ocean-pilgrim

In some ways the rhythms and routines are just like life on land and in other ways it’s very different. There’s still shopping, cooking, exercising, dealing with life admin, cleaning, showering and too much washing up. Added to this there’s a lot of maintenance for Rick as things break all the time and regular cleaning, polishing, and washing down post sailing plus washing (by hand) for me to do.

So, everything that comes onto a boat has to be carried on by us with the exception of fuel and water, just like at a house but a bit more complicated and it always takes way longer.

Fuel we get while we are on a town quay or marina.  In a marina you might go to a special part of the pier with fuel pumps just like at a regular service station or a mini diesel truck might come to the boat and fill you up from a long hose.

For water we have a Watermaker (240V), a mini, onboard desalination plant which runs from our generator and makes pure sparkling water for us to drink, wash and cook with. The generator is a bit noisy but the Watermaker makes about 100 litres an hour so we only run it every week for a few hours at a time.  Occasionally we also use the generator to top up our batteries if the solar panels haven’t been keeping up (or we have stowed them because its too windy).  While the generator is on, I use the 240V to charge our laptops, vacuum, use the blender if I need to and every few weeks I defrost the fridge and its way quicker when I melt the ice in the freezer with the hairdryer than waiting for it to melt without help.

Everything else we carry aboard.  It’s easy if you are on a town quay where we reverse up to the footpath. Pros of this are ease of provisioning and people watching from our own dining table. Cons are its hot, dirty and sometimes noisy plus you end up with very close neighbours who you can’t choose and you can’t swim off the boat because of the rest of those issues. I have one of those old lady wheelie trolleys that we can transport a gas cylinder for replacement or pack with food and drinks. If we hire a car, we always scope out the larger supermarkets that are located out of town and stock up on basics. If we are not on a town quay, we still do the same thing but the trolley and/or shopping bags go into the dinghy and are hauled up and onto the boat by both of us working together so as not to drop anything overboard. So far so good!

So, when not reversed up to a quay or in a marina (this is rare as they have all the same issues as a town quay and cost a minimum of 50 Euros) to get to a town we need our dinghy.  When we sail from place to place this lives upside down on our deck up the bow of the boat. 

It’s a new dinghy as the old one died a long, slow, hole filled death last season.  It’s got an aluminium bottom on it which is fantastic for hauling up on rocky beaches but makes it too heavy for the 2 of us to lift. So we have developed our own new system where Rick attaches a halyard (a rope that comes from the top of the mast) to the front of the dinghy and I take this rope back to an electric winch at the back of the boat and I lift the dinghy using this.  Rick stops it from flying around like a zeppelin (harder than you might imagine in the wind) and guides it over the side and down into the water, carefully making sure it doesn’t land upside down.  Then we get the oars out of a cupboard in the cockpit and then put on the outboard.  The outboard is also too heavy to lift by hand (especially if the water is choppy) so we use the same method using a lifting arm (like a small crane) and a rope to an electric winch down the stern of the boat to get it on and off the dinghy. 

Then we’re ready to go.  No!  Wait!  You forgot the rubbish and loo paper and recycling! And did you check the petrol in the outboard?  Did you get the roller to help the dinghy up the beach and the sponge for any water in the dinghy?  Did you get your shoes or flip flops, the towel to dry your feet off before socks go on, shopping bags, phone, sunglasses, hat? Ready! If the wind is blowing towards you it might mean that the dinghy ride is a wet and cold affair as you get sprayed with water from waves and you arrive onshore bedraggled and grumpy with see through clothing. Better if this happens on the way back to the boat.

Then you bring kilos and kilos of stuff back to the boat!

If you are on a town quay in the summer you have to be ready for the afternoon boat traffic jam. (Kind of like last minute campers arriving expecting to find a good spot!) We know this happens so we arrive early at a port to claim a prime place as soon as people have left, at about 11am.  We find a spot and then get prepared to do a terrifying manoeuvre (not really but it still stresses me out a lot) called Med Mooring.  Before we even get into port and while Rick is bringing the boat towards the port, I get out our 8 fenders from the cockpit locker and tie them, 4 on each side. Then I get our stern lines out and tie them to cleats down the stern and prepare them so when I throw them in to someone onshore, they hopefully they don’t all snarled up.  Then I run down below to get the ropes for the Pasarelle (boarding plank).  When all this is done I go up to the anchor and get it ready to drop.  Rick will size up the exact spot then tell me to drop the anchor.  If I can see the bottom I will make sure we are dropping onto sand or mud not rocks and not on top of someone else’s anchor or chain. I’ll let the chain down for a bit then Rick will call me back and I will make sure we don’t hit the neighbouring boats as we come back towards the quay.  Rick has the controls for the anchor chain at the helm and makes sure this is running out as he reverses in.  The propellor wants to screw us around to the left (a little like reversing a trailer) so Rick accounts for this while I throw the lines to shore getting the windward one tied up as quickly as possible.  Rick leaves the boat in reverse to keep us straight and to make sure the anchor is well dug in then he comes and helps get the lines and the pasarelle sorted.  Are your sweating?  Is your blood pressure up? Yep, mine too. This is when it all goes well….it doesn’t always. Sometimes there’s no one there to get the lines and I have to get off the boat and throw them back to Rick which means getting off using the Pasarelle before its properly secured.  The worst is when there’s a cross shore wind or current that pushes the boat off the course that Rick has it on.  Then a lot can go wrong quickly. We really try to avoid going stern to in these conditions.  I wish I had photos of all this but there is not one after 4 seasons. It’s simply too hectic and stressful to capture it in the moment.

Then in the late afternoon everyone else arrives (the traffic jam).  The dreaded manoeuvre (no matter who is doing it but charters in particular) is to reverse in between two already parked boats without causing anyone any damage. There’s often a rush for the few empty places like a car park at Christmas time. They often have varying skill levels and varying levels of care for their and your boat. And like I say you can’t choose your neighbours. They often anchor over the top of other people’s anchor or chain creating what is known as an “anchor salad” when the next morning the guy with the trapped anchor wants to leave first.

When there is a boat snuggly and safely both sides of you, fenders all in place then you can breathe out and congratulate yourself on how worthwhile it was and go off for a well-earned glass of wine at a taverna a few steps away or alternatively just collapse thankfully in the cockpit and sit back to watch the ongoing entertainment of more boats arriving.

Then you can go and get your milk.