Windward

A Bracing Freshness in the Air

noreply@blogger.com (Joe) — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 13:41:00 +0000

First of all, an apology. I hadn't meant to leave it a month to write a new entry, but technology defeated me. There is some obscure interaction between my firewall and the web software that has conspired against me. Hopefully this will make onto the page.

I'm sure that at several points, I had witty and amusing insights that would have entertained you mightily as you wasted time at your desks, but I've forgotten them all. So, the bare bones account of my Christmas and New Year goes like this:

Christmas: kiddies, playing Monster Uncle, bike riding lessons, MORE swings NOW. You get the idea. Total exhaustion and too much food.
New Year: back in London. No big celebration. New Year out in London is the circle of Hell that Dante couldn't bear to mention.
Back to aikido: I've regressed about ten years in the time I've been away. Merrily bashed all over the floor by people who were novices when I left. Depressing.
Gym/fitness: yeah, right.
Work, proper: not a sausage. But then I haven't been particularly focussed on getting my cv away. Part of the issue has been deciding on what I want to be. Apparently, it's a bit difficult to get fifty grand a year and generous holidays for reading the newspaper, unless you work for London Transport, which I don't fancy.
Work, pretend: yep, loads. Stood on the Clipper stand at the Boat Show for four days, trying to persuade people to take part in next year's race, and thinking to myself HYPOCRITE. Actually, it was quite nice to meet the Clipper dudes and hear the gossip - the main part being that the ebullient Simon Rowell has resigned as Chief Instructor, an event similar in magnitude to Alex Ferguson leaving Man Utd, Jeremy Paxman leaving Newsnight and Davina McCall leaving Big Brother all combined.
Sailing: yep, some of that too. Also in town helping the Clipper effort was Simon Bradley, who skippered us to Cardiff in the summer. He put me in touch with a friendly couple called Rob and Annette who run a huge 95ft classic sailing yacht called Halcyon that was berthed in St Katherine's Dock. I was to help them deliver it down to Cowes this week, but the weather has blown up nastily and we only made it to Eastbourne before being forced to run for cover. There were too few of us to sail it easily, and besides, the wine glasses might have got broken. It's a different kind of sailing. I may rejoin them at a later date.

That's it. I suppose I could do a better job and be a bit more expansive about some aspect or other. But the ultra-condensed version is: no job, some messing about the Boat Show, and a bit of rather bouncy sailing. And no job, did I mention that?

By Way of Contrast

noreply@blogger.com (Joe) — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 19:10:00 +0000

December 21st.

Midsummer in South Africa, midwinter in Ireland. Probably about 35 degrees in Durban, about minus 3 in Derry. Awake in Durban at 5am with sunshine streaming through the windows - meet for sundowners at 7pm. Awake in Derry at 9am with the sun barely struggling above the horizon - sundowners not too long after afternoon tea (make mine a hot toddy). Appropriate clothing in Durban - a pair of shorts. Appropriate clothing in Derry - fleecy jumper, thick coat, gloves, scarf, beanie.

I am in one of these two places.

Which one? The WRONG one, obviously.

Well, not really. Derry has some things going for it. My family are here, and Christmas actually feels like Christmas is supposed to - ie miserable. Its purpose (as a replacement Saturnalia) is to cheer you up when the weather is cold and it's dark for twenty hours of the day. So I'm better off here.

It has to be said that I am having some nostalgic thoughts about last year on a beach in Fremantle, but I'm bearing up manfully.

Newswise, there is little to tell. My final few days in RSA were spent doing a few odd jobs for PYT, and the inevitable evening beers with my hosts, including Colin who had just made it back from his lengthy overseas trip.

The journey back was uneventful. Soon after my return, I met up in London with small but select group of Cardiff veterans for a predictably boozy Tuesday evening. And I've already had one job application rejected. Not to panic - the pub at the bottom of my street needs a glass collector. I feel I can bring a results-centred, customer-driven focus to the role which will significantly contribute to receptacle turnover in their establishment.

That exciting opportunity can wait until after Christmas dinner. I'm back in the oul' sod until the 30th. There is much fussing over nieces and god-children to be done in that time. Cunningly, I've made sure to buy them toys that I myself am very happy to play with.

To those who have not received a Christmas card from me (ie all of you): have a very Happy Christmas, and a quiet night in front of the telly for New Year.

Ocean Yachtdude

noreply@blogger.com (Joe) — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 13:23:00 +0000

Well, just for the record, I made it past my Yachtmaster Ocean exam without too much hassle. Some exercises on the ins and outs of star sights, some penetrating questions about hurricane tactics, and an intensive discussion about the planning, preparation and execution of a three-month ocean cruise: and then it was over. I now officially Know It All.

Not true, of course, but it is true that there will be no more training courses to do. Unless I choose to go down the route of becoming an instructor or a mega-yacht skipper (highly unlikely), there is no further work to do.

And thus the project comes to an end. I sent my first speculative enquiries about the Clipper Race in May 2004 when I was a diligent (but clearly dissatisfied) investment banker. Two and a half years later, I am as qualified as I can be in amateur yacht sailing and preparing to head back to the routine of a London office.

Two more days in South Africa, some time back in Ireland to spend time with the folks over Christmas, New Year in London, and then the job applications start. I'm partly regretful, partly apprehensive, but also fairly energised and eager to get a normal life going again. It's been fun, and it will be fun again, but the holiday is over: any more and I think I would become jaded. In any case, a sailing job is, in the end, just a job. Instead of waking up and thinking, "Bugger, have to go to the office", you think "Bugger, out sailing today" - whether as a trainer, delivery crew or charter skipper.

So the plan is to work, earn some wonga, and retain enough free time to sail for fun every weekend.

Before that, I'm trying to make myself useful to the guys here and doing whatever bits and pieces I can help with. I'm sure we'll have a few beers together before the tearful farewell on Friday.

To be honest, I am getting a bit disoriented by the Southern Hemisphere Christmas. It's a bit bizarre to walk around the shops in thirty degree sunshine with Bing Crosby crooning "Let It Snow, Let It Snow" in the background. It's much better to have all of the Christmas hoo-ha on a dark, cold December evening with driving sleet adding to the misery. I'm sure Derry and London will not disappoint.

Yachtdude

noreply@blogger.com (Joe) — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 10:50:00 +0000

I made it.

Yesterday evening a very nice gent by the name of Peter Nell shook me by the hand and told me that I am now an Yachtmaster (Offshore).

He could have added (but didn't), "and one very lucky man."

It would have been nice to pass my RYA yachtmaster with the most outrageously perfect examination performance in the history of that fine organisation. It was very far from being the case. However, the qualification is just pass or fail: there are no grades, so no-one need know how close it was (except that I am foolishly writing about it in a public forum).

