Not here

The answer is not here.

I was lucky. HS needed a new part machined for the engine and so there were a few days in which I was free to explore the island of Sao Vicente. I got up early. I took the local buses everywhere. (They each have a sign on them ‘15 passengers’. In the west we would interpret this to mean 15 passengers maximum. Here it means the bus doesn't leave without at least 15 passengers, sometimes twice that, children always sit on someone’s lap and small women frequently sit on the laps of men, and then as the bus goes along it stops to pick up extra people, pigs, tubs of fish, etc..) The primary language spoken here is Creole so I negotiated my way about the island using a post card which I would show to the drivers getting them to point out where they were going. When they dropped me off I would walk everywhere, along the beaches, round the towns, sometimes, if I had seen everything there was to see and there was no evidence of another bus I would start to walk along the deserted cobblestone roads to my next destination. The island is barren. Nothing grows here. Our guide book says 90% of food is imported. I believe this. The sad looking bananas sold by women on every street corner are not local. The one riverbed is as dry as the surrounding hills.

I do not know, anymore, what I am looking for. I have forgotten the purpose of my quest. All I know is that the answer is not here in Sao Vicente.

I have talked to various locals who speak a common language, to a variety of very polite hawkers from mainland Africa, to other yatchies. I have browsed the markets, eaten and enjoyed local foods. I have joined in dances with school kids in the street and old ladies in town squares bringing grins to their faces and joy to my heart. I have tried to keep a photographic record of my visit (though I am not happy with the results of this).

Tomorrow we are going to put the engine back together and assuming it works we will go grocery shopping, complete the formalities required to check out of the country, and then leave for the next island. We are unlikely to have internet there and then we will be at sea for several weeks on the way to Brazil.

Hugs to all my friends... I am looking forward to seeing you in the new year!

Two towns

Sao Pedro, Sao Vicente, Cape Verde, west of Mindelo, is billed as a picturesque fishing village nestled at one end of a large sandy bay. To get there you take a small bus ($1) over a cobblestone road through dry barren landscape (think area outside Las Vegas). The town has no paved roads, the shop has no electricity, the houses are mere shacks without running water, and small kids play barefoot on the rocky pathways between them on which ‘honey pots’ of human waste have been emptied. 

Salamansa, Sal Vicente, Cape Verde, east of Mindelo, is similar. It is billed as having an activity center for tourists where you can rent surf boards, scuba gear, and take kite boarding lessons. The center does exist. I went there. There was a lone instructor playing a haki sack type game by himself on the beach and I was the only tourist.

On the other hand the government provides clean water at a centrally located tap in each town which girls collect in plastic tubs and then carry on their heads back to their homes, the boys go out fishing successfully – on both of my return trips our bus had tubs of fish loaded on top of it to be taken to the city to be sold – and the kids or all ages seem happy.

I feel, having spent the morning walking round these two towns, I ought to have a profound comment to make. Unfortunately, I don’t. 

Reluctant assistant

I arrive back at the boat quite late Sunday morning still buoyed up and happy from my encounter with the four kids. HS is grumpy. He made breakfast assuming I would be back sooner and my serving is sitting cold in the galley waiting for me. I eat it cheerfully and ask about his plans for the day. He wants to start taking the engine apart and, at very least, diagnose the problem, and, he states very clearly, he will need my help. ‘No problem,’ I say, ‘just let me know what I can do for you.’ For the next seven hours he works on the engine getting angrier and angrier and grimier and grimier. The language he uses goes from bad to worse and would make Suzanne’s ears turn very red. I am not really needed but get the impression that he likes to have me there as moral support or something. I will sit quietly, diligently, for twenty minutes, agreeing with everything he says – though we both agree on several occasions that I don’t have a clue what he is talking about – but doing nothing. Then, without moving, I pick up my computer to start organizing my photos or some such and immediately he needs me to go to the tool room to get a certain screwdriver. I am not sure if I am imagining it or not but it seems to me that, at least subconsciously, he is upset if he doesn't have 100% of my attention and consequently fabricates a wee task for me each time I divert a bit of it elsewhere. I get the screwdriver, or whatever, sit patiently for awhile, try to reach silently for my computer, and the pattern repeats itself. I wouldn't mind helping if I could provide real help, but, let’s face it, taking the engine apart and diagnosing the problem with the transmission is just not a skill I have, and, to boot, there is room for exactly one person down in the engine dungeon, and, also, he knows how to do this and loves doing it. Eventually the offending part is found, a broken buffer plate, which, apparently, is not too bad, and, a few hours later, after the engine has been raised onto blocks and the flywheel taken off and goodness only knows what else, we are, thankfully, done for the day. I hope I am not ‘needed’ everyday. I want to print off photos for the kids I met, find free internet and check my e-mail, explore the rest of this island, take the ferry to the next island over and explore it too. I do not, really, at all, want to help fix the engine, but, unfortunately, for me, if today is any indication, I will, lily-livered as always, spend my time here looking for screwdrivers and being frustrated. Two days, I determine, I need, for myself, to go off and be a tourist, or I will not sail with HS when he leaves here. (Oooh, maybe I should check and see if flights from here exist first!) Hopefully he will need to order a spare part or something and the two days will just appear. I don’t want to have to negotiate for them. I am such a wuss!

Morning walk in Mindelo

A short history lesson on the Cape Verde Islands according to our guidebook: These islands, off the west coast of Africa, were uninhabited when discovered in the late 1400’s by the Portuguese and largely unpopulated until the 1800’s. They did OK for a while as a way point for the slavery trade, but then that was abolished, then as a way point for whaling, also abolished, then as a coal bunkering stop, but then ships stopped using coal… now there is a bit of agriculture that goes on, bananas and such, and the government is considering getting into the tourist industry, but the main source of income is currently foreign aid and this is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.

