Rather like the weather …

… it has been a week of mixed blessings.  Everything from the good, to the bad, to the ugly – and all the shades of grey between.  And while in cliché-spewing mode,  I might as well add, “and there’s more where that came from… “

But let’s kick off some cheery stuff first. After writing my last post on this blog, we did indeed have some excellent sailing weather, and after hoiking up the anchor, we pootered out to sea to make the most of it.  Flying along with full main and jib, Butterfly sliced through the waves and came to life once more. With gleeful, unabashed sentiment (and totally unsubstantiated by fact) I’ve often thought that boats that lie at anchor for long periods get restless.  What do they  call this?  – anthropomorphism, is it? (try saying that with your teeth in) – when you attribute human characteristics to inert objects or animals? A heck of a clunky word to say and spell.  But there ya go – I must be one of those -  a self-confessed, cock-eyed, anthropomorphist. For whether bobbing in a marina, swinging off the hook, or dancing on a buoy, boats strike me as being in a kind of dormant phase, quietly biding their time, just cooling their keel(s), waiting  … but set them free at sea again, unharnessed, fully engaged in play with wind and wave and you sense them come alive. Even as the first waves swoosh past the bows, the whole vessel springs  into life with a burst of latent energy – no longer merely a thing, but a co-ordinated entity with its own personality. At least that’s the way of healthy boats.

Happily, given some ideal sailing weather, Butterfly, too, came alive. With the wind  – a steady 15-20 knots on the beam – nicely taking the heat off a blazing sun, and with the seas sparkling fit to dazzle,  she couldn’t have been happier, nor could we. So much more fun and so much more comfortable to be slicing through the brisk Caribbean waves with Grenada growing smaller and smaller in the distance. Ahead,  an uninterrupted horizon of blue;  astern, a trail of foaming wake. Far, far nicer than sitting in the bay sweltering.  We spent the best part of the day sailing just for the sheer unalloyed pleasure of it. And then only as the sun began to sink – a rich blast of apricot pink in a lavender sky – did we pull in to St David’s Harbour for the night. One of my favourite bays, St David’s, totally unassuming, totally unspoilt, and totally peaceful.

We’d have got more sailing in if we could this week, but like the weather of late, clouds and squalls in the form of a broken tooth gathered to stop play for a while. Just before leaving South Africa I had a final check up with an excellent dentist there before embarking on the Atlantic crossing. He fixed a tooth for me that has given continual trouble on and off, repairing it with a temporary filling that would need crowning eventually. No time for him to do the crown before we left Capetown. Well two weeks ago or thereabouts, the filling and tooth parted company giving rise to an abscess,  and consulting with a local dentist here in Grenada, it was obvious an extraction was the only answer.  I’m not a wuss when it comes to doctors and dentists and men in white coats wielding pliers and such, but I was somewhat ginger about the quality of dental services here in this delightful island.  Grenada may be good for a wide variety of excellent mangoes, but excellent molar technicians? We asked around and some new friends of ours who have lived on the island for some years  recommended someone who had cared for their pearlies in reliable fashion. Happily and reassuringly, their smiles seemed to endorse their recommendation.

Well the tooth is now out (and thankfully, for vanity’s sake, the gap out of sight) but I can’t say it was a pleasant experience. Dr Vibart Yaw, a thoroughly engaging, delightful fellow (and dig his wonderful name! I chortled when I first saw that) -  removed the offending molar, what was left of it, in speedy, efficient fashion, but as he pulled and twisted, I developed sudden powers of levitation and and was fast on route to examining his ceiling at close quarters.  Mercifully, he was mighty quick and though a little more anaesthetic would have been a blessing (like triple the strength of whatever those syringes contained), all seems to have gone okay. After a few days looking like a hamster sucking a golfball and thanks to the high-tech remedy of salt water rinses, symmetry is gradually being restored.  Only a hamster sucking a pea now. The pain is gradually receding too. Woo-hoo.

In fact one of the concerns about cruising has been that of finding suitable medical and dental care if necessary.  A tooth extraction is still small fry in terms of health problems, but having a successful extraction has taken some of that concern away.  My erstwhile visions of unsterilised needles and grimey dressings an insult to those practitioners here who are just as adept as those back home in the UK and – in some cases  – more adept.  Of no interest to you, unless you are also cruising the Windward Isles, I understand there is also an excellent dentist on St Lucia. No name or details yet, but will find those out and report back.  Should also mention that pulling that tooth here had one distinct advantage – it has saved us a packet: the total charge for two consultations, a packet of antibiotics and painkillers and the extraction itself?  EC $130 – or roughly £33.  Needless to say, however, it’s a bargain I’m happy not to repeat.