It had already been a fairly stressful week before the exam started, starting before we left Durban.

The plan was that Neil would accompany me. He would supervise my theory exam on Monday evening. Assuming that went well, we had organised a boat and some local crew to practise the standard manoeuvres on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then I was to have my exam on Thursday.

I showed up at Durban airport on Monday morning for the flight to Cape Town. The first news of the day was that Neil had suffered a bereavement (a family member) the previous night. Acting far, far beyond the call of duty, he flew with me to Cape Town, got me out to Langebaan, and supervised the examination. I passed, and he then signed my all-important course completion certicate, which has to be done by the course instructor.

There was no way he could stay, so he headed off very early the next morning. In the meantime, some light-footed work by the guys at PYT had already organised me a replacement instructor - a local by the name of Charles Reynolds. It was a terrible turn of events, but the efforts of Keith Stewart at PYT and Neil's selflessness meant I was still on track.

The point of doing the exam near Cape Town is that there is a significant tidal current there, which is not the case in Durban. Tidal currents make manoeuvring quite a lot more complicated. Once upon a time, the idea had been that we might practise the techniques in Maputo, but you may recall that the boat spent most of its week there stuck fast in the mud. So I had two days to master it, as well as get used to working with my temporary crew: Colin, Chris and Jaco.

Well, for those two days, Charles just hammered me. He battered me on my Man Overboard routine, my docking, my boat handling, my trimming and my general ships knowledge. I nearly pranged the boat a couple of times, almost crash gybed, and royally cocked up my mooring under sail. It didn't help that the boat was operated with a tiller rather than a wheel. I haven't done a whole lot of dinghy sailing, and I'm used to having all my essential controls and compass at a binnacle. It took some getting used to.

I was pretty punch drunk by the time we docked on Wednesday evening, and the night was yet young. I had a passage plan to write for the following day and lots of cramming to do. I had a horrible feeling I was going to have a shit of an examiner and terrible weather.

I had neither. The weather sunny and pleasantly breezy, and Peter was courtesy itself. Nonetheless, he put me through my paces. Some stuff went quite well. Amazingly, I managed to pick up a mooring under sail despite missing it three times in practice the previous day. Apparently my anchoring under sail was "good", despite the fact that I had done it for the first time less than twenty-four hours previously.

Some stuff was not so good. I had two man-overboard drills. The first went fine. The second (with simulated engine failure) took a couple of attempts, but I did manage to get Mr Fender back. The most nail-biting moment was coming off the mooring. I foolishly failed to take into account the leeway of the boat as I sailed off, and almost put us on the rocks. Peter gave me a bit of a look for that one.

The only bit I'm really happy with was my blind navigation exercise. Also known as "RYA fog", this is where the candidate gets sent below, and has to navigate from a chart without being able to see where the boat is going, as if visibility was very restricted. The idea is to shout the course up to the crew, who can report nearby features only if they are very close. GPS is not used.

I had to navigate back to the cheesily-named Club Mykonos, where we were berthed. After about an hour of plottings, dead-reckonings, and calculations, I reckoned we should be right on the doorstep. I shouted up to ask if they could see anything close by. "Not really" came the disheartening answer. Never mind, I had a fall-back plan. I started to explain it when I was told to give up and come on deck. My heart in my mouth, I went up. The marina entrance was twenty metres away, right on the money. That felt good.

Half an hour after that, I had my ticket.

It has to be said that I owe a huge debt to Colin, Jaco and Chris who helpedenormously. I couldn't have asked for more.

It's not over yet. I have an exam tomorrow for my Yachtmaster (Ocean) certificate, but it is purely a theory test. I will be asked to demonstrate my knowledge of celestial navigation plus some extra stuff about long-distance passage planning, boat management and meteorology. Quite apart from the fact that I feel more at home with the material, I'm just not as bothered if I don't pass it. The exam can be repeated easily enough and anyway, the really meaty one is the Offshore component.

So I now have some bits of paper (in principle, at least). The truth is that I am NOT really a master yachtsman or anything like it. I have a lot of miles, but not a huge variety of experience: I haven't skippered much, or done much close manoeuvring, or sailed very many different kinds of boat. I sailed 35,000 nm on Cardiff and never helmed it onto a berth once. Still, I hope to have a lot of fun rectifying those deficiencies.

I'm in Cape Town today, in the V&A waterfront. It's a consumerist monstrosity created for tourists with lots of expensive shops, cafes, bars and theatres. It's the complete opposite of the real Africa. I'm loving it. I'm taking a day's R&R before the exam tomorrow. Then I'm off to Jo'burg for a day to see a chum there. If I survive that, I'll be back in Durban on Monday evening.

Feeling good.

I wasn't the only person who had a good day yesterday. My godson, Master Ronan Gallagher, turned TWO yesterday. I was away sailing when he arrived in the world, I was away sailing when he had his first birthday, and now I'm away sailing on his second. This cannot go on. He's going to have to come sailing next year.

Vomit Comet

noreply@blogger.com (Joe) — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 19:05:00 +0000

There are many slang terms for the word "vomit", such as "puke" and "spew". Some of these are distinctly regional - where I'm from, we say "boke". In South Africa, the relevant term is "kotch".

Today, for the first time in well over a year, I kotched while at sea.

I had foolishly agreed to go out with Shaun and a couple of the other students, Evan and Alex, to take some more sun sights for the Ocean Yachtmaster exam. These have to be done out of sight of land, so the plan was to get on the boat at 5am and head directly offshore. The forecast was for a benign fifteen knots of breeze. The intention was to take it easy and perhaps do some fishing.

It was not to be. The breeze built fairly quickly, so that before long we were on a close reach with two reefs and our number 3 jib. The wind wasn't actually too bad, maxing at about 25 knots (Force 6, disparagingly known to salty sea dogs as a "yachtsman's gale"), but the sea state was a mess. We got hit by two proper greenies, one of which lifted me right up in the air before plonking me rudely back on the deck. (For those not familiar with the term, a "greenie" is the sort of wave that makes the whole world go momentarily green as you get completely immersed in water.)

All of this was most distressing, as I have long ago committed myself to a more gentlemanly kind of sailing, which mostly involves loafing around the yacht club bar in a blue blazer, loudly expounding my views on capital punishment and slurping large pink gins. Nonetheless, today I found myself in the sadly familiar position of struggling to hank on a headsail at the wet end of a wet boat on a very wet day.

I suppose things weren't helped by the fact that the L34 is nowhere near as stable a platform as good old Cardiff. It's half the size for a start, and it's really a very light (though sturdy) race boat. It all gets very bouncy.