Sunday morning I wake up early and decide to go for a walk while it is still cool out. I have my camera and my laptop in my backpack, $5 and my marina key in my pocket. As I walk the streets of the town I believe the guidebook comment about foreign aid, this is undoubtedly a third world country. I remember Kirkland Lake when I lived there, several decades after the last mine had closed down, when the city started bulldozing the many abandoned houses scattered throughout the town believing that empty lots were less likely to shelter criminal activity than empty buildings. I had thought that was a poor community. Here, in a city of 60,000, the poverty hangs thick in the air. Buildings are falling down, rubble piles everywhere, collections of garbage and unemployed young men littering the streets, sad small scruffy dogs lying about devoid of hope.

I wonder, as I walk, how safe I am, here, on my own, in this city. At first I cannot bear to take out my camera, it seems rude to take pictures of old women sitting forlornly on street corners trying to sell mangoes, old men lying on park benches… the only decent clothing worn I see is by those in work uniforms. I decide to head up one of the hills to get a view of the city from above. The cobble stone streets become dirt roads as I go upwards and then uneven rocky paths wide enough for one to walk switch-backing back and forth between cinderblock houses with corrugated iron roofs. Down in the city proper were occasional apartments I could imagine living in but up higher there are only huts, hovels, and shacks. I cannot imagine anyone living in these but the voices from within and the laundry hanging outside demonstrate their occupation. Again I wonder about my safety. I have pulled out my camera, red and shiny, which cost me less than a day’s pay, but I wonder how many days pay it would be worth to those who live there. Certainly it would be worth stealing. Murdering for? I have no idea. I nod and smile to everyone I see. The men nod back. I offer to shake hands whenever possible (and vow to wash my hands well when I get back to the boat). The most common comment made to me, in French, mostly by younger men who have tried Spanish first and realized I speak none, is ‘Ca Va?’, it sounds a question and I take it to mean ‘Are you OK?’ which seems reassuring. The women are less forthcoming.

At last I get my break. I am taking a photo of a rooster on one of the dirt paths that serve as roads when a young boy walks by. I ask – in sign language – if I can take his picture. He says no. I ask again. Still no. Then a girl comes over and allows me to take her photo. Both of them love to see it. Before long there are four kids chattering away in Spanish. I show the oldest boy how to use my camera and he takes endless pictures of the others, of anyone else who walks by, of the view from the corner. I wonder if they have e-mail, if I can send them copies, but I doubt they have running water, and without a common language there is no way to ask. (The little girl in the photo lives in the middle one of the three houses seen in the background of the same picture.) After half an hour I leave but as I walk back downhill I take a photo record of my winding path so that if I can get prints made for the kids I can find my way back to deliver them.

I realize as I approach the marina, walking past a grown man urinating on the main street, that it is a gated community. It has a long visible cement approach, like a pier sticking out over the water so that no one can sneak up to it, a tall fence complete with locked door, and 24 hour armed guard. The marina garbage bins are near the road in another locked fenced area with rolls of barb wire on the top of the fence. As I pass by two teens hoist a third one up and over the top and he starts methodically going through the bags of trash. I assume he is looking for broken things we the ‘yatchies’ have thrown out that he can fix and sell. I hope he is not looking for food. The only thing I have bought here so far is freshly baked bread from the nearest grocery store (a hot fragrant loaf is 15 cents). Just before I set foot on the marina pier a young man stops me and very politely asks if I will look at his art work. It is gaudy sand art that I cannot imagine anyone wanting. He is 29, very black, and has come here from Sudan looking for work. Come here? How bad is it where he has come from? He asks if he can come on our boat to Canada. I say we are going to Brazil. He would be just as happy with that. Unfortunately, for him, my answer is still no. As I part from him and head across the cement walkway to the safety and security of “my” world I think how lucky I was to be born in Canada, how seldom I take the time to stop and be truly grateful for this, how very fortunate I am to be able to afford to go off on this vacation, and how very very trivial all my problems are compared to those of almost everyone else in the world. Happy, schnappy. Voice, schmoice. What the f*** am I complaining about?  I have enough money to be here, three grown educated healthy kids to carry on my genes, a government that will, one way or another, pay for basic health care when I get old. I have everything anyone could possibly want. Everything. EVERYTHING

Land HO!

Our motor broke down somewhere along the way and so we sail all the way to Mindelo, Cape Verde Islands. I love it. We are, literally, at the whim of the wind and the waves. An egret, looking as bereft as we feel, lands on our boat and stays for hours. I feel a connection to Columbus. His boats, even more so than ours, were not good at going into the wind, and so he could effectively only go where the wind would push him. He traveled across the ocean with winds pushing him west and to come back he had to find a different latitude where the winds blew in the other direction.  As we get closer to our destination we watch the time, the wind, and our speed more and more carefully. We want to arrive in port during daylight. Boats, for hundreds of years, arrived in port under sail and dropped anchor. But this is more and more a lost art. As we get close we take our main sail down leaving just the jib up. Land HO! HS and I study the harbour chart in great detail. We stress and plan. He explains more than once what my responsibilities will be. There are likely to be lots of boats in the harbour, winds will be light and fluky due to the protection offered by the breakwaters and the island itself, he doesn’t want us to lose control, drift into another boat and damage it, or worse. In the end the wind is favourable and we sail into the harbour, past anchored oil tankers, ferries and fishing boats heading out to sea, and a little island that looks like Rapunzel lives there, we sail right up to where other boats are anchored, and, just as we had planned, with beauty and perfection like a pair of ballerinas, simultaneously drop anchor and sail, as if we did this all the time, and then sit there like a pair of idiots grinning from ear to ear, very pleased with ourselves.

Later, of course, HS has the boat towed to the marina. He is going to try and fix the transmission and wants to be on a dock, with power, to do this, rather than out at the far end of the anchorage. I am happier, of course, on a dock because of the greater freedom it gives me. At anchor I have to get him to take me into land with the dingy, or hitchhike with another sailor going by in theirs, but on dock I can come and go at my will. He thinks it might take a week to fix the motor, and, fortunately, this is not really something I can help him with, so I will be free to be a tourist, go out and about and see whatever there is to see. Cape Verde, here I come!