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Still with the good news – had another fabulous night out at de Big Fish last Saturday, with Stan and Cora being joined by a fella on lead guitar (excellent musician, though don’t know his name) and Martin on alto-sax this time. Just one of those nights when nobody wanted to go home – certainly not the band themselves – and so the guys played on and on … and on.  Everybody up dancing; a full house in full swing. What makes one evening a riot like this, I’ve no idea, best not to analyse, better to just be grateful.  And tonight there’s yet more music with a young Grenadian lassy  singing – again at de Big Fish. She, too, is the bees hum. On Saturday, she dived in with Stan and Cora, belting out a song or two and wowing everybody in the process.  All I know is her name is Jenny.  Pics to come later if the light allows.

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And now for the – well, not bad exactly, but perhaps the not-so-good news:  at the time of writing this, still no word from African Cats on the whereabouts of the spares we need to fix some of the warranty issues. Nor an answer to those queries we’ve raised regarding their warranty decisions.  We have, however, received a response on a separate issue from their Service department, so at least some form of communication has occurred.

Elsewhere, the storm continues to brew over our predicament and African Cats track record to date. I wondered whether or not to refer to this – out of diplomacy, if nothing else – but there is no point in ignoring or denying it since many of you reading this also follow the forums where the latest ruckus has occurred.  In a perfect, fair world, everyone – boatbuilder and boat-buyer alike – would be free to give their full and candid version of events,  and let those who might be interested in such matters – eg, potential catamaran customers – make their own minds up as to the true state of play. After all, buying a boat is a huge investment, especially if you’ve been trying to build that cruising kitty over many years. For many folk, anxious to embark on a sailing adventure of their own, choosing the right boat and boatbuilder are the most important decisions they will make. Other customers’ experiences are an invaluable assistance in making that decision.

But – and forgive me for stating the obvious here – this is not a perfect world, nor is it fair.  So for reasons most regular readers of this blog are aware of, we must plough on, by necessity keeping much under wraps, focusing as much as possible on just trying to get the boat warranty issues finalised in principle, before arranging for the repairs to be completed.  So another day comes to a close, and we are still no nearer to starting the main warranty repairs.

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This is one very long post.  But just before I buggeroffski,  perhaps a final caveat might be in order:

If you are thinking of buying a new boat – be it monohull, multihull, powerboat or sailing vessel, do think long and hard about just how long you are going to be involved with your boatbuilder.  It might sound slightly daft, but buying a new boat is like entering a kind of marriage. After the initial wooing phase, the hearts and flowers and bright shiny engagement ring stage, accompanied by attentive emails and declarations of mutual admiration and adoration, you will find yourself at the alter soon enough, saying “I do”. But beware, don’t allow yourself to get bedazzled by the flowers and trinkets and pretty words and,  instead,  think hard and long before you get to that alter, because once that ring is on the finger, the realities of boatowner/ boatbuilder married life will kick in.  And unlike modern marriage today,  if the mojo between you and your boatbuilder fades, or simply doesn’t work out, there is no quick easy divorce. For better or worse, you are now bound to each other for a considerable time to come …

As is obvious to all, our marriage with African Cats – and I’m sure Mr Goudsmit will agree with me on this at least – has had more than its fair share of storms and showers. The sunshine days before “I do” could bear a second summer!

This cruising life …

…  it seems to me, is rather a rum one.  I mean, here is a shot of Prickly Bay taken on one of our recent walks. Somewhere in the middle of that little lot – lies Butterfly.  And after I’d taken the photo, looking down at her that day, it suddenly struck me how odd it was that home is now this little nomadic floating island.

By odd, I mean, if you’d asked me (or Dick) twenty years ago, where we would be living in twenty years time, we might have hazarded a guess at a country, or more broadly, a continent – somewhere we’d like to wind up eventually. But never for a moment would we have said we’d be living aboard a catamaran.  Living on the land was a given then; living on a boat? Never! It simply wouldn’t have occurred to us back then.