As did the contents of my stomach. Deviating from the usual script, I was more or less fine as we headed upwind, and only started to turn seriously green when we bore away back home. As always, however, it's better out than in, and the world was a happier place after I fed the fish. It wasn't too embarassing: a couple of the other guys were also sick.

Perhaps it was nerves. My exams are confirmed for next week. Theory on Monday, practical prep on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then a monster twelve hour practical test including night sailing on Thursday. The Ocean exam (incorporating the celestial navigation) is on Friday. It's going to be in Cape Town and Langebaan (about sixty miles north of there) as Durban is not an approved RYA exam centre, so I am catching a flight on Monday.

Obviously, you think, I will be feverishly poring over my books, polishing up on my COLREGS, GMDSS, MARPOL and all the other acronyms that infest sailing these days. No, I won't actually. The good people of Professional Yachtmaster Training have invited me to their Christmas do, which is a weekend camping in Rocky Bay, south of Durban. I believe the plan is to drink beer, burn the flesh of dead animals, and talk rubbish. I suspect it will be a lot better than most office parties I have attended.

So the plan for the next week is to party, and do exams. I feel like a proper student again. Next, I'll be collecting for Rag Week and going to Socialist Worker demos.

Except I won't. Next, I'll be packing up my kit and heading back to the UK. I have come to a momentous decision in the last couple of weeks: I'm heading back to Real Life. It's not really a financial decision, more that I don't want sailing to be a job. I would rather have it as something to look forward to.

So I will be in the job market next year. I won't be going back to the markets, as I have that t-shirt already, but given my skills, abilities and experience I do expect I will be settling into an office job sometime in the next few months.

Yuk. I need to kotch again.

South, But Not Too Far

noreply@blogger.com (Joe) — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 08:30:00 +0000

Durban, relatively painlessly. Rather weirdly for this trip, things went more or less according to plan. We weighed anchor from Clube Naval early on Monday morning.

Along for the ride was a chum of Neil, called Nuno Quartin, who is a Portuguese Mozambican who now lives in Durban. We had drained his brain of his comprehensive local knowledge for our survey over the previous few days. He is something of an aristocrat among the great and the good of the Clube Naval, having been a member since about the time of Henry the Navigator. He is, of course, a ridiculously experienced sailor. He and Neil have cruised together extensively. I won't recount the story of their traversal of Suez since that will no doubt be in a book of its own some day. Let it just be said, the man has miles.

It's rather irritating that a full circumnavigation with the Clipper race only just gets me into the "promising youngster" category in this part of the world.

Anyway, back to the sailing.

The plan was: motor out to Inhaca island early in the day, catch the North-East wind as it blew up mid-morning, run downwind to Richards Bay in short order, consider ducking in if the South-Wester threatened (as was forecast), then zip down to Durban when it passed.

And, lo, so it was. More or less. The North-East came a bit later than we thought but otherwise the Richards Bay leg was a 20 hour sprint. The South-Wester did loom as we made the harbour entrance. We had to clear in through the usual blizzard of officialdom, and there was no pontoon to berth at so we were perched at a stone jetty in the small craft harbour. Apart from that, it was all sweet: beer, portuguese food, and talking crap. The finer things in life.

The international cruising yachties are starting to arrive in South Africa from the Indian Ocean islands as they flee the cyclone season. They are a salty bunch, sailing a variety of alarmingly tiny looking cruising boats. They clearly watch out for one another, and there was evident relief when one of their companions, sailing single-handed, pitched into the Bay several days late after nineteen days at sea.

Also there was one of Neil's delivery skipper buddies, Terry Cox. Usual thing - about two million miles experience, three circumnavigations, and skin you could make a saddle out of.

As I said, it's irritating.

The balance of the trip to Durban was a bit dull, but mercifully quick. The wind was light, so we chugged down stinkboat-stylee, but at least we weren't beating. We made Durban in an uneventful fourteen hours. At least we had plenty of opportunity to observe the humpback whales again. As I said before, this coast is just infested with them. Honestly, they should get some Japanese sushi scientists in to sort the problem out. Apart from anything else, they are a legal hazard. The rules say you shouldn't get within 300 metres of them. However, no-one has told the whales.

We passed close to one doing its favourite party trick of floating vertically with its tail waving in the air. Those tail flukes are just, uh (consults thesaurus), big - so big you just stare slack-jawed at the thing and say profound things like, "Bloody hell, that's big."

We managed not to hit any.

My plan to take celestial sights almost came a cropper when the North-Easter rather atypically brought a grey, overcast sky with it. In theory, I know how to fix my position using stars, planets, the Moon and the Sun. Clouds, however, are tricky. I did eventually manage to take some sun sights on the way down from Richards Bay. I didn't do anything as keen as actually reduce them on the boat. I'll do that at my leisure here on shore. Mr GPS got us home safely.

(Actually, we didn't even use that. The passage plan was : Keep Africa on the right, and head in when you see a massive city. Don't let anyone tell you that this navigation stuff is hard.)

So, we are back in Durban. There is much to do. Apart from reducing sights and getting geared up for some exams, there's the boat to clean, a load of rancid laundry and other similarly exciting tasks.

Plus, of course a bit of net surfing, blogs and the like. Todays favourite is to read about the unfolding drama about 1100nm more or less directly south of here.

The competitors in the Velux 5 Oceans are currently heading into the Southern Ocean. This is a single-handed race - not quite non-stop, but with very few breaks. They sail Open 60s, which are to Clipper 68s what a Formula 1 Ferrari is to a Volvo 740 estate.

Early on Friday morning, the keel dropped off Hugo Boss, sailed by former Clipper skipper Alex Thomson. This is bad. At 45° south it's lethal. The Open 60 is a very wide design, and so it can stay up without its keel. But what changes very much for the worse is its angle of vanishing stability, which measures how easily it will recover after being flipped over. Without a keel, it won't.

So, cue some heroics from another competitor, a legendary solo sailor called Mike Golding in Ecover. He turned his boat around, sailed back 80 miles upwind and rescued Thomson.

That's a short sentence to describe what must have been a hellish time. The Open 60 doesn't go so well upwind, and down at those latitudes nothing goes well upwind. The Challenge 72s, which are steel boats designed for it, come back to the UK with massive dents from the battering they take. Plus, Golding didn't have an engine, so manoeuvring must have been torture. Apparently it took four hours to get Thomson on board.

And then, only a few hours later, Ecover's mast broke. So now Thomson and Golding and Thomson are struggling back to Cape Town (about 1000nm). They are most seriously in the poo.