Accidental Gibe

I re-read my last paragraph from yesterday and wonder where I was coming from. Was I high or just in a kindly mood?

At 2:20 this afternoon I am taking over for my next six hour shift. I check where we are on the electronic charts (21N 21W), look for evidence of other boats around visually on the AIS and on the radar (none), take in the weather (low grey clouds and rain showers visible in all directions), check out the wind (20 knots true right from behind), and look at the sails (aargh). We are running, wing on wing, except we are not. The gib is held out to one side with a spinnaker pole and looks fine but the main is pulled in as tightly as if we were on a close reach. As we roll from side to side on the 3 m swells it continually backs. In my lowly opinion it needs to be let out, let out a lot. I pull HS out to look at this and explain what I think. He says the sails are fine, but, just then, as if to prove my point, a gust grabs the main, snaps the sail across, the 8mm wire preventer breaks, and the boom flies out of control whipping across to the other side of the boat. Wow. If either of us had been in its path we would have been, at best, knocked unconscious and thrown overboard. This would not have been a funny Pirates of the Caribbean type of situation where someone is picked up by the boom and left dangling over the water, no no, it would have been more CSI Miami where they can’t identify you from your facial features because your head is totally bashed in and so they have to use waterlogged fingerprints to verify your identity. Fortunately this has not happened. HS rigs a new preventer out of an old piece of line, I look at the frayed and broken wire one and wonder why it wasn’t checked before being used, and HS concedes that perhaps the main could be let out a little.  He laughs off the situation but I am not amused. For the first time I wonder how safe I really am on this boat.

I spent much of my previous night shift outdoors admiring the stars and thinking about how difficult it would be for me, alone, to go back and get him if he did fall overboard. We have a following wind, coming from directly behind us, so if he went over I would have to tack back against the wind to get to him (since our engine is out of service at the moment) and these old full keel boats are notoriously difficult to sail close to the wind. On my own, likely at night during a squall, because this is when these types of things happen, I would do everything within my power to get him back, but, speaking honestly, it would take hours not minutes for me to drop the sails, take down the spinnaker pole, re-set the sails for close hauled, and then tack back the few miles that we would have come during that time to return to wherever he had gone over.

Again I am wondering if jumping ship – when we get to port of course – would be the best plan.

The accidental jibe has left me a little jumpy. A gust blows through at 30 knots and I interrupt HS again to check on things. This is his off shift, really he should be sleeping, but, to give credit where credit is due, he does get up and come to cast his eye over the situation. ‘Just a gust,’ he says, ‘it’s all good.’ I hope so. I really do. 

Sailing leg 2

It is Saturday morning and we are packing up to leave. We have been anchored in a bay in the Las Palmas harbour, Gran Canaria, Canary Isles for a week and this morning we are going to pull up our anchor and head to the Cape Verde Isles a trip which will take about a week or ten days.  It has been calm for several days but today the wind is howling which makes HS happy and me less so. With a certain amount of trepidation I make sure all my belongings are stowed safely where they won’t get thrown onto the floor as the boat is tossed about at sea. I put on clean nickers, give my teeth a good floss, shave my pits, and realize that I didn’t put on my seasickness patch last night. (You’re supposed to do that a day ahead of time so the medication starts seeping into your body. I’d better drink lots of water and get my ‘sickypoo’ pot out ready for when I start vomiting.) I clean up the inside of the boat putting away tools and other random things that have been left out. I walk outside and take down our drying line which has been strung between the stays, collect up the bag of clothes pins, look for any other loose items that need stowing.

HS, I have to grant, is good at weather. He chose today as a day to leave quite a long time ago based on the fact that he thought the wind would come today, and come today it has. He is cooking up a Stuemer Special breakfast, a hash of onions, potatoes, bacon and eggs all mixed together. It is quite delicious. (I hope it will be as good coming back up!) I meanwhile, having done the first tidy up of the boat, am listening to the wind howling in the halyards and starting to worry. It still seems a bit scary to me, the thought of heading out on the ocean on this wee tiny boat with only our wits to keep us safe.

After breakfast we do another tidy up, lash the TV down, put every last thing away, make sure all the cupboards and drawers are shut – they have sort of babylock type fasteners so they don’t fly open at sea – and make sure the port holes are closed and securely fastened. We pull up the dingy, our little boat which we have been using to get back and forth to land, and lash it on the front deck of our sailboat, start up the motor, pull up the anchor, drive over to the gas dock to fill up with fuel and water, and then, akkk, head out to sea.

Normally we would pull up the sails before leaving the protection of the harbour but today it is very busy. The harbour is huge. It ‘harbours’ three marinas with up to 300 boats each, a large anchorage for the boats that don’t fit into the marinas, a navy base with its various ships, a dock for police and coast guard and search and rescue boats, a cruise ship dock with up to 3 large cruise ships in port at any time, a wall with thousands of containers on it and cranes for loading and unloading up to 2 huge container ships at any time, enough space for two other ships, such as oil super tankers, to come in and be re-fueled, two oil rigs, various bouys marking off different areas, and other assorted boat stuff. You would think that a harbour this big would be more than adequately large enough for us to put up sail in, but today, as well as all the above the junior sailing club is out en-mass for its weekly lessons. There are, to my best count, 24 windsurfers having beginner lessons and falling into the water all over the place, 48 lazers each with a teen, 48 lazer2s each with two pre-teens, and 48 optis each with a little kid, plus all the instructors zipping about in inflatable zodiac type boats… and these almost 200 extra boats take up most of the available open space. We motor out of the harbour into the ocean proper, where there are only about a dozen big ships anchored, before putting up sail, the advantage to this is that there is a lot more space, like 3000 miles, the disadvantage is that the waves and swell are huge. So, I stand up on the front of the boat exposed to the elements, as she faces into the wind, lifting and crashing, to pull up the main, but she doesn’t go all the way up, something is wrong. HS comes up front to help me and we both look up, is the halyard twisted round a mast light, are the batons caught in the lazy jacks, it all seems good. After a while HS diagnoses the problem, the second reefing line is tangled, sorts it out, and I continue. It takes a while to do all this by which time I have been covered in salt spray. I love it.