But here we are.  However unthinkable once upon a time, home today is a 44ft catmaran called Butterfly.  Yet even though we’ve been living aboard her since December 2008 – some nine months now – there is still a vague, unspecified, indefinable sense of this liveaboard life being temporary.  A passing phase.  To thoroughly mix imagery -  living “off piste” as it were. That said, the idea of going back to live on the land and in a home with solid foundations that stay put within their own defined little plot isn’t appealing in the slightest. Already we’re conditioned to the freedom of movement a boat brings.  And it’s definitely spoilt A us: growing a little tired of the same scenery every day? Fancy a week somewhere else, maybe a month, or just a night?  No problem: raise the hook and bugger off somewhere more appealing. Fancy a different continent, a different sea? Well, a little more preparation of course, but given the right weather window, that too is all up for grabs. And the beauty of it is your home and everything you need to live comfortably comes along with you – it has to – your home is your transport.  Already, giving up that freedom to roam on whim (weather and water permitting of course) would be very, very hard now.

So why the sense of life aboard being temporary? The truth is, I think, it takes a while to settle in to cruising.  Talking to other liveaboards, some have told us it took a year before their boat felt like home and life afloat felt “normal.” Others have said two years; others longer still.  And that’s not so surprising when you consider how many lifestyle changes must be made when you become a full time cruiser.

For a start, everyday living takes a little more effort, and a lot more physical energy than landlubbing.  This is not too surprising, for a boat is an obstacle course, built on many levels, on a rolling uneven surface. So much time spent climbing over this and stepping over that; ducking under that and reaching over this. Even just accessing stuff can be a regular workout! With a boat’s limited storage capacity and all your worldly goods and tools necessary for everyday living stored aboard, cupboards regularly need to be raided and reassembled to get at stuff and then everything put back in its rightful slot. Water has to be made, collected, fetched or bought in – so is rarely squandered. Electricity is rationed, tasks involving electrical gadgets being worked in to the day’s schedule according to the state of the heavens: for example – hallelujah, it’s sunny and windy, so a rush to make bread, charge laptops, etc.  Conversely, no wind and no sun, it’s crispbreads and clean the bilges/hull/heads time. Food shopping becomes an expedition done in many stages – dink (inflatable tender/rowing boat) across to the land, walk till the bus picks you up, bus to the supermarket, buy only as much as you can carry, and then reverse the process – bus, walk, dink. And then the maintenance – which is, of course, never-ending. Maintain, maintain, maintain – and repair, repair, repair. And don’t get me started on valves and pumps and the state of batteries  – how quickly these come to dominate your life!  Yet little by little you get conditioned until all this becomes normal. After all, everybody else around you is engaged in the same maintenance/repair battle, so why should you be any different?  Or to paraphrase one wise wag: “The definition of cruising is fixing your boat in the sun.”

And fixing it we are … s-l-o-w-l-y. For there is no other way.  As regular readers will know by now, getting the warranty issues agreed with African Cats has been a long drawn-out process – one that now appears to have stalled altogether. For having disputed some of their decisions on the surveyor’s warranty report, it seems we’ve shot our bolt, and our last emails sent 9 days ago – one questioning some aspects of their warranty decisions, and one requesting information about the dispatch of warranty spares already agreed upon but not yet received – have both been met with silence. Perhaps I’m being premature in being negative – perhaps Gideon and the service department are away on holiday; perhaps they are just far too busy sorting out their other customer’s problems which are many; perhaps they’re too preoccupied with the launch of Green e-Motion; perhaps Gideon’s new Fastcat 605 is topping the agenda to the exclusion of everything else. Or perhaps our emails have disappeared into the ether. Perhaps. Perhaps, I’m simply being far too impatient here, and we will get a reply sometime later this week. Or perhaps we will never hear from them again.

Who knows?

One thing’s for sure … whoever does know, sure ain’t tellin’!

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And now for something cheery.