Hopefully, they will get there safely, but both will be shattered. The first time I saw Thomson, and Hugo Boss, was alongside the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town two years ago when he was forced to retire from the 2004 Vendee Globe with a mast malfunction. He will probably want to puke when he sees it again, and this time having abandoned his boat to the sea.

Check out the news at the 5 oceans website. It's just bonkers.

I'll be heading over that way for my exams. I might get to see them come in. Here's hoping they are both OK.

Talking Heads

noreply@blogger.com (Joe) — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 09:09:00 +0000

Our time in Maputo is nearly up. As I write, Neil is out on the boat with our Mozambican students, putting them through some final paces before their exam this afternoon. As the weather forecast looks good for a North-Easter, we will probably leave tomorrow morning.

Our last few days have been, as usual, a bit mixed. We got out of the marina at High Water on Thursday without much trouble, which was a relief. We anchored in front of the Clube Naval, which is also beset by silt and cannot accomodate large keelboats. It is not an ideal anchorage, being exposed to both the common wind directions here, but we had little choice as we had to be able to easily transfer the students on by tender.

The first hiccup was that John had to leave us abruptly, due to a personal problem back in Durban. We were sorry to see him go. He is a remarkable man, who has created a life where by rights none should be possible. His attackers placed a nine-millimetre pistol directly to his head and still he survived. His injuries were so severe, he even has a death certificate. I was brought up to pay proper respects to the deceased, and I am very happy to accord John more reverence than normal.

Friday was perhaps our most succesful day. We took the students out for their first real day of sailing. Conditions were perfect - strong enough to get the boat moving convincingly yet not strong enough to cause too much stress. They all enjoyed themselves thoroughly.

Saturday was a smidgin less enjoyable. The day progressed as follows.

4:30 am - awake on the boat with growling tummy, and definite signs of imminent African scoots syndrome.
5:00 am - wind picks up from south-west. Boat starts to pitch violently at anchor.
6:00 am - visit heads to dispose of contents of African tummy.
6:05 am - flush heads.
6:06 am - block heads.
6:10am - strip, don foulies, get bucket, sponge and toolbox.
6:20am - boat touches bottom on falling tide. Abandon heads to move anchorage.
6:30am - resume heads maintenance.
7:30am - boat touches bottom again. Repeat previous two steps.
8:30am - admit defeat. Seal heads unit, wipe up shit.
9:00am - go ashore.
9:05am - discover water off and showers inoperative. Cry, and want my mummy.
9:10am - torrential rain starts.

It goes on, but I shan't bore you any more. That, of course, is a fairly bare outline of what happened. I don´t think you want me to wax too poetical about the exact feeling of being wedged into a tiny heads compartment, on a pitching boat in 25 knots of breeze with copious quantities of African diarrhoea swilling around the compartment and more making its presence felt in my gut.

I finally fixed it this morning. The problem was with a component called (honestly) the joker valve. Why is it called that? If I told you what I had to do to fix it, you´d say "You must be f...ing joking!"

It hasn´t all been awful. We had a great meal out with our hosts last night. More of those amazing prawns. But the bad stuff is tending to dominate my thoughts at the moment.

Never mind. Off tomorrow, and hopefully a good downhill run to Durban. En route, I have to take some celestial sights to qualify for my Ocean Yachtmaster exam. Should be interesting.

Discovering Maputo

noreply@blogger.com (Joe) — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 14:16:00 +0000

Well, as detailed in my last post, it hasn't been a great start to the Maputo experience, but things are getting a bit better, and we are beginning to achieve things.

Our purpose here is two-fold: to teach a Day Skipper course for some local sailors, and to survey the Bay of Maputo for suitability as an RYA training area. (I hope to be the first beneficiary.)

Objective One ran aground (literally) on Saturday (although the theoretical classroom-based component is going well). However, we hope to get sailing again tomorrow as we get closer to spring tides. Hopefully there will be an extra half metre of water in the harbour at High Water, which will float our boat. If not, we are in trouble. The only remaining techniques available to us involve steel cable, slings and Chinook helicopters.

We began on Objective Two yesterday, and yet again things started inauspiciously. The plan has always been to scoot around the bay in a motor boat taking bearings, checking depths and generally assessing potential anchorages. We had reserved a small boat for the purpose, courtesy of one of the many helpful souls at the Clube Naval. However, half a mile outside the marina, the engine started to labour and we found that a valve in the fuel line was faulty. Back to base.

We were rescued by the club president, Miguel, who is one of those people who just exudes a kind of tireless "can-do" energy. He provided us with the use of his large ski-boat which he uses for fishing. To my sailing mentality, there is something just rude about skimming across the water on an airless day at 30 knots. But there is no denying it gets you around. We achieved much, surveying the perimeter of Xefina Island (which bears no relation to the image on the most recent chart). Today we zipped around the paradise island of Inhaca, spotting frigate birds and cranes along huge, perfct beaches.

Apart from that, I have just been getting the feel of this place. It is really easy to write bad stuff about Mozambique. It is very poor (it was once the poorest in the world), it had a horrific civil war in the 1980s that killed a million people and it's vital statistics are still fairly chilling. Here's one: the average life expectancy is 37 years. I'm an old man here.

If you want to know more, click on the Oxfam link on the left. They have all the news on the country, plus what they are doing about it.

So bad stuff aplenty. Maputo bears the marks of a poor Third World country - rubbish, squalor, poorly maintained buildings and infrastructure. But as so often, it is side-by-side with signs of prosperity and luxury. Near where we are berthed, a roadside advertisment for Mont Blanc pens looks down on an open sewer.

Part of me wants to believe that these are signs that things will improve for everyone. After all, it is impossible to expect the whole population to start increasing their standards of living at the same rate. But that life expectancy number needs a lot of work before Mont Blanc pens become accessible to the bulk of the population.

Having said that, the visitor sees little evidence of out-and-out misery. People are friendly. I feel pretty safe here (much more so than in the Philippines, for example). The markets thrive. The colours are vibrant. The music has that pleasant mixture of Latin and African also found in Brazil. Out on the bay, lateen-rigged dhows sail up and down carrying fishermen who work the bay as their forebears will have done for centuries. There is plenty to please the senses.

The only real problem for us has been the infestation of mosquitos. We came prepared, with insect repellent and coils to burn inside the boat. The Moz mozzies laugh in the face of such measures. Come sundown, they zoom into the boat, inhale the aroma appreciatively and chow down. I think what is marketed as mosquito repellent in South Africa is actually akin to Chanel No19 for these buggers, judging by how utterly unfazed they were by it. Neil is a flinty-eyed veteran of numerous African hellholes and has never seen anything like it. We have upped our anti-bug arsenal to include the mozzie equivalent of cluster-bombs, napalm and sarin nerve gas but still they come. Last night we zapped the boat with so much insecticide it set off the gas alarm. It did us more harm than it did them.

