A Bracing Freshness in the Air

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.