.

I have decided to do this leg, and, therefore, to keep a positive attitude. I had been infected, more than just a bit, by Nick’s negative assessment of HS, and, though I agree with it completely, I feel my choices were to leave or to stay and suck it up. I have decided to stay and suck it up so I tell HS how happy I am to be here, I compliment him on his good weather sense, and I vow to myself to do my shifts as competently as possible without complaint. Since there are only two of us on board for this leg I have 2 six hour watches 2:30 – 8:30 am and pm. I decide, actively, to follow that old adage and change what I can and accept what I can’t, to take up a ‘don’t worry, be happy’ attitude, and to make sure that there is at least a little laughter in our lives every day.

We sail all day alongside the island we have just left and I get another great view of the huge crater I had visited by bus. I try to take a photo but feel it is really a ‘you have to be there’ type of situation. I consider my impulsivity and how it has affected my life. I jumped off the bus at the top of the ridge just to get a photo, I jumped onto this sailboat for a four-month sail without doing any real research about what I would be getting into, some might say that I similarly jumped into my marriage. I am supposed to be here planning what to do next. Unfortunately I don’t seem to be in the mood to plan. Working to a deadline is one of my great strengths – procrastination some might call it – and I can’t put my finger on the deadline for my current project, figuring out what to do with the rest of my life. Part of my problem is also that I actively like the random pot-luck outcomes that come from not making decisions. Alexander and I did several last minute panic vacations recently and I usually just booked whatever was cheapest (Hey, we’re going to Jamaica tomorrow!) after which I would stop by the library to pick up a guide book and decide what to do when we got there. Fine by me. On this trip HS has decided which islands we are going to visit and which ones we will pass by. I haven’t seen any of them before, understand that we don’t have time to see them all, and am happy to go and explore the ones that he has chosen. Fine by me. I feel it ought not be that way, I ought to want more control over what I do, where and with whom, I go on vacation. Where and with whom I live my life when not on vacation. Maybe part of the problem is that I am lazy. I don’t know. (AH, I do have a deadline, just realized, July 31, the date I am getting kicked out of the house! Good, now planning should be easier! Ha!),I conclude that perhaps for the little things, like jumping off a bus to see the view, impulsivity is just fine, but that for bigger decisions, like who you are going to have as a significant other, if anyone, for the rest of your life, a little serious thought wouldn’t go astray.

My first night shift is amazing. It starts off very slowly. The wind has fallen to 3 knots, which is almost nothing, so when I get up at 2:30 am HS has taken down the sails and is motoring. He says that if the wind comes up to 10 knots I can put the sails back up or come and get him. We both assume I will not put sails up by myself in the dark. However, as we motor along, and I sit outside watching the phosphorescence in our wake and the shooting stars in the night sky, I think, ‘Why not?’. I expect the wind to rise just before the sun does so I have 3 hours to review the steps in my head and gird my loins. Sure enough, by 6 in the morning, when the sky is still dark and filled with stars but there is the faintest glimmer of lightness on the horizon promising that the sun will be up in an hour, the wind has risen to a steady 10 knots. I do it. I put up the sails, put the engine into neutral for five minutes to check how we are doing, and then turn it off. I sit outside in the cockpit as the sun rises and admire “my sails” with such joy and pride you’d think I’d given birth to them or something.

‘I want to do as much sail handling as possible,’ I’d told HS before we left and I guess I meant it. He had given me a funny little look at the time and sail, ‘You’ve already done more sailing that my wife did.’ ‘What,’ I ask, ‘do you mean by that? She sailed round the world with you.’ ‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘but she didn’t once put up the main. She didn’t ever adjust a sail. Not even the jib.’ ‘But,’ I protest, ‘wasn’t she on shift 12 hours a day for hundreds and hundreds of days.’ ‘It wouldn’t have occurred to her,’ he says, ‘to have touched a sheet.’ It’s all very odd. They lived the dream, bought a boat, took their kids, sailed the world for years… Yet HS doesn’t like sailing and she had nothing-what-so-ever to do with the sailing? Weird. I don’t get it at all.

My second night shift is shitty. We had, at one point during the day, put up the spinnaker pole to hold the genoa out so we could go wing on wing and the sails are still set in this configuration. The wind however has shifted to the beam and the genoa now has wind blowing against the front of it which is actually breaking us, slowing us down. Really we need to change the sail configuration completely, take down the pole, move the genoa across to the other side, pull in the main but this is still too big a job for me to do on my own even during the day to say nothing of at night and I am perfectly sure HS does not want to be woken to do this at night either, so, I sit, watching these incorrectly set sails, gritting my teeth, waiting for my shift to be over, being an obedient crew, doing what I honestly believe it is he wants me to do which is completely ignore the situation.

I respect HS immensely for having had the balls to live the dream, even moreso now I have seen his sailing style, but I am still amazed. I had expected to respect him as a sailor, if nothing else, and repeatedly find myself shocked that I cannot do this at all. In the fall of 2013 he is leaving Rio and sailing down south around the tip of South America then cutting across the Pacific and going to China. I had assumed I would be out of work next year and would beg him to be allowed to continue on as crew. At the moment I can’t see that happening. I will enjoy this experience, to its utmost, despite the ups and down (metaphorical, of course, since we are actually at sea level the whole time!) but likely look for another boat for next year – though, once again, I guess I am getting ahead of myself!