These, m’dears, are very poor quality shots of Stan and Cora. Before you ask Stan and Cora who? – I’m ashamed to say, I haven’t a clue! What I do know is this delightful pair are the bringers of much joy to their audiences’auditory senses and to Mrs Meredith’s pedal extremities. Luckily for us, they play regularly at de Big Fish here at Prickly Bay – music that sets this ol’ gal’s ticker beating happily in time to some stonking good rhythms and wonderful jazz and blues favourites. Stan has a voice to die for – a rare blend of comes-from-the boots-gravel musicality (courtesy of a lifetime devoted to tobacco, I suspect), and Cora can swing that sax as mean and low as any man. They, too, are liveaboards, and have the rare distinction of having taken their saxophone and keyboard aboard an ancient 1928 wooden lifeboat made in the Isle of Wight (I believe) around Cape Horn – as part of a circumnavigation that must rank as one of the longest circuits ever undertaken – twenty-six years! We spent a happy hour or two talking with Stan one night at the Tiki Bar, and he has tales of far flung ports and friendship with the King of Tonga that should be in a book available to sailors the world over!  It’s been an unexpected bonus of living in Grenada, this abundance of excellent musicians and great music – and that’s not a word of flannel, just fact. It’s certainly been a long, long time since I spent so many evenings dancing to such irresistible live music. Stan and Cora, Janice, Doc Adams Blues Band – bring ‘em on, each and every one!

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And almost lastly, just to finish this post off with – we shall be on the move again tomorrow, so not sure when the internet will next be available. But a few weeks back, we succumbed to the charms of the Wirie – an internet booster or wifi adapter as they’re frequently billed. This device, sold to us by the inventors (a great couple who live aboard an FP catamaran called Irie – hence the Wirie) who were cruising awhile back in Prickly Bay, has certainly been an improvement on the Hawking which we have dismally failed to coax into any significant usefulness at all – Ever.  Hopefully, our Wirie will continue to keep us connected wherever we land up; it certainly manages to “see” many more wifi options than anything we’ve had before, though reception comes and goes, of course, according to how the boat is swinging at the time.  Anyhow, over this next week or so, the plan is to squeeze in some nice long sailing stints (purely for the pleasure of it) and then to drop anchor – at one or several of the bays around the south coast of Grenada. With nothing serious brewing on the tropical storm front at the moment – well, nothing that should threaten us in the next few days – where we wind up will be left to the wind and wave and whim.

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And very lastly – a couple of pretty pics. This first taken on one of our walks here at Lance Aux Epines along the coastal route.  What is it about water breaking on rocks that’s so appealing? – especially when you’re dry and safe, of course! The one below, well that’s our neighbour, here in Prickly Bay, at the time of writing. Every evening as the sun goes down, that gorgeous boat is backlit with blushing baby-pink clouds and an evening light that makes the camera whistle. Me too -  though don’t tell a soul. ;0)

Chin-chin for now kids  … and have a good week.

Sorry, folks …

… for the extended radio silence.  Just busy with a lot of “this that and t’othering.”

First up, must just say, hand on humble heart – we have been more than a little touched at the recent flurries of concerned emails from many of you, wondering why the no show over this last fortnight or so. The blog’s viewing figures, too, have gone through the roof of late – am guessing as regular readers check in not once, but perhaps a couple of times a day to find still no news.  Or, we’ve inadvertently tapped a whole new segment of boat-fanciers. Or perhaps the harsh reality is nobody gives a figaroo, but a computer or several somewhere have suddenly developed this strange B&B fixation glitsch … whatever,  even our About section which has been around a long time -  plenty enough to gather a few cobwebs and a lot of dust – has received record hits this past week.  The blog stats give the blogee (me) oodles of figures for all sorts of things – all very fascinating if you’re into that kind of thing – but what they don’t tell you is why viewing figures suddenly soar. Ah sweet mysteries of cyber life!

Anyway, time, therefore, to update this site and just geddonwithit!

First those warranty issues: again, many of you have written privately, curious as to how things are panning out and by the tone of your emails, it’s clear you have taken our cause to heart.  For those who don’t already know – and I promise I’ll get answers to all who’ve written – well, they’re still (!) panning. By that, I mean discussions continue and we’re still trying to establish what aspects of the surveyor’s report African Cats will agree to fix under warranty, and those they won’t.  It’s  a laborious, boring process – but one that must be gone through.  As mentioned earlier, the surveyor was instructed to draw up a report based only on those issues he thought it reasonable should be covered by warranty – which is what he did.

