited.

Late at night a commotion started on deck. Raised voices, heated arguements, the engine slowed down. I could hear everything, my cabin was under the cock pit. I dressed quickly and went on deck as did the others. what was going on. The captain was red in the face, eyes popping and jumping up and down with anger. The first mate was looking guilty and defensive, but unable to save face in a hopeless situation. He could not do anything but pleed guilty. what had he done to cause such anger.

In the ealy misty morning in the Canaries with a blinding hangover our first mate had put fresh water into the spare fuel tank. You can well imagine what a distaster it would have been had the water got into the engine. Our Captain a perfectionist in the extreme, had for some reason best know to himself decided to test the fuel before changing tanks and low and behold he had found a greasy fuel and water mix. Our first mate was in for it, we thought it was going to come to blows!!!

There was nothing to be done but find a port, we were near to Casablanca, we found an industrial port, it was three in t he morning. A gloomy red yellow light fell on the water gigantic rusty cranes filled the sky like ominous giants, ready to fall to collapse, to capture us and to metamorphe us into their rusted stillness. We crept slowey forward towards the port. The sea was filled with debris, old logs, plastic bags and goodness knows what else. We were filled with trepidation at least I was, it was not an exciting adventure, it was a scary one. At last we arrived into the smaller port, filled with colourful and stange looking fishing boats, it felt a little safer, at least we were close to land and and hopefully fuel and an answer to our problems.

Two of us stayed on watch and the rest went to bed. I awoke to the sound of dozens of boot clad feet on deck and an anxious voice coming from the deck hand..............................

Beausoleil

I have just looked on my site for the first time in months and have found some lovely comments which have warmed my heart, thank you so much. I will carry on with the boat story, though not today. Today I just want to tell you that I have a job cooking for a lovely family in Monaco and that I have an appartment in Beausoleil, which translates as Beautiful Sun, rather romantic wouldn't you say to live in a place called Beasoleil.

I have been working here for nearly three months, and as with any job there have been teething problems, particularly my nerves. After 40 years of catering I would expect not to get nervous but oh no I still get the colly wobbles, they are getting better slowley.

I go home most weekends to Lorgues, I take the train from Monaco train station, thoroughly modern in every way, cutting its way through deep deep rock, it is very impressive. It takes me two to three hours to get home, David meets me at Les Arcs train station and off we drive our icy drive home. I have a full day to enjoy myself on the saturday and then come back by train on the sunday.

This weekend is a special weekend, I worked yesterday saturday and so have stayed in Beausoleil. David and Jack ( my step son ) are visiting me here. We have taken a tour of the sights and Jack is very impressed with the vast array of posh cars, Bently's Rolls Royce, which are a rarer sight than Ferraries which are 6 to a dozen here, Lambourghini's, Maserati's, Mustang's, Porches, Porches Cayenne and others I cannot pronounce or spell.

We took a walk around the park, around the Casino down to the port to see all the big boats, the lift back up to the Casino then a rather expensive hot chocolate in the Cafe de Paris. Home and warm we are looking forward to an Indian take away. One of the great things in living in a little town are the advantages of take aways and this one happens to be very good.

Jack and David are off skiing tomorrow and I am back to work. I am having a lovely day. thank you again for your comments, I shall indeed continue to write and write my boat story. Just cooking is not enough to nourish my creativity I need more, to paint and to write, but whilst I am working so hard it is near on impossible to find the time, but find it I will. 

Across the Atlantic

It is a very long time since I have written and unsurprisingly my flow has been stopped, blocked,dried up, the appeal to continue to write my yachting stories has left me and I am not sure were to go form here.

Since leaving you stranded  in the story in Gibralter, I have been to work in St Emilion back to England and home again. My father has died and we have had his funeral. A very splendid send off it was too.

The weather here is wet and miserable and I am looking forward to some sunny days.

So how do I get back into the story. Here I am surrounded by bleak grey skies and relentless rain fall, my studio or what comprises of my studio has flooded and the mice have decided to use it as their home base, my paintings are covered in mice poo, and all the furniture is wet and dank. What a pretty picture I paint.

I am inside, in the warmth, I am lucky, the fire is burning and the dogs and snoring, curried pumkin soup is on the boil ready for lunch. I have time on my hands. I have finished the dreaded accounts for the accountant, they are bound to be all wrong they are every year. And apart from general house hold duties like ironing, cleaning hoovering etc, I have a gap in my day. As I constantly bemoan the fact that I have no time to be creative. Here it is, here is the time, an afternoon all for me. The trouble is it is hard to switch it on and off, it has been off for so long, I wonder where and how I can find it.

Going back in time is not that easy either, Gibralter, Fish and chips, beer and pubs wet weather and a joy to leave. I cannot remember much about the journey from Gibralter to the Canaries, not much about the Canaries apart from stocking up for the next two weeks before arrriving in Antigua. I liked being at sea, I liked leaving my life behind me, I liked leaving a place and knowing that I was far from anywhere. Ooh la la some memories have just come back in.

The Stop off in Casablanca and the fresh water mistake.

 

What and adventure

I really didn't didn' think of it as an adventure, so much as a voyage into the unknown. Something so completely differant to my life on earth so far. Working as a chef/manager in restaurants in England. Working where you get your supplies daily and now I was working out how to shop for at least a month for the crossing from Palm to Antigua. Luckily there was plenty of help around and I was shown a few tricks. Like how to store the fresh fruit and vegetables in the owner's bathroom, everything wrapped in paper, taking things that would last a long time, red and white cabbage, water melon, apples, chinese cabbage for salad later on, carrots, seeds for sprouting. Loads of tins and dry foods.