None of this is particularly pleasant in a malaria zone.

We are offshore as of tomorrow hopefully, so maybe it will be better then.

I hope.

No, I pray.

Mozambique

noreply@blogger.com (Joe) — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 07:32:00 +0000

As a child, I learned that the capital of Mozambique was Lourenco Marques. At the age of thirty-five, to my shame, I have only just learned that it is now called Maputo. This knowledge was revealed to me as we arrived into the harbour here on Saturday afternoon, which is cutting it a bit fine.

Getting here has been a bit of a "performance", as South Africans tend to label any particularly laborious process - "in five acts" if they want to emphasize the point.

We left at noon on Tuesday. The boat was provisioned for, provisionally, two to three days at sea for the 240nm coastal passage, plus a ten to fifteen day stay here. So far, things have not gone totally to plan.

To start with, just completing the paperwork to get out of Durban was something of a "mission", as South Africans say when they feel they are over-using the word "performance". The procedure for clearing out of a South African port is clearly the brainchild of a particularly efficient bureaucracy. Note that I do not mean that it is particularly efficient at regulating traffic in and out of the port, but that it is highly efficient at being a bureaucracy.

That means forms. Lots of forms. And stamps - big, heavy ones that make a satisfying thump when they are whacked down on the forms. It means multiple grim offices, in multiple grim industrial locations. It means quizzical eyebrows and exasperated sighs when it transpires that this sadly ill-informed client has failed to obtain Exemption Certificate 87X1C (Part A). All very expertly done in this case.

Me, I'd have placed the Port Authority office somewhere slightly less obvious than in the actual port. I would perhaps have encouraged the imaginative use of carbon paper to increase file sizes. But on the whole it was a satisfyingly laborious, tedious, and complex process.

Nonetheless, four hours of wrestling with officaldom saw us on our way.

Ideally, the timing of a passage would be made with due regard to suitable weather conditions. In sailing "weather" basically means "wind". On the South-East coast of Africa, it's pretty easy. They have two kinds of wind: North-East and South-West - in other words, up the coast or down the coast. If you want to go up the coast, leave when the wind is blowing up the coast, and vice versa.If you want to go up the coast, don't leave when the wind is blowing down the coast because that is stupid. It involves beating to windward, and as we all know gentlemen don't sail to windward.

Much to my mother's shame, I am sadly no gentleman, and my life actually and metaphorically often involves a large amount of beating upwind - hence the title of this blog.

And so, since Neil was contracted to start a sailing course on Saturday 11th, we had to leave on Tuesday despite a brisk North-East breeze.

It wasn't too bad to start with, and came from slightly more to the East. We were able to sail close-hauled in pretty much the right direction for a while. Even when it did eventually back to the North-East, it was light enough that we could drop the sails and motor into it. It's not elegant, but it gets the job done.

The net result was that we made decent progress and fetched Richards Bay (the last port in RSA before Mozambique) by breakfast time on Wednesday. We had clocked 85 miles. Not brilliant, but not bad either.

Then the breeze kicked in properly. It became impossible to motor into it and so we hoisted the sails and began to beat to windward.

I've explained this process before, but perhaps the basic facts bear repeating:

It's quite a trick. Sailing boats can't sail exactly into the wind, but they can zig-zag ("beat" or "tack") at about 45 degrees to the the wind.
It's a complete, absolute, vertically-integrated, surgically-enhanced pain in the arse.

It can also be ridiculously slow. Suppose the boat can sail at five knots. Not bad. You can make 120nm in a day, which is progress. However, if you are beating you zig-zag at an angle to the wind which, in the best of conditions, adds about 40% to your journey. So of your 120nm travelled, only about 85 miles is progress.

And conditions are rarely that good. Add in the effects of an adverse current (there's real doozy off this coast) and the fact that a strong breeze knocks the boat sideways downwind and you get to the stage where you have sailed 120nm in twenty-four hours, but are only thirty miles closer to your destination.

The effects are cruelly apparent on a coastal passage when you find that, after half an hour of thumping around, that interesting rock on the beach is only about five hundred metres further away.

Thusly we found ourselves on Wednesday afternoon. We were in no danger, just damp and frustrated. However, the situation deserved some thought. Standfast is an adapted race boat designed to be sailed comfortably by six to eight people. We were three. We faced the prospect of two or three days more of this torture, at which point we would be endangered by our own fatigue.

Such were Neil's thoughts. He's not a softie by any stretch (he has 150,000 miles of sailing under his belt), but he was pretty clear that continuing on would put us in unnecessary jeopardy. The coast of Africa is sparsely populated and there would be no port of refuge or anchorage until Maputo. So, reluctantly, we turned back for Richards Bay, which sadly wasn't that far away for all our efforts.

At Richards Bay we found showers, loos, beer and pizza, which as any yachtie knows are (almost) the only necessary ingredients for a truly happy life. We had a night's sleep before heading off again - not without the inevitable five-act bureaucratic performance, of course.

The forecast was for a stiff South-Westerly which would propel us up the coast at warp speed. It was pleasant, as we smashed through the chop thrown up by a diametrically opposite wind, to ponder the remarkably high levels of illegitimacy among employees of the South African Weather Service. Nonetheless, we knew that the vaunted South-Westerly was actually blowing in Durban, so we had reasonable grounds to believe it would catch up with us soon.

It didn't. Well, it did, on Thursday evening for a couple of hours before it died. We dreaded the return of the wind from the North-East, but happily it did the second most decent thing it could, and just stayed light and calm.

The result was that Friday and Saturday were dominated by motoring. That's not too much fun, but at least the rock on the beach recedes at a reasonable rate. We rounded Inhaca Island at the edge of the Bay of Maputo on Saturday mid-morning, and made Maputo itself at about 3pm. It had taken over four days to do 240nm, and we counted ourselves fortunate.

In truth, it wasn't bad at all. The sights, sounds and smells of the African coast are not hard to bear, provided they past by at a reasonable rate.

The tourism authorities here employ a troupe of rather flamboyant and theatrical humpback whales to entertain coastal sailors here. They breach, they spout, they lazily wave around tail flukes rather larger than I am - the whole Discovery Channel thing. It's all a bit "Look at me, I'm awesome" for some tastes, but it passes the time if you like that sort of thing. Which I do.

It was unfortunate, then, that we ran one over. At least we think we did. If you are sailing in a clear twenty metres, you weigh five tons and are travelling at five knots, it takes a bloody large fish to stop you dead in the water. It takes something even bigger not to care. That was on Friday afternoon, and it did cause us to collectively purse our lips in mild consternation until we established that there was no damage to the keel.

