We are each our own devil,
and we make this world our hell.
- Oscar Wilde -
Under Sail!!
Yes, it was a notable event to turn the engine off for a change. Our promised 4-day weather window had shrank in its usual way into a 24-hour dubious break, which we eagerly took. A 0630 start from Dover got us into a west-flowing tide and motoring in dead calm. I raised the main in the hope of some motorsailing. Grabbing the sail, the leech ripped. A half a meter tear in the sail! Great, we're going to have an action filled year, constantly repairing things.
In the afternoon the wind woke up, unfortunately on the nose. I upped the revs and we started nodding over the waves. We're gonna fucking get there, no matter what!" - I thought. We kept pushing all day and finally at 6pm the wind swung to NW. Engine off, genoa out, we're sailing! The tide gave us a push which it took away during the night. We managed barely 2 knots in the hight of the tidal flow against us, just south of the Isle of Wight. But most importantly, the engine was off and the sails, full genoa, storm jib on baby-stay and a full main - were all full of air.
The fun ended at dawn and I had to wake up the old Yanmar again. The VHF forecast was now boasting a strong wind warning, a cold front was approaching and we were facing another four days of strong winds from the west. Where should we take them? The Solent had just gone past, though we could make it there by going a little backwards. Portland and Weymouth were still almost 50 miles ahead and the tide was about to kill our progress for the next 6 hours. I took the tip from a reader of this site - Paul Lewis, a professional ships pilot in the Solent area. He made contact with me by email and I called him for some local advice. Our paths crossed, but we weren't at the crossing at the same time. Paul recommended Studland Bay for a nice anchor-job. It would save us some money too, which we are always too quick to spend on toys and little luxuries. Studland it was.
Studland Bay
The sun was shining but the temperature was still a chilly 15 C and the wind taking away from the little warmth that the sun may have provided. We felt that the summer was over. We had one warm week in July. Goodbye Europe. Goodbye forever! Oh, sorry, back to Studland Bay. It appeared that a few other boats had discovered the place too. The annual Round the Island Race (Isle of Wight) recently attracted no less than 1875 yachts and boating is not really an unpopular thing here. The bay was crowded with over a 100 yachts and motorboats, but there was still plenty of room. We dropped the pick in just over 2m of water. Despite the tides being over 5m near by, Studland Bay only gets about a meter, which made anchoring a breeze.
The ice-cream boat cruising the Studland Bay, driven by two young lads, backs off vigorously after hearing our offer of paying in Euros.
Time to rely on the solar panels and batteries. I came up with more jobs to do. I installed a net under the stove, which makes a small storage space for light items. The next one was to cut a "box" for the still bare SIMRAD AP24 autopilot control unit. I pulled out my jigsaw and plugged it in the brand new (from Amsterdam) inverter. Bang, the fuse blew. I changed the 15A fuse to a 20A, still well within the limit for a 600W / peak 1200W inverter, but the bastard machine had died. Another piece of shit that should have a 50% environmental tax on it for loading the worlds rubbish pits. What is the point of rolling products like this out of factories. People are employed to put together shit, then the shit is being carted around the world to shops. People put effort into going into theses shops and pay their hard-earned money to take the shit home. Then they place it their rubbish bin an the shit continues its journey to be land fill somewhere. Jeesus Bloody Hell! Where is the ass I can shove this item in? Who is responsible? I suppose it's my own fault and I should shove it up my own ass:
Skytronic Inverter. Piece of Shit. Steer away from shit like this.
Never, ever, ever, ever buy cheap.
If you're short of money, go for the most expensive. Haggle the price if you like and don't let the salesman smell your fear or realise that you will buy the best one at any price anyway.
Buy the best one at any price.
- Lauri G. -
A local graveyard alongside a 1000-year-old stone church had many stories to tell. The oldest graves were from the 17th century but this one, detailing almost 130 years of human life, inspired me to imagine the story behind it. I have no idea why I got stuck with it:
Eyre, a Sir and all, (G.C.B. = Knight Grand Cross) wasn't quite a teenager when he met Clema. But quite a charmer, I'm sure. They didn't start a family until Clema was in her mid 30's, but they did love eachother much and they loved vigorously. After Asta was born, it took less than a year for Clema to be pregnant again. Dad must have been proud and happy with their first son, Eric. I'm sure he was proud and happy for all his children. A third child, Una, was born just before Dad turned 40 and their last one, Sibyl, just before Mom hit the same magic number. Mom was a strong and healthy woman, Daddy in a good standing and the family (hopefully) a happy one.