As we head further south the days start to blend into one another. It is always beautiful outside. Always. HS still does his shifts stuck in the nav room but I do mine, both day and night, out in the cockpit. Each sunrise is a gift, each shooting star a wish. If it is very quiet I will take my book outside to read while ‘watching’. If there is anything to photograph I grab my camera and take a picture or two. Since we are working alternate 6 hour shifts we actually see little of each other because it is standard procedure when you get off shift to make yourself some sort of snack and then have a long nap, you turn around and it is your turn to go on shift again and the other person if off to have a nap themselves. The wind is low for several days so we put sails up, sail, take them down, motor, then put them up again. I eat bowls of hot oatmeal with fresh plums for breakfast, tomato sandwiches for lunch, yoghourt and clementines for snacks, pasta and stew for supper. We don’t get a lot of exercise on the boat and I fear I am getting fatter and fatter. The life suits me though. I am happy with my shifts, love being outside everyday to see both sunrise and sunset, love watching the dolphins that accompany us by day and the stars overhead at night, love feeling that we are the ones staying still and that it is the world which is turning slowly beneath us. I am finding that I am very relaxed and at peace with myself. Almost ready, I decide, to start making decisions about my future, but, first, well maybe I need another nap…

I jump off a bus

  

The island of Gran Canaria is really just one big old extinct volcano. It is round and shaped like a cone with a dent in the top which is the volcano’s caldera.

If you happen to be in Las Palmas, the capital of Gran Canaria, and have a free day you can take the bus up to San Mateo ($2/45 min). Up, up along narrow twisting roads through palm groves so lush they make you think of rainforests up, up endless hairpin turns past steeply terraced vinyards and olive groves up, up along the edges of sheer cliffs until the foliage changes dramatically to cedar and pine up, up until suddenly the bus spits you out and you are there. As you step out the first thing you notice is that the air is heavy with the scent of fresh pastries. It is impossible not to stop in at one of the many bakeries and choose a couple to eat as you walk along. The second thing you notice is that this is a village straight out of Dr. Suess. Dozens of odd palm species and other plants so weird they defy description are growing everywhere, in parks, in people’s front yards, in pots along the cobblestone pedestrian streets in the center town. You can stroll aimlessly about taking a gazillion photos, you can stop for a glass of freshly squeezed local orange juice at a wee café in the main square and take the time to sketch the church, you can chat in broken Spanish with German tourists and try to decide which of the tree lined alleyways, each twisting off in random directions and begging to be explored, you will wander together next.

You can then jump on the next bus heading up to Tejeda ($2/45 min) which takes you up, up, up through a cloud layer and above, and, if you really want to, though, perhaps, speaking from personal experience, I would not recommend it, when the bus gets to the highest ridge and you can see half of the island spread out below you in one direction and the caldera opening below you in the other, you can beg the driver to let you jump off the bus because the view is just so amazing you have to take a photo. The up side to this decision is that you get to marvel at the view. The down side is more complicated; firstly the view is harder to photograph that you had realized when you were on the bus especially if you don’t know how to use the panoramic option on your camera, secondly you become aware quite quickly that you are now stranded on a mountain road miles from anywhere, thirdly there is not much other traffic and you soon start to wonder if any drivers even understand that by sticking your thumb up you are asking for a ride, fourthly when you do eventually get to the next town you learn that the bus schedule you were given yesterday is already out of date and getting a connection onwards might be a wee bit more challenging than you had anticipated… and, oh no, fifthly, when you have reconnected with the German tourists from earlier and are all going back in the other direction a few hours later the clouds have lifted further and from that very same ridge you can now not only see the amazing view but also Tenerife, the next island over, in the distance, and you want, desperately, once again, to jump off the bus!

North Shore Gan Canaria

Ollie, one of HS’s friends, who happens to live in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, took the day today to tour the north end of the island with us.

We went to Arucas, a small village with cobble stone streets and a huge cathedral and a mountain with a 360 degree view. We went to El Roque, a town built on a rock jutting out into the ocean in which all houses were joined together and the ‘streets’ were undulating pathways barely wide enough for two to walk abreast and surfers rode the waves in the bays in either side. We went to Agaete which is a small fishing port beside steep verdant volcanic cliffs (think classic Hawaii) with a coastline of jagged hills, a sleeping dragon, pointing out to sea. We went to Sardinia where the colourful and photogenic classic fishing boats and ocean-side cafe umbrellas belayed the poverty of the region. We drove past columnar basalt – I learnt about that in first year geology and don’t remember if I have ever actually seen it before – cacti, acres and acres of banana plantations in which the plants were enclosed in large tarp ‘greenhouses’ that stretched, at times, as far as the eye could see, spectacular surf crashing on rocky points, palm trees, totally white towns climbing up hills, small volcanic cones standing impervious to the elements, marvellous highway bridges across deep steep valleys, and many other wonders. We stopped here to go for a walk and there for a coffee in a tiny café and elsewhere in a restaurant on the coast for a fresh fish-of-the-day lunch.

I tried to record as much as I could with my lipstick camera but the light wasn’t good, or I wasn’t good, or, for whatever reason, I didn’t get many of the sights captured very well.

It was, nonetheless, another awesome day.

Nick jumps ship

Oh man! Nick is jumping ship. Really?

He has only been with us for a week but for me it has been fantastic to have a third person on board. The issues are HS’s sailing and HS’s attitude. HS doesn’t like to sail. Who woulda guessed? He spends his WHOLE shift downstairs in the ‘nav room’ not even, I am horrified to say, looking at the sails, not even, I am even more horrified to say, looking for boats. Also, he pretty much thinks he is god and talks down to everyone. I put up with this just because I am a wuss but Nick won’t. Wow. I had been being driven nuts but HS before but had decided, during this leg, that I would do the whole thing, basically because Nick is such a wonderful person, but, now, if he leaves, do I want to be here, on my own with HS again, and doing shift 12 hours a day instead of 8, and putting up with every little thing, and not even seeing the stars? Not an easy question to answer, not at all. And, I have to decide like, right now, because there is not another spot after this to get off easily!