Our arrival in Maputo was, of course, late. The local guys who were booked on the sailing course at the weekend were now missing a day of sailing. Nonetheless, they were kindness itself in arranging formalities for us and welcoming us in. They had arranged a berth for us in the municipal marina. Getting into that turned out to be one of these missions that we were getting increasingly used to. It is heavily silted up, and even close to high tide it was clear that a significant portion of our keel was dragging through the mud. However, we were assured that there was noooooooo problem - that we would get out without hassle at high tide.

You can see this one coming, can't you?

We arranged that the students would arrive just before high tide the following morning, and that we would sail all day to make up the lost time on the course. We then retired for showers, beer and two kilos of luscious Mozambiquan prawns, all of which made the world seem like a very happy place.

Yup. We failed to get out of the marina the following morning. We managed to get the boat about ten metres off the pontoon before sticking fast. We pondered the wisdom of gunning the engine to force ourselves off, considered eventualities such as sticking again at the marina entrance on a falling tide with the boat tipping over, calculated the likely repair bill, and aborted the mission. We managed to get the boat back on to the pontoon. We tied up. And then we threw ourselves upon the mercy of our hosts.

They could have been annoyed, angry, frustrated. If they were any of these things, none of it showed. We were whisked off to the local yacht club and treated to many kindnesses - particularly from Carlos, the Commodore of the club, and Jorge and Monica who run the dinghy school. We then dispersed to enjoy a Maputo Sunday.

And so it is that I find myself sipping Laurentino beer (entry 4563 in my forthcoming work Beers of the World - A Sailor's Guide) in a bar by the bay. It is hosing down with rain brought by, you guessed it, an enthusiastic South-Westerly wind that would have deposited us on the beach here about twenty minutes after leaving Durban.

I look forward to finding out more about this place. I already like the beer, the food, the ambience, and the people. As I write, I am engaged by a couple of friendly locals, Edgar and Sergio. Edgar is 28 today and requests a mention here, which I am happy to provide. Happy Birthday.

More about Maputo, and Mozambique, soon.

Sailing a Desk

noreply@blogger.com (Joe) — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 11:00:00 +0000

I've not been very communicative for the last couple of weeks, I know. For the first time in quite a while, I have been spending large portions of my day in front of a computer screen, and I'm not quite used to it yet. Spending yet more time typing a blog hasn't seemed an appealing idea.

Not that there has been a huge amount to write about. I've been concentrating on celestial navigation, so much of the time since my last entry has been spent in a classroom or at my desk grappling with such mysteries as the PZX triangle, local spheroids and the exact definition of Civil Twilight. It gets my blood racing, but then I am a not-quite-reformed maths geek with strongly nerdy tendencies. It doesn't matter that GPS has made all of this knowledge almost obsolete. I enjoy it as an exercise in itself.

Having said that, it has been hard work. The concepts aren't too difficult - if you have sufficient spatial awareness to visualize lines on a slightly squished sphere, you are pretty much there. The problem is that actual sights, reductions and plotting have to be very accurate, and there are dozens of little corrections and adjustments to be made before the answer is reached. It normally takes me about forty-five minutes to turn sights data into a position on a chart, and I usually end up somewhere in the Barents Sea, leading me to suspect I may have made an error.

Apparently, the RAF navigators on the WWII had to be able to do the whole process of sights and calculation inside seven minutes, presumably while freezing in the cockpit of a Lancaster bomber and being machine-gunned by Messerschmidts. I have some way to go to reach that level yet.

The other task of the week has been to write a mammoth 8000 word tome describing our Atlantic passage last July. I have to give an account of such a journey as part of my exam. Needless to say, no-one reading it will be left in any doubt that only my meticulous planning and supreme navigational skills got us across alive. The examiner will either resign and offer me his job on the spot, or have me arrested for fraud and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

The good news is that the fun sailing starts next week, on Tuesday. I will be heading up to Maputo in Mozambique with Neil Schwegmann, Colin's brother. We'll be there three weeks or so, which we will spend getting in all the practice I need for my yachtmaster in the tricky shallows and streams there, plus doing some surveying work and training some locals. I may take some of my practical exams up there too.

I have no idea what to expect. Mozambique suffered a particularly nasty post-colonial civil war in the seventies and eighties (bad even by African standards) but is reportedly much better off now. Still, I don't expect that things will be terribly advanced. Apparently, there are still remnants of Portuguese grandeur there, but I haven't seen so much as a photo of the place so I'm quite eager to find out.

Coming along for the ride will be a friend of Neil's, John Skelton. John was shot and seriously injured about fifteen years ago, suffering severe brain damage which has affected hismemory, speech and physical abilities (he has no sensation in the right side of his body). With typical South African sensitivity, he is universally known as "Dof John" - "dof" being Afrikaans slang for "stupid" or "dim".

He is coming along to see whether he can feasibly crew, or indeed skipper, a yacht outside of the harbour. He owns a boat here in Durban, but has been understandably reluctant to sail it. Neil agreed to instruct him to Day Skipper level, taking into account his difficulties. Not that he is being mollycoddled: a typical comment from Neil is "We need to think up a watch system, but it's going to be hard with just three people and two and a half brains."

They're a caring bunch, these Saffers.

The passage will take at least two days each way, plus fifteen days of pootling around up there. We've already done most of the prep - I've been down cleaning bilges and out at supermarkets buying victuals. It's all on quite a cute, cuddly scale compared to prepping the Clipper boats.

We'll be sailing on Standfast, the first yacht I ever sailed on, so I will be feeling nostalgic. I expect the work will be quite hard, but I expect to enjoy it.

Howzit, Bru?

noreply@blogger.com (Joe) — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 17:46:00 +0000

Durban October 21st 2006

“Man it's hot. It's like Africa hot. Tarzan couldn't take this kind of hot.” – Eugene Morris Jerome (Matthew Broderick), Biloxi Blues

And wet. We are coming into the African summer, which also happens to be its rainy season. So moisture-laden cold fronts dump their loads all over us, and then follow up with another scorching and humid day.

I have a festering cough and sniffle, but I can’t blame that on African weather. My beloved brother, Typhoid Pete, passed on his cold as a winter gift from the disgruntled patients of St Georges Hospital, Tooting, who begrudge me my sunny sailing holiday in Durban. Bastards.

I was starting to feel a teensy bit aggrieved at spending too much time getting rained on and coughing up phlegm (all of which I could do in Derry). But then I spent two hours in a sailing boat and saw a flock of pelicans, some reed cormorants, a humpback whale, two pods of dolphins and a school of hammerhead sharks (none of which are particularly common in Derry).