Tragedy begins on Eric's 20th birthday, when Dad dies, leaving behind a 56-year-old widow and four young adult children, 16, 18, 20 and 21. What happened next, we can only guess, but Una dies soon after her dad, at the age of 20. The rest of the family lives on, surviving another world war together. 25 years after Una's death, in the swinging fifties, Eric, the energetic, lively Aries spirit of the family dies at the age of 47. Mom is now 83-years-old and facing the most painful experience in human life - losing her own child - for the second time. But fate delivers again, less than a year later the now 49-year-old Asta, first born, dies. Clema, 84, has now buried her husband and three of her four children. Perhaps she sees no more reason to go on. She passes away six months later.
When I was 25-years-old and sitting on the island of Makaha'a in Tonga, Sibyl, 85, would still have been alive to tell me the real story. She endured a long life with memories of her lost father, brother, sister and mother. Perhaps the death of the much suffered mom was a relief to the then 45-year-old Sibyl? Apart from Una and Dad, they all saw two world wars. Sibyl was the only one to see - among much else - the end of cold war, the birth and death of Princess Di and the mobile phone.
I rigged a wire from our 12v directly to my Toshiba, which needs the 15v only for charging the battery, and resumed my activities on line, thanks to the T-Mobile UMTS connection. Annina noticed on the lable of a bottle of Rosé: "Perfect for drinking any time" and with a relief and joy, opened it with lunch. The wind was howling outside and a lot of boats had trouble with holding. Both yachts and motor boats were dragging their anchors all over the bay and many arrivals took several attempts to get thei pick in the sand. The problem was threefold: The seagrass did a good job in preventing a good hold. Many yachts were using cheap Bruce copies, a design that simply doesn't seem to work on hard sand and lastly, many vessels (particularly the motor boats) had insufficient gear with a tiny, tiny Danforth, not enough chain or both. Aliisa's 16kg / 35lb CQR with all 10mm chain was resting so solidly in the bottom, that I started to doubt whether we've hooked into a wreck or something...
The Bankes Arms Pub behind Studland Bay beach was an example of the British Pub-culture at its best. Cosy, warm, friendly and a stunningly beautiful interior. It was time for a toast to the 90 years of joy and agony in the Crowe family, now resting in the graveyard behind the pub.
Snack, Crackle and Pop for breakfast. Aliisa's spare CQR popped the window of this fella. Two men onboard, both totally lost at sea. C'mon plastic beauties, you're welcome to tackle Aliisa's bow anchors. I hope the boys went home to upgrade their ground tackle and their knowledge on anchoring. The boat's name? Yep, it was "Losing Control"!
The Pub, like all other buildings near Studland Bay were beautiful.
"Silky", on a walk with her owner and doggie mate "Fluffy",
hang out with us for a while and didn't mind being picked up and cuddled.
PS. Don't tell Charlie that I'm flirting with other cats...
Studland Bay to Falmouth
Studland Bay was charmin and hangin off the anchor was a welcome break which gave us the added privacy and a chance for me to piss over the side - the easy life! Our new Exide Nautilus batteries did a pearler of a job, keeping us powered and fridge going even with only a tricle charge to the panels through the clouds. After four days the weather was calming down and we took off towards Falmouth. The forecast was for "variable", which means usually calm. We took off early, though, and were met with 15kn WSW and a choppy sea. Once again, Ansku retired to the aft cabin as I grit my teeth and motorsailed long tacks into the night. At midnight, we had the option of continuing into the dying wind but remaining chop, or to pull into Brixham at dark, to have a rest.
I was tired. I also insist, that cruising is supposed to be pleasant. Those, who think otherwise, can go and spend their rainy, cold, windy weekens rounding those buoys in the local race, gloves on, with their yacht shivering and shaking. We drove into Brixham. There were mooring buoys right at the outer harbour and we picked up one. It was 0100. I had a gin and tonic, Annina warmed up the pasta from yesterday, we ate and went to bed. I slept until midday and after enjoying some freshly made pizza and some falafel balls (whaddya call them?), we dropped the mooring at 1600. The weather was warm and sunny and the promised "variable" wind was blowing, not.
The old Malaysian tomato pure was maybe under some pressure to get out...
Despite the annoying rattling of the propeller shaft, we were making way. The tide helped us more than I expected and we arrived at the entrance of Falmouth harbour at 0500am. The one-day late August summer was long gone and a thick fog made enty in the dark even more challenging. Normally I would have called the port control to ask if there was any major traffic, before entering the harbour, but the coast guard's industrial action (strike) meant that there was no-one to take my call. We waited until 0600 and the day break increased the visibility to about a mile. That was plenty enough and we arrived in the damp, cool Falmouth visitor mooring area at 0630. Sleep!