                                                                    

Nick is an awesome sailor. He has a boat, which he sails on weekends, and he races, with a friend, for fun, and he just happens to be very very good at it. When he is racing with his friend his job is to adjust the sails. He doesn’t know, or care, what the course is. He doesn’t know or care what tactics are being considered or used. He doesn’t look down at the water, or around at the other boats, he looks up at the sails, and ‘tweaks’ them so that they are working efficiently. The team he is on wins regularly, and, without doubt, it is due to his input, because, on days he happens to be busy elsewhere, the boat doesn’t win, doesn’t even come close. In Ottawa there are several long distance races each year called the Horrible Hundred or something similar in which boats race 100 miles. Most boats do this with a team on board, since, usually, given the wind conditions on the Ottawa and the fact that a lot of tacking is involved, the races take anywhere from 25 to 50 hours to complete. Nick, just because he wants to, always does these races single-handed. And, despite a field of several dozen boats, he often as not comes in first. Because he is such a good sailor.

HS in contrast is not a good sailor. He doesn’t like sailing. He told me this several times before we set out but I didn’t believe him. How could you choose to sail round the world, and then go sailing again, if you don’t like sailing? It didn’t compute. However, it is true. HS’s modus operandi at sea is to throw the sails up and hope that they are good enough, not to look at them, or think about them. His boat goes slowly, all the time, because, he says, it is heavy and has a full keel. Both these are true. But not sufficient. HS, if he is going 4 knots per hour or more is happy. 4 knots per hour is the equivalent of 100 knots per day. If he is going less than 4 knots per hour he puts on the engine and motors.

This type of attitude drove Nick bananas. On Nick’s shifts we were always going at least 6 knots, often 7. Then HS would come on shift and in no time at all we would be going 5 and then 4 knots. One day the speed fell to 3 knots. ‘We’ll have to motor,’ HS said. ‘No,’ Nick replied, ‘you just have to adjust the sails. Let me show you.’ Nick, I must point out at this time, was, from my point of view, being very careful to be very respectful. He tweaked the sails, explained what he was doing, and presto, the boat was going 6 knots again. ‘Ah, the wind came up,’ HS said dismissively. (Which was not true.) ‘I don’t like to race,’ he went on, ‘I am happy if we are going 4 knots.’ At which point Nick could not help but point out, and again, I must stress, very respectfully, that he wasn’t trying to race, he was just trying to sail efficiently, that by encouraging the boat to go 6 knot all the time instead of just 4 you could do a passage in 4 days instead of 6, get to where you were going sooner, and even save diesel, which everyone agrees is expensive, by sailing instead of motoring when it wasn’t actually necessary to motor.

No consensus was reached.

For the next couple of days Nick spent his shifts sailing the boat well, going 6 knots or more, and HS spent his shifts down in the nav room, hardly even glancing at the sails, with the boat slugging along significantly slower. The same discussion was repeated more than once.

Nothing changed.

Several things drove Nick bananas. First and foremost among them was that HS ‘talked down to him’ all the time about everything (which HS also does to me, but, seeing as I know practically nothing, and am meek to boot, doesn’t get me as upset) but a close second was the way that he, HS, not only refused to acknowledge, at all, that Nick might actually have a point wrt efficient sailing techniques but actively ridiculed his suggestions.

I, of course, am stuck in the middle of the whole situation. I can see that Nick is right. I can empathize with how he feels. I also know that it is HS’s boat and that, as captain, he gets to decide how we sail. But it seems to me he is being a boor and am not sure exactly why. I deal with this, of course, by being silent on the issue, which is, for once, probably the right thing to do.

The end result, unfortunately, is that Nick is jumping ship. He will not say a word about HS’s attitude, or about sailing, but will instead tell HS that he misses his wife. Which is also true.

I will miss him.

I have decided I will stay. I have different reasons than Nick for being here. There are lots of people who have come to the Canaries to look for crewing positions. Yesterday alone three different people approached HS and asked if they could crew for him. I don’t know if HS, when he learns that Nick is leaving, will choose to take on new crew or not. Either way, I will stay. Either way I will miss Nick. I regret not learning more from him while he was here. I didn’t realize that I would have so little time to do so. We will have another three days here in the Canary Islands to explore and then we will be off again. Despite everything I am already looking forward to leg 2 and the challenges it will bring.

A white clouds flying day!

By morning, having weathered the weather, my confidence has risen dramatically. The line of squalls eventually passed us by completely, the clouds gave way to a constellation filled night sky, and that, in turn, lightened and brightened into a golden sunrise.

By the time HS gets up the wind is blowing a steady 15 knots right off the starboard beam, our most preferred wind speed and direction of all, it looks like it will be a fantastic sailing day, and dolphins are jumping and splashing beside the boat their exuberance perfectly mirroring my mood. ‘More sails,’ HS says, ‘time to put the main up again.’ I ask if I can do it, get told no, but persist, almost plead, point out that it is a lovely gentle day, that this is the perfect time for me to learn, that it will only take ten minutes. ‘Nick messed it up yesterday,’ HS points out (leaving unspoken what we both know, that Nick is a far more experienced sailor than me) ‘and it took forty,’ but I am so eager that HS can’t deny me a chance to try. The foresail, which is at the very front of the boat, and the mizzen, which is at the very back, can both be put up from the cockpit, their lines are either there or led back, but to put up the main you have to leave the cockpit walk along the narrow deck and up onto the top front part of the boat, who’s name escapes me at the moment, and fuss with various lines there. The lazy jacks have to be loosened without getting tangled in anything, which requires finesse, and then the main halyard has to be hauled on, which requires strength, and then winched, which requires more strength, and then the lazy jacks have to be re-tightened, and then the main halyard has to be coiled properly, and during all of this you, by which I mean whoever is doing it, is very exposed up on the highest part of the boat a long way from the safety of the cockpit, and, to make matters worse, while the main is being raised, the boat is turned into the wind which makes it buck pretty much like a bronco, and, bear in mind too, that the bucking makes it likely you will get covered with spray, the deck beneath your feet will become slick with salt water, and, since most of the jobs require two hands you will not be able to hold on to anything while working and being tossed about. I get the main up flawlessly, first try, set the sheet and preventer, perfectly, and just grin more broadly when HS mocks my happiness.