It felt quite exciting, everyday as we got closer to the leaving date, we would sail from Palma to Gilbrata then on to the Canaries from there straight across to Antigua. Last minute varnishing, putting the boat back in the water, testing the motor and the electircs, putting the sails back on, testing all the sails for rips and holes, doing all the shopping the boat was a constant whirl of activity and we still managed to go out and have fun.

Finally we left Portals Nous to make our way to Gibralta, it is when we were  in the straights of Gibralta that I had my near on collision with a tanker, which I thought to be a house on the hill. The captain came rushing up from the cart table took the helm out of my hands and steared the boat out of trouble. I found Gibralta to be the strangest of places, a little bit of England surrounded by Spain. English pubs, fish and chips, pints of guiness, and the rock of Gibralter full of those very cheeky monkeys. It was fun for a few days and then we moved on.

In the swing of things

                It is ages since I wrote and it is hard to get back into a story when it has been left so long. I have been working hard and having fun. Jack has been here on holiday and we have had family outings. Canoeing on the River Argens, some white water and steep rapids, such fun, I came tumbling out of the boat. On the pedalo in the gorges de Verdon, although it was very crowded and extremely hot. We went together with Jack , David and myself camping in the mountains. Jumping into the gorges de Loup, bathing in freezing mountain water and generally having a splendid time. Yesterday was the last day for the family to be together, everyone is going home and the place will be sadly quiet again.

Katie my neice is a wonderful artist and has drwn some fabulous pictures whilst she has been here, two of which she has given to us. Thank you very much Katie, we love you!

I shall write some boat story tomorrow.

Tara

Portals Nous

We Put my boat on the bike and we were of. The French coast had been cold and autumnal, Mallorca was still warm with a dry breeze, my new job was about to begin for real. The boat was taken out of the water to have an over haul and the hull fixed properly from the accident. In the short time I had been with them the crew had already become family, not difficult when you are living in confined spaces. I had a small cabin to myself which was lucky, it was hard enough acclimatising to a minature cabin and bed without having to share it with someone else.

The captain had rented a crew appartment just up the road from the port whilst the boat was out of the water, and I could cycle to work. I loved my early morning bike ride, arriving iin the port listening to the wind whistle her way through the masts and the rigging, through the flying sut into the boat yard. where the boat stood propped up by huge wooden blocks. there was a long thin bendy ladder on which to climb up to the boat. With every step up I shook a little more. What was my job to be I wondered, no where to cook, the inside of the boat was unusable, all the floor boards were taken up, I could not cook, we could not use running water. I was perplexed.

Things were explained ot me by the first mate. First I would be sanding all the floor boards ready for varnishing, then I would be cleaning all the bilges ready for painting and then I would be scrubbing the anchor chain with a metal brush and repainting that, by which time the boat would be ready to be put back into the water and I could go shopping for the crossing. I guess you can imagine what fun I had. I was too fearful to take the boards down the ladder or indeed up again, but we set  up a sanding area and that is all I did for the first few weeks and so on and so forth, sanding scrubbing cleaning painting. I felt a bit like one of the lads. We used to go to a workers cafe at lunch time and the plat du jour was generally inedable, and you could find such delicacies as pigs trotters on your plate swimming in watery grease.

The nights we went out were certainly looked forward to, a whole new way of going out! Everyone seemed to know one another, everyone seemed to go out at the same time and we all seemed to end up in the same seedy bar to to start our night of with. I cannot remember the name of it, but I do know the drinks were massive and I found myself getting drunk very easily, one drink could do the trick. Everyone talked boats, it was a foeign language to me, hulls and engines and sails and and and, a whole new and strange world.

What was obvious to me was that the family feeling wasn't just confined to one boat, everyone you knew or made friends with bacome part of an extended family, each bar of restuarant we wnet to we would join up with a least 10 - 15 of the same people every time. Some of these people are still dear friends of mine. It was a special time in those day. Yachting was more carefree and adventurous. Today there are a lot of laws and constraints.

I loved it when the boat was put back in the water and it was time for me to do my job for real, to make my galley my own, somewhere that I would be for the next four years of my life.

oops

It has been pouring down with rain here all night, thunder and lightning, cracked kitchen ceiling, water pouring through over the top of the cooker, frightened dogs and now it is a wet fresh morning. I have been thinking about facebook and stories and last night we were talking about facebook and the dangers of writing the wrong thing and it being misconstrued, and how anyone can look you up on facebook and make up there own idea about you.

Why am I saying all this, well my story on the boat was full of ups and downs as life is but some of the downs involved other people and I am not sure that I want to publish it all on the internet, although I would like to write about it. so as you can tell I am in a dilema.

Also at 4 am this morning I realised I was rushing through the Straits of Gibralter before going to Palma. We actually travelled down the coast of France past Toulon and Marseille, the Camargues and onto Barcelona where we stopped and took shelter for the night. We didn't go out or even get off the boat just waited until crack of dawn when things were a bit calmer to go across to the Balearic Island of Mallorca. We did not berth in Palma but in a small called Portals Nous. We spent a month in Palma before going across, and here is where I decide whether or not I continue to tell this story on the web or just to write it for myself.