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

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.

continued

 
Ship yards, on the hard, port starboard, this knot and that knot, none of which I could ever tie or ever throw. So here we were in St Tropez in the ship yard on the hard, with a crew bereft of their ship staying in a B and B, luckily for me I still had my room at John and Annie Odell's house in Gassin and I still had my bike there, so I visited the crew daily and helped with the french and translated quite a bit for the Captain.

It was a late September to remember, suddenly here were hundreds of handsome sailors a few women and a lot of fun in the bars and in the night clubs, it seemed to me anything went, we even went dancing in wellies the weather was so bad. I loved this whole new world of bonhommie, everyone seemed to know each other, every one seemd to be friends and the atmosphere full of fun and competition. The week that the boat was in the ship yard was a great week for me, I had the best of both worlds, a home to go to a whole new bunch of friends and a bike to ride away from it all on when it got too much.

The fun time came to an end, the boat was patched with fibre glass and ready to go, the racing had come to an end, St Tropez emptied of boats as most of them would be going to Palma to prepare for the crossing. Soon was to be my first voyage on the boat with the crew. The rugs came up the cushions were stowed anything that was nice or breakable was put away, the portholes and the hatches tightly shut, we were getting ready for bad weather.

I can remember this trip as being very unpleasant, spending a lot of time in wet weather gear, rain pouring down my back and into my wellies, standing at the helm with a lot of wind, rain and generally nasty weather, too nasty for the sails to be out, only a bit of storm sail to steady the boat a bit.

My worsts nightmare happened in the Straits of Gibralter, my watch was 8-12 midnight with the captain. I was on the helm and Arther was inside at the cart table , the rest of the crew were happily dozing in the crews mess. It was a dark dark night and lights were everywere, I was not yet used the port and starboard lights on the passing ships. quite frankly I didn't know which was which especially when it was coming towards me, and I couldn't work out which side of a boat I was meant to pass on port to port or otherwise. I also couldn't work out the differance between a huge tanker on a collision course with us and possible house on land.

What happened.....

We Went

 
I know that I have put this picture on before but I love it and at the moment I cannot face sorting through the pile of boat pictures that I have in a dark chest that I cannot face opening. I left you on my last page in a beautiful garden in Cap Ferrat all sounding so iddylic and now I am taking you back to the boat.

I don't really feel like dwelling on the journey too much not for now anyway. It was my first voyage on a boat. We were going from Menton to Palma, quite exciting really, stopping in Monaco, ville franche and Cannes and then St Tropez. My favourite Market is in Cannes it is a covered market, not a beautiful building like Menton, practical but the market is fabulous if you go there it is called Marche Fourville, it is a short walk from the old port where we used to berth. I loved that first thing in the morning feeling in Cannes as much as anywhere, the roads newly washed the flowers watered the smell of the night before dampened into the day ahead soon to be burnt off by the sun.

Being with a bunch of boys meant that the girls who were in the minority generally ended up doing what the boys wanted, which usually involved a trip to a strip club on our night off. For me it was not a pleasant experience and thought the whole thing to be quite dull, so we would go to a pub, go to a restaurant, go to a night club to dance and then end up in some sleazy strip club at four in the morning, I would as often as not walk back to the boat on my own.

Pulling me out of the memory of dirty pavements and dark alley ways was always the fresh morning, which is probably why I liked the smell of the newly washed pavements and roads.

Cannes is where I go to buy my fish for the Bouillabaise I make, the market still has fish stands where the local fishermen sell their catch which is a rare thing nowadays. so you can buy the small rock fish necessary for making the bouillabase.

Anyway we went from Cannes to St Tropez and we joined the sail boat racing in the annual races there at the end of  September. The weather was cooler and the racing serious, we were joined by a lot of other sailors and I was the chief sandwich maker. Although I stayed working on the boat for so many years I never really become a sailor I found it all too scary, expecially when there was a lot of wind and the sails filled to capacity and we were ploughing ahead at 12 knots and sometimes faster, then in a race you have to manouvre the boat and the sails and not smach into another boat, which is what we did in St Tropez, it was an accident, both boats were too close, but we got hole in our hull and sea water started gushing in.

All the boys rushed into action to rig up a makeshift plank that would block the water from coming in. We limped slowely into the ship yard, where the boat had to come out of the water on the hard to be fixed.

Our next journey was to Palma, rough seas all the way, grey rainy days and plenty of seasickness. Smashing into the waves and having the sea swooshing over the top of the boat was a frightening experience for a new sailor. I preferred to stay inside in the dry. But becoming part of the crew on this ship also meant that I had to learn to sail and to navigate, and be part of the whole.