When I am safely back in the cockpit he goes below to get some more coffee but I stay out, sit in the sun, admire the view (sea and sky and a few white clouds flying) and luxuriate in the loveliness of it all. Eventually Nick wakes up and comes outside, fiddles a bit with the set of the sails to try and get all the tell tails flying perfectly, and life, I have to say, could hardly get any better. The wind is steady, the waves are small but the swell is huge (there must be a storm somewhere not too too far away), the blue sky is filled with gentle cumulus clouds, a flock of sea birds is swooping and diving for fish, and three very happy sailors are on board our boat. We are flying along at 6 knots now making good time and anticipating several days in a row when it will be just like this. I even convince HS to let me make a pot of chilli for supper. Yes, it is a good day!

Squalls

It is the morning of our first full day at sea and HS is supposed to be on watch but something went wrong with the fridge motor cooling water intake and he is down in the bowels of the ship under the floor below the table fixing it. I have handed him tool after tool and he has surfaced once or twice to rummage in obscure cupboards for extra parts. Nick is sleeping. ‘Do you want me to take over your watch?’ I ask HS, knowing that the answer will be yes. It is so I do. Right then of course the wind starts to go up. It has been a very gentle steady 8 knots so we have lots of sail out. I watch the wind speed rise, 10, 12, 18, 20 knots and higher. I know that the sails will have to be reefed, NOW, and that I do not feel competent to do it all on my own the very first time in winds that are picking up so very quickly. I peek at HS but he is busy down below floor level and so I wake up Nick and ask for his help. The wind is 24 knots and still rising. Nick is amazing, ‘Let’s reef!’ he says and together we go out into what is all of a sudden heavy cold beating rain, the kind that feels like shards of ice are being driven into you. The waves are suddenly steeper and the wind is whipping the tops off them as they crash in spectacular whitecaps. ‘Stay in the cockpit,’ Nick advises, ‘and hang on!’ This is good advice. The boat is charging up one side of the waves and racing back down the other tipping this way and that, seriously overpowered. We fuss with the lines, neither of us having reefed this particular boat before, and within minutes we are soaked to the skin but have a LOT less sail out. Nick and I both glance at the wind speed gauge. 32 knots and still climbing! Wow! We stand there for a moment assessing the sails, do a 360 scan for other boats since we are outside anyway, though the rain is so heavy that there is practically no visibility, and then retreat, dripping, back in through the hatchway to the interior of the boat. It was good fun and great teamwork. We are both pleased with ourselves. Ten minutes later HS finishes his chore and comes to see what’s up. ‘Why is the boat speed down?’ he asks, ‘Why are you both so wet?’ We look at the instrumentation. What? Only 8 knots of wind again? Unbelievable. The squall apparently blew itself out as fast as it blew in. We both go back outside and let out the sails again. Hmph. And, all day, it has carried on like that. Gentle winds, barely enough to sail, with squall after squall coming through each one bringing whipping winds and beating rain for fifteen minutes or so then moving on by leaving little trace that it had ever been there. The sky has been grey all day, dark grey near the rain squalls, and even this evening shows no signs of any letting up. After supper HS is on shift again. It will be Nick’s turn after that. And I hope, I really hope, that by 4 am when I do my second solo night shift, that the line of squalls will have passed by and gone to wherever it is they go and I will have only the gentle 8 knots winds to contend with. Because, let’s be honest here, I do not want to deal with 32 knot winds and driving rain all by myself in the pitch dark. Not on my second night shift. Likely not ever!

Later… I pull myself out of bed at 3:50 am, pee, and report for duty. ‘Ooh, wind speed has just started picking up,’ Nick grins at me, ‘looks like you are just in time for another squall.’ Still half asleep I look at him with pleading eyes and he knows exactly what I am saying but I get no mercy. ‘It’s your shift,’ he says, ‘out you go!’

Sailing Leg 1

Yes! We pack up and get ready to go, we have a last hot meal while the boat is on dock, we don our warm foul-weather gear, and then as the sun starts to fall, we head out across the bay, into the strait, and towards the ocean. There are dozens of BIG ships in this narrow stretch of water some going full steam, some at anchor, others just drifting waiting, perhaps, for their turn to be refuelled, there fast ferries going back and forth, other sail boats heading in different directions, fishing craft going in loops, and even small motor boats just hanging about. The strait separates Africa from Europe, the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean and has been a busy waterway for millennia. Tonight is no exception. I am at the wheel, steering the boat, weaving it between the huge ships, keeping an eye out for smaller boats. Nick and HS are up in the cock pit with me. HS is teaching us how to recognize which ships are headed in which direction by using the AIS, the radar, and by watching their lights. Our primary goal, while at sea, is not to crash into another boat.

My shifts on this first leg will be 4 to 8 in the evening and 4 to 8 in the morning. For those eight hours of the day it will be my responsibility to “keep watch”. This means various things, keeping watch of all boats that are anywhere near us and ensuring that we don’t get too close to them and/or changing course if necessary to avoid collisions, keeping watch on the wind speed and direction and making sure the sails are correctly set, keeping watch on our path and continuously checking that we are following our plotted route, keeping watch on the weather and being prepared to make changes as necessary, if, for example a squall were to be approaching, keeping watch of the lines in the boat, making sure they don’t fall into the water or get tangled or anything, keeping watch of our boat speed and ensuring we are making steady progress but not overpowering the boat… It is all pretty simple and straight forward but, nonetheless, seems at first a big responsibility.