As for the boat itself, well, she’s bobbing peacefully enough, back in Prickly Bay once more.  The usual repairs and maintenance stuff goes on a-pace, as do the never-ending cleaning chores. Here in the Caribbean especially during these ridiculously hot and humid hurricane months, blink once and you find a few spores of mold blossoming quietly away here and there. Blink twice and you have a rabid colony of the stuff  intent on world domination – well, vessel domination. Blink three times and not only is everything sprinkled with galloping  black rashes, but unlovely mildewy smells taint clothes and cabinets  and the only remedy is industrial-strength, hard-core fumigation.  Hey, but do we  panic? Do we despair? Nah, we curse, of course, but thanks to Peggy Hall, the guru (in fact, often referred to as the Headmistress!) of keeping a boat smelling sweet, we fight back – viciously! In fact, thanks to Ms Hall, I’m fast becoming a vinegar queen. Vinegar, bicarb of soda and Zoflora (disinfectant) queen to be precise. In fact there isn’t a lot on the boat that hasn’t been intensively V-B-Z’d at some stage and several times over. Her book, Get Rid of Boat Odors, is oft considered the bible of such things.  You’ll find her suggestions for curing stinky sailing probs quoted all over the internet.  But I’m already such a convert, I think I’ll order a copy of the real thing from Amazon to pick up when we go back to the UK in December.

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Weatherwise – we’ve been extremely lucky so far. Hurricanes and tropical storms come and go, all having given – or giving – Grenada a comfortably wide berth at the moment. Long may it continue.  Some wonderful rain squalls yesterday and today after a very long dry spell  – which saw the boats here all swinging wildly in the sudden wind shifts, leading to much mucking for yours truly trying to rig a water catcher from a shower curtain. A couple of design glitches meant I got well and truly drenched  fartarsing around with the bally thing (it worked incredibly well for a while, then the bloody wind went berserk and there was more rain flying off the thing than into the bucket below). Even so,  it was a lot of fun, the water tanks got a generous topping up, and for the first time in months, I was comfortably cool. Heck, you don’t know how good cool is till you’ve spent the hurricane season on a boat in the Caribbean.  Anyway, soggy, but undeterred,  RainCatcher Mark II is my project for the rest of this week … but patent pending may be another shower curtain away!

More later … and soon!

Did you know …

… that some erstwhile study (I’ve long since forgotten which)  proved conclusively that folk who spend more of their life looking up are happier, more optimistic and generally healthier? Why? Because, so the theory goes, in filling their peepers with vistas of the ever-changing sky, they see the bigger picture – the grander scheme of things. They don’t, like their pessimistic cousins, fill their noodles with the ordinary nitty-gritty unlovelinesses of the day found at eyelevel and below much of the time. Of course, these same fortunate, giddy optimists probably experience considerably more pain than those whose feet are a little more leaden  – I mean, tripping along with your nose in the air might be good for the spirit, but it’s also a sure fire way of going A over E and denting your dignity a tad. But hey, what’s a little pain now and then if you’re a happier bunny who habitually trips the light fantastic down the sunny side of the street?

And for all the silly pseudo psycho-babble implications of such a sweeping generalisation,  it must be said there’s a smidgeon of truth to be found in this tenet – albeit a rather tentative one. For at the very least,  looking up on certain occasions will fill your eyes with spectacles as grand as the photo at the opening of this post – if you’re lucky in your timing. And how not to feel blessed and rather chuffed to be struttin’ your stuff, when you feast on heavens as magnificent as this. Well, those flaming apricot skies are yours for the taking here at St David’s Bay – albeit tantalisingly fleetingly. For in the time it took me to register how photo-worthy the heavens were tonight, and run below to fetch and load my camera, the dying sun was already taking his  dramatic leave and within three minutes of firing the shutter, the magic was all but over.  By the way, for the record, there is no photoshop manipulation here either, other than the framing – within it, pure pixels each and every one.

So, with nothing ventured, nothing gained – perhaps it’s time to try it, why don’t  you? Leave the stilettos and open-toes at home, schlap on those steel-capped boots and take a trip on the celestial wild side – eyes up, nose up, heart up – embrace the skyline and the magnificent heavens above. And who knows? From hereon in, you might find yourself embarking on a glad-all-over gambol into a  brighter, jollier future – one blessed with lower blood pressure and rosier cheeks to boot. Well, that or a trip to the local A&E … either way, let me know how you get on!

Back to boaty business and warranties next post …