List of problems today was short: We have no inverter to charge our camera batteries etc, I would like to find a hand held VHF and the engine still needs re-alignment. Not bad. Our internet connection was reduced to GPRS. It was UMTS in Studland Bay and in Dover, HSDPA in Germany, Sweden and Finland. In addition, the internet access was limited. Access to ftp was blocked, which means I could not upload updates to these pages. We seeked relief in the local pub, which had a wireless internet. It was even more restricted: even sending e-mails was blocked! Great Britain came across to me as China or North Korea, perhaps even the US, where life is seemingly free, the technology is advanced and available, but the "big brother" is cencoring, manipulating and limiting your life to protect you from the "evil" and make sure you don't have any fun! (I might ask Kapitan Peedoff to make further comments on this...)
Falmouth harbour was damp and foggy when we arrived. The locals were hogging all the visitor's buoys but we managed to - after hanging off a local's mooring - to snatch one back to where it belongs: to the visitors!
I had lost my faith in the consumer society. There was inverters on sale in Falmouth, but they too were suspiciously cheap. I'll get Kapitan komment on this too... The town was lovely, although as I love to whinge and complain, the beautiful cobblestone streets full of attractive shops suffered from car-domination. The footpath was about six inches wide, forcing the thousands of shoppers to walk on the street. The street was full of pointless, useless traffic by cruising youngsters or middle-aged dicks too lazy to walk 10 meters, parking their Jaguars or city 4wd's half on the miniscule footpath so they get to the news agent for a packet of fags in less than two steps. But, the town of Falmouth truly was beautiful. Lots of pubs and restaurants, all with a real english pub atmosphere and people seemed quite friendly and relaxed too. (Except all parents in town with kids. Why are pommie parents constantly yelling to and pulling the ears of their kids? Is there a problem with the kids here? Or is there a problem with the parents?)
Yanmar was tightly bolted on steel, but the steel wasn't tightly welded on anything. The support at the left is too short, reaching only just to the weld and not to the top. The red dots show where it should be and where it is in all other corners. One little mistake which ended up costing me a lot of grey hair, including a leaking stern tube and now, having to pull the whole thing out at Falmouth harbour and find a local workshop to fix it. Bugger!
Yanmar resting on three bolts
I decided to attack the engine one more time, with the aim to re-align it. I removed all four bolts and started wiggling it with a screwdriver. The port-side back end needed to be a few mm higher. As I proceeded to pry the engine mount up in order to squeeze a washer underneath, I noticed the engine bed was cracked. Lovely! The rattling of the prop shaft began in 30. January 2006 while leaving Cape Town. I had visually inspected everything for million times, without finding any reason for the noise. Now I knew what it was. You see from the picture, how the engine has been resting one corner too low, and hence hugging the prop shaft against the stern tube. Time to fix the problem.
Yeah. Whatever. Not funny. Don't try to make me laugh now. I'm fucking with stuff that I would rather not fuck with. But it fucks with me, so I have no choice.
I walked to the jetty and asked a local for a workshop or engineering place that might help me out. I got a number for Nick - the owner of a Falmouth based marine engineering firm. Nick gave me his chain block to hang the engine up. I removed the offending part - the broken engine bracket - and took it ashore. Later Nick had picked it up and the next day it was delivered to the dock, welded back together. I hardly ever saw the man.
After a day of putting things together, I failed to get the engine re-aligned. The vibration was worse than before and the shaft was whipping, more than before. We vibrated ourselves to the marina and called Nick. He sent in Roger. In one hour the job was done. Turned out that I had been - in my usual manner - too enthusiastic. A little too much to the right direction. Roger put it a little bit back. The job was easy, but I needed the experienced guy to get it done quickly and not waste time fucking around, like I tend to do.
Jeez. It's ok, but it's just not right. One hour later, with the help of the local engineer, the engine was as good as one can get it for 25 quid. As good as it was when I left Cairns.
We took 85 litres of diesel, filled up the water tanks and drove back to the mooring that we were paying for. After cleaning up, we were about ready to go. Right after the 980mb low that was due to arrive. The worse August for low pressures in recorded history had gone and the local met office was predicting a september just as bad. The night-time lows were getting close to 10C and we were struggling to reach 20C outside. The summer was truly gone and we had whimpily crawled into SW England, eternally optimistic about the "big break" that would take us south in comfort. That big break never came and right now it looks like it never will.
Right after this, we'll go again... yeah?
7.September Departure from Falmouth. Destination Camaret, outside and SW of Brest. Talk to you soon...