Nick wakes me just before 4 am for my first night shift alone. We are through the strait and out in the open ocean. It is VERY dark out and spitting cold rain. There are about 8 different ships visible, some going the same direction as us, others going opposite direction, still others going perpendicular crossing across our path. Nick gets me to figure out which way each one is going and which ones might possibly be on a collision course before leaving. He also points out a small sailboat, too small to be picked up on the AIS or radar, that is close by but hard to see what with the waves and rain. Then he crawls into his bunk to go to sleep and I am left to panic on my own. The auto-pilot is on, so I steer by pressing buttons on the console instead of turning the wheel, which means that most of what I do is check and re-check our situation and worry about everything. What is the wind speed, is it going up, will it go up, what do I do if it does? How high are the waves, are they going to get bigger? Which ships, heading into the Med, or crossing my path, or on the same route but going faster and overtaking us, might crash into us, and how do I make sure that doesn’t happen, and how close is too close, and when should I take evasive action, and when should I panic? Which direction is the wind coming from and will it change and what do I do if it does? Are there any boats I can see that are not visible on AIS or radar? Are we going fast enough? What could go wrong? Wow it’s dark out! Is my shift over yet? No, another 3 hours and 50 minutes left. Am I going to vomit? Yes. Lots. And again. I worry, throw up, worry some more and then repeat the pattern. Each 15 minutes I stand out in the rain peering at all 360 degrees of the horizon to see if there are any new boats or bouys that I hadn’t yet identified and that I might need to be aware of. I panic, then worry, then panic some more. I know that this is bad for my health but it is positively spooky doing your first solo night shift. HS gets up to check on me. He looks over the situation, nods, and heads off back to bed. ‘No, don’t leave me,’ I want to say. ‘please stay and hold my hand.’  But I can’t get the words out. And I am alone with The Boat and the dark night sky once again. Waves are pretty choppy here, each few seconds the boat is lifted up about 2 meters and then plunges down. We pitch from front to back and roll from side to side and everything seems to be banging and clanking and I don’t know what sounds I ought to be listening for. Yes, positively spooky.

Eventually the sky lightens from black to dark grey and it is morning. The winds pick up and bit as does the rain. HS comes out to do his shift and gratefully I enter the hold and put on my pj’s and crawl into my bunk taking my ‘sickypoo pot’ with me incase I haven’t finished vomiting yet. It’s hard to sleep with all the strange noises and the wild bucking motion of the boat but I curl up under my covers determined to catch a few winks. It will be 4 o’clock again soon.

Cadiz

Cadiz, one of those cities in Spain that has been there forever, is lovely.  

All white flat-topped buildings and occasional stone churches it has, like so many of the other strategically located cities in the region, a history that stretches back to before time began.  Quite recently, in the 16th century, when Spain was master of the seas, many merchants lived there and each one had his house built with a watchtower so he could keep an eye out for his ships returning from the new world. Most of these towers remain and add to its picturesque nature.

Cadiz has narrow winding cobblestone streets, churches and cathedrals galore, a gazillion styles of architecture, countless squares each with cafes and palm trees and statues and fountains, a couple of forts along the coast, several different layers of city walls, and shops and galleries and museums and a market full of fruit and fish and fantastic treasures… You can wander forever, get lost in the maze of alleyways, buy hot bread from a corner store, stop and eat paella while being serenaded by local musicians, choose any one of the many public buildings to explore, walk the seashore at low tide, sketch the scenery, take a million or more photos, dream of moving there… 

Did I mention that it is lovely?

Sitting beside a rock

Ha. The joke is on me. I said, in my first blog entry, “I feel the need to sit somewhere quiet once again (I have chosen to do so on a boat this time instead of beside a rock) and consider what to do next.” and well, I never would have guessed it, but here I am sitting beside a rock. I am in McDonalds, of course, because here in Europe McDonalds provide free internet, and out my window I can see the rock of Gibraltar. It has been there for over a month. Yes, we have hopped across the strait and back, but we have not really gone anywhere, we are waiting for weather, and so I sit beside a rock. At least I enjoy both the view and the irony.

(Total aside - The McDonalds across the other side of the strait in Ceuta was actually quite interesting. Ceuta, being in a strategic location right where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic, has been occupied and fought over for at least 2500 years by a wide variety of different peoples. At one point the Portuguese owned it and installed forts, walls, moats and other such battlements. The McDonalds is built into one part of those old walls. It comes with an authentic turret from centuries ago!)

It is quite peaceful here, despite the fact that we haven’t started sailing yet - we were supposed to leave weeks ago but the weather is horrible and shows no signs of improving – and in between doing chores on the boat, being a tourist, reading, getting on with daily life, and walking back and forth to McDonalds, I have had lots of time to ‘consider’.

Unfortunately, I am nowhere yet.

I have not decided, at all, if I am going to fight to put my marriage back together. I have not decided, at all, if I am going to go on teaching – something I am very mediocre at but which would, if I stuck it out till I was 95, give me at least a bit of a pension. I have not decided, at all, if I am going to continue to live in Deep River, where there are both dark clouds and silver linings, or if I am going to put the past behind me and try, despite my advanced age, to start all over anew somewhere else. I have not decided, at all, how much travelling I would like to do before I settle down. I have not decided, at all, if I want to stay on my own or to try, again, to form a partnership to fill the next 25 years.

I spent (about) 25 years being a kid, going to school, starting out, and then I spent 25 years (about) raising my own kids, and now I have (about, I hope, knock on wood) 25 years to do what I want to do while I will still be healthy, and then I will have, I assume, given family genetics, 25 years (about) during which time I will be getting old and dying. I am supposed to be considering the coming 25 years. But I am not getting much planning done. Despite sitting, as I mentioned, beside a rock.

Our boat has gone nowhere. My considering has gone nowhere. I would like to think that there is a connection between the two but fear this is not so.  Most days it rains. If it is only drizzling I go out. I walked around the rock yesterday, in the spitting rain, for lack of anything better to do (we have polished brass and cleaned the portholes and can only read our kindles so many hours a day) and made it home in time for lunch, which was a bit disappointing.

I am going in circles, on the boat, with my feet, in my mind.

I am nowhere yet.