So it’s all good, and it will be better when the antibodies kick the backside of this lurgy.

I’m ensconced in the hallowed halls of Professional Yachtmaster Training, which is mentioned in sailing circles in the same hushed tones as academics would employ when talking about, say, All Souls College, Oxford. It is powerhouse of nautical prowess, turning out yacht skippers the way Harvard Business School turns out chief executives.

Yeah, and getting me to write that crap just cost them their annual PR budget (roughly the cost of a beer).

Actually, they are pretty good. The main reason I am here is that Colin Schwegman, one of their leading lights, was my first sailing instructor, and we have kept in touch over the years. He and his colleagues don’t normally offer the RYA yachtmaster qualification that I need, but they have just got permission to do so. I’m the lab rat for their first efforts.

However, there is a wee complication. In order to fulfil the requirements of the RYA syllabus, I will have to go up to Maputo in Mozambique, where the sailing conditions are deemed to be sufficiently demanding.

Sailing here in Durban is pretty tough and needs a lot of attention to the basics of good seamanship, just to stay afloat. However, one feature of coastal navigation is not present here – tidal streams. Not tide per se, just the currents that arise when you try to squeeze a tide into somewhere like the Solent. These are pretty important, as any poor sod who has tried to struggle out past the Needles at the wrong time can attest.

But oddly enough, Durban and most of South Africa are basically free of them. Lord knows they’ve got most other navigational ball-breakers.

There is plenty of wind. You don’t get bragging rights in Point Yacht Club unless you’ve beaten into a 60-knot storm in an Optimist, as far as I can tell. So I sip my pint quietly. Maybe they just bullshit better here.

The swell coming from the Indian and Southern Oceans has nothing to stop it until it hits the southern breakwater at the harbour mouth, so a moderate Force 4 brings with it a respectable crop of belligerent rollers. A year ago, I viewed them from the lofty heights of a Clipper 68. These days, I am sailing out in a little L34, the deck of which is a lot closer to the action.

As if the natural hazards weren’t enough, the Saffers have added some artificial ones. There is also an awful lot of heavy traffic in and out of Durban harbour. Sharing the channel with some grotesquely huge car-carrier is not to be recommended.

Generally speaking, it’s a great place to be reminded that the sea is bigger and badder than we are.

But it’s fun. The South African coast is an exciting place to sail. It pretty nearly wiped me out last year (check out my blog entry from 19th November 2005 for a reminder). However, I think I am made of sterner stuff now.

Nonetheless, the tidal work has to be done and this is not the place to do it. So in two weeks’ time I head north with Colin’s brother, Neil, and we will yachtmasterize in the currents and eddies of Mozambique, while surveying the area for future courses. Suits me fine. I’m all for more sailing in weird and exotic locations.

I spent the week in the company of Andrew, Graham and Rob in their final week of preparation for their (IYT) yachtmaster exams. Andrew and Graham are a father and son combo from Durban. Oddly, it’s young Graham who is already a pro sailor working in the Med, and was just upgrading his qualifications. Dad is hoping to follow in his son’s footsteps, and is heading out to the Caribbean to work on charter boats. Rob is a cheerful Aussie lad straight from central casting. He’s also working on Med superyachts. They were all good chaps to work with. And they all passed, so congrats all round.

The instructor, Shaun, is one of the stalwarts of PYT, and teaches with the same clear, methodical ease that his colleagues do.

The main difficulty was relearning the language. You may believe that Durban is an English-speaking area of South Africa. But then someone says something like, “Howzit bru? Hey, lekker! Looks like you okes have it waxed!” You do wonder.

Durbs holds some very happy memories for me. As I said, I started to sail here. More recently, the mouth of Durban harbour marked the end of leg two of the Clipper race, and the spectacular start of leg three. Gratifyingly, people here are still talking about that day. It seems a good time was had by all. They must have liked it. They’ve signed for more next year.

Next week for me is likely to be classroom based. I will be learning the black art of celestial navigation. Once upon a time, in a university far, far away, I was OK at maths and physics, so I hope it shouldn’t be too hard. A lot of cerebral degradation has happened since then, though.

I’m quite looking forward to some structured learning again. I learned a lot by osmosis while on the race, but it will be good to shore all that up with some more rigorous study.

If I can remove the pounds I put on since I got back from the race, that will be even better.

Wot I Done in my Holidayz

noreply@blogger.com (Joe) — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 18:34:00 +0000

The holidays are nearly over: even Parliament will be back at work in a month or so. Therefore it is time for the compulsory account of what I have been doing for the past few weeks.

The short answer is "a lot, and not enough". The list reads reasonably well: visiting family in Ireland, sailing to Cardiff and back on my favourite Clipper, Swanning around Sardinia lusting after superyachts, pottering about the lakes and islands of western Sweden, and tramping around some rather damp hills in Wales. And, amazingly, I am a pro. I'm getting paid to sail these days.

All of these activities were very fine. The problem has been the gaps in between them, which have been characterised by restlessness, uncertainty, lack of physical activity and the unwelcome return of the beer-gut.

But first, the good stuff...

Rather importantly, I've been back to Ireland to see the family. I had a great reception in Liverpool with a bus load of them showing up to cheer me in. I rather rudely then jumped right back on the boat and sailed away again to deliver the boat back to Gosport (via Howth). They deserved a little better than that, so it was not a hard decision to head back over to Ireland for a week to say hello. My nieces Ellen and Niamh (who are both training to be opera divas) kept me entertained.

I also caught up with Ian Jeffers and Jonny Carson, two of the Ulster lads from the crew, who are now back living in Belfast. Also in Belfast are two very good friends, Peter and Hannah, who are both molecular biologists. It turns out they have been doing a little genetic engineering in their leisure hours, the results of which are due next March. I expect the outcome will be some sort of superhuman uber-being representing the next level in our evolution. Oh well, as long as he or she is as nice as his chromosome donors, all will be well.

By the time I left Ireland, I was already getting quite twitchy to get back on a boat. Thankfully it was already planned to take Cardiff (the boat) to Cardiff (the city) so that the good people of South Wales could get to a look at her. It would have been nice to take the whole crew around, but in the end only a handful of us made it. Most were working on restarting jobs and careers left behind over a year previously.

Among the absentees was Conor, our skipper. He had to head off to Romania to be with his family and start searching for work. His replacement was Simon Bradley, an affable former crewmember of Bristol Clipper, winners of the 2000 race. He is now a Yachtmaster Instructor and delivery skipper. As well as being great company, he was an excellent teacher of sailing skills and practice. To round off the crew, we had a bunch of candidates for the 07/08 race, who fitted in as if they had been with us all the way.

The sailing wasn't fantastic - we were forced to rely on the engine for a fair part of the way - but it was therapeutic to be back on board. On the whole, though, our stay in Cardiff beat the actual journey. We were there as part of the Harbour Festival. The Harbour Authority treated us like royalty during our stay. We were wined and dined most evenings, meeting the Lord Mayor and the various groups associated with our sponsorship.

There was work, too. The boat was open to the public over the Bank Holiday weekend and we guided over 2000 people around her. In the mornings we went for short sails with assigned groups. One day was given to the winners of a radio competition. I think they enjoyed themselves .In general, the interest and enthusiasm expressed by everyone was overwhelming. I only wish we had done better for them in the race.

We were pretty exhausted when we set sail for Gosport again, and a Force 7 wind over the second biggest tidal stream in the world didn't help. Simon very kindly (or perhaps, shrewdly) had offered to let me do the passage as a Yachtmaster qualifier - so I made the navigational decisions while he, er, got lots of sleep. Actually, he was a very useful instructor and I learned a lot. I'm just glad it wasn't my exam.

We broke the journey in Fowey in Cornwall for a pleasant evening before the last run up the Channel and the Solent. All in all, a lot of fun.

The best thing about it (well, almost) was that I GOT PAID. I was officially Mate on the boat, and I have the prospect of more work with Clipper after my Yachtmaster. So, another fifty or so gigs like that and I will just about break even.

The other sailing experience of the post-Clipper summer was in Sardinia. I helped out on the Sparkman & Stephens Swan 57 Yellowdrama, taking part in the Swan Cup in Porto Cervo. This, it has to be said, was a very different kind of yachting to what I have been doing for the last year or so. No damp pipe bunks, no weeks of 24-hour watch systems, no tinned ham. This is what the luxury end of the business is all about.

Yellowdrama itself is a lovely boat (as Swans tend to be), but at a mere 57 feet long, she was at the compact end of the Sardinian yachting spectrum. As well as the Swan Cup, yacht groupies could also swoon over the Perini Navi Cup and the Rolex Maxi Cup. Perini Navi is an Italian yard which only builds 'em huge and luxurious. Among the lustable boats on show was Maltese Falcon, a modern three-masted square-rigger registering a humungous 286 feet long.

The Maxi Cup was sort of a Formula 1 Grand Prix of every sexy racing yacht on the planet. If you are into droolng over your copy of Yachting World every month you will recognize their names: Maximus, Wild Oats, ABN Amro I, Velsheda - they were all there. It was the most extravagant display of yachting bling I've ever seen.

It did seriously set me thinking about my career. Not about sailing, I'd never get to be crew on one of those boats. No, more about how I'm going to make enough money to buy one. Even going back to the City probably wouldn't be enough. I'm probably going to have to get into something decently high-margin, like people-trafficking, or bulk credit-card fraud, or crack smuggling.

In a way, it was a relief to come home. Having an inferiority complex because my net worth is less than nine figures was becoming depressing.

My other foreign adventure of the summer was different, but no less fun. Arne Dimblad is a Swedish gent I met in the Philippines during our enforced stopover there. He keeps a yacht in Puerto Galera, which I helped him sail down around Busuanga in the Calamian Group. He very kindly invited me to visit him in Sweden, and I was happy to accept.

Now, if you go to visit someone in Sweden, you might hope that they live in a picturesque timber house, in a quiet forest by an idyllic lake. Thankfully, Arne feels exactly the same way, and that is exactly what his house (located near Alingsas, east of Gothenburg) is like. I was put up in fine style in "The Captain's Cabin", my own little villa in the grounds. A short walk took me to the water's edge, or deeper into the damp, autumn forest. It was just perfect.

We spent the days in the forest picking mushrooms, or on the lake sailing a dinghy. We took one day to visit Orust, an island on the west coast and the home to Sweden's yachting industry. The yards for Hallberg-Rassy and Naiad yachts are there, among others, and we spent a happy yacht-nerd day nosing around them (and the tall ship at Lyseskil).

Throughout, I had the excellent company of three formidable ladies: Arne's wife Didi, his daughter-in-law Isabel and granddaughter Klara. As well as looking after me fantastically well, Didi and Isabel did sterling work as my personal shopping advisors in Gothenburg at present-buying time.

And that was nearly it. There was a little more paid sailing for Clipper (a day's corporate entertainment in the Solent) and some yomping around Welsh hills. But basically, I find myself now visiting the folks for a quick goodbye before South Africa and the rigours of an Ocean Yachtmaster course.

And very welcome they will be. I need work, and something to use up some strength and brain power. The relaxation phase is over and I am restless. I have managed to do some DIY around my flat, but that is every bit as boring as it sounds and I need to get away and do something meaningful.

And I need to figure out some sort of formula for life that will allow me to settle into something. Hopefully the waters around South Africa will afford some sort of opportunity for that.

The Beginning Stages Of...

noreply@blogger.com (Joe) — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 11:52:00 +0000

In the beginning, there was The Shipping Blues. And it was good. But now cometh Windward, a new blog that reflects a new chapter and is hopefully a little more thoughtfully maintained, both by me and the site administrators

The Shipping Blues (check it out at http://www.20six.co.uk/joemulvey) was my diary of the 2005-06 Clipper Round The World Yacht Race. It was originally intended just as a tool for keeping a small group of family and friends in touch with my oceanic blunderings. Somehow some other people got interested which was (and is) all to the good.

The race is now over, and life continues. For the small number of people around the world who are interested in my sailing and other adventures, I hope this diary will keep you informed about what I get up to in the next few months and years.

It's fair to say that I am not too sure what is in store myself. The immediate future holds a two month trip to South Africa to make use of all those sea miles and complete an Ocean Yachtmaster sailing course. Thereafter things are less certain. There are whispers of sailing in South East Asia and (less glamorously) in the English Channel. However before anything is set in stone I need to address myself to dealing with some basic questions. What am I going to do? Where am I going to do it? And so on.

None of which I intend to bore you with. In the the near term, I hope to supply the usual tragicomic litany of watery disasters that the readers of The Shipping Blues have come to expect. I promise to almost die in a stupid accident at least once every three weeks, and to sail in winds exceeding 40 knots at least once every 10 days. Should I fail to achieve these objectives I will, of course, make something up. I may occasionally throw in the odd nugget of genuine personal insight, but caring about it is strictly optional.

In the very near term, readers can expect a short update on Life after Clipper, and perhaps some choice photographs from the race and after.

Watch this cyberspace...