Sailing Jeannius: Preparing For The High Seas: 09/07/12

It’s sad to see Heather, Joe and Graysen packing their bags, probably for the last time on Jeannius if we go ahead and sell her some time next year. Well put her on the market anyway, after all, in this economic climate, selling anything is difficult.

While she’s not looking, I slip the plaque that we won for coming last in the Anegada Lobster Race into Heather’s bag as a surprise. I never actually understood why we won that. Yes, we came last, but we had officially retired from the race so weren’t in it anyway.

Linda comes over early to pick up the laundry and comes back with the first just as the Conklins are leaving for the airport. It is a sad little farewell as we stand in the dusty carpark at Conch, basking in the smell of the overflowing rubbish skip. Ah, the Caribbean!

Mike and I busy ourselves doing jobs on the boat, and this is really how the week continues. We unpack all the boxes we stored at Conch and find the contents to be absolutely fine – no damp or mould at all. In fact, even the huge bag of soft furnishings has remained fragrant. The same cannot be said of the stuff in the bow compartment of the boat. As Mike breaks it open, a hot, fetid smell emerges. Everything is hot and damp and covered disgusting black, sooty mould. He takes out a couple of things then decides to just leave the hatch open for a day or so. A little man comes to service the engines and generator so with the cabins stripped, it gives me the opportunity to have a good sweep around and also search for Diane’s earrings which disappeared some time during the week, but they are nowhere to be found.

Mike contacts the main rigging guy on the island to arrange for him to go to the top of the mast to retrieve the main halyard and replace its sheave but when he is told we are at the dock at Conch, he tells us we will have to take the boat around to the shelter of TMM or a marina as he won’t go up the mast with the ferries going past. What a wuss! I go up the mast at sea outside Capetown and a guy who does it professionally won’t do it tied to the dock because of a bit of wake. Actually, it’s a bloody lot of wake when the ferries pass but still.

Linda arrives at the dock on Tuesday morning to say goodbye - now it is her time for going home.

I decide to go into town to do a bit of provisioning. The office tell me that Bobby's will come and collect me within 5 minutes of them placing the call, and sure enough, half an hour and 3 phone calls later, they do. Sigh, I will never get used to ‘island time’.

Walking around Bobby’s I am dismayed at what I see. The shop has really gone downhill. Over half the frozen display units are completely empty, the fresh fruit and vegetables look anything but fresh and lots of the produce I pick up is out of date or barely in date. The new Rite Way must be hitting them hard – and their answer seems to be to increase the price of everything they do have to make up the income shortfall – everything is so expensive. One bag of groceries (with no meat or alcohol) comes to nearly $90. Ridiculous! I can’t find half the stuff I want so slip out and make my way over to SupaValue to buy all my chicken and shrimp. On the way back I spot the same driver loading another crew and their provisioning into the taxi, and nonchalantly slide into the front, even though it was bloody obvious I had just come from another shop. When he drops me off, I slip him $5 for not ‘noticing’. Well, if you can’t beat them …

I cook garlic and chilli prawns on toast for tea. We haven’t had it for ages and as I munch into the succulent little critters, I bemoan the fact that I only bought one pack. And at $20 for 1.5 kilos, they are much better value than the small tube of tomato puree which cost me nearly $10 at Bobby’s.

On Wednesday, we move Jeannius round to TMM. There is no room on the dock so we raft up three deep against another Catamaran and wait for the rigger. Penny comes to see us, bringing back our breakmaker which has been on loan to her since last summer. It turns out she liked it so much that Pete bought her one for Christmas so she’s happy to return mine. We catch up on our respective family news then she offers to drop me in town so I can buy some more shrimp. I pop into Capriccios to say hello to Pete and her daughter who she is meeting for lunch then walk back hoping the prawns don’t defrost, even though I have wrapped them in towels in my bag. As I pass the riggers place, I note that his car is still in the driveway even though it is now past his appointment time with us. Island time again!

I cannot pass Crandalls without buying some of their salt fish patties for lunch, and throw a beef one in for good measure too. These things are delicious. A tasty filling pinched up 'Cornish pasty style’ in doughnut dough and deep fried. Heart attack on a plate, theoretically disgusting, but in reality, anything but. Yummy.

Eventually the rigger arrives and I leave him to it with Mike to go to say hi to some of the staff at TMM. Ten minutes later, I am just leaving to pop to the Rite Way door, when I see the rigger leave. Asking him if it is all done, he replies ‘no, and you’ve got a bigger problem than you thought’. Terrific. It would appear that a terrible grinding noise occurred as he was winched up the mast and he is unwilling to risk it, preferring to dangle from a crane at Nanny Cay which he can do for us tomorrow as he will be there with said crane for another boat.

I do my heavy shopping then tramp it all across two boats to Mike. He’s not as pissed off as I am about the rigging but he’s generally more ‘philosophical’ than I am about boat expenditure. We collect the main sail from the sail makers above TMM and Mike, dragging it once more across the two rafted boats, not an easy task and one which I accomplish from the air conditioned comfort of the boat while Mike sweats it out with someone else. We take the boat back out of the mosquito hell hole that is TMM (the down side of being sheltered) and pop it back on Conch’s dock. When Mike sees the manager and explains what has happened he says the grinding noise was because they had swapped the grinding shreve for another one and they know another rigger who will do it. One phone call and it’s arranged for tomorrow morning.

The afternoon is spent washing black mould off everything in the bow compartment and leaving it out to dry.

Early Thursday morning the other rigger arrives and half an hour later the job is done. The nasty grinding noise did happen again but the rigger was unconcerned, probably because he sent his little apprentice up there. Anyway Mike explains that the grinding noise is not a problem as it was caused by using a metal bit that’s not used by anything else. So that’s alright then! And the black mould cleaning continues. We also get another winch put on for the genoa so that Mike doesn’t have to keep swapping the sheets over, something he has been meaning to do for ages (evidenced by the fact that the bloody winch has been sitting in one of his tool boxes for nearly two years!)

On Friday our main sail is finally fitted back on, Mike organises his tools and spare parts then goes to check out from Customs while I fill the boat with water. It’s getting exciting now that we are nearly ready to go. While I have command of the dock hose and a ferocious supply of water, I give the deck a really good scrub, finally managing to remove the last of Malcolm’s red wine.

Finally we say goodbye to the staff at Conch and pull away from the dock, heading over to the fuel dock. The man waves us over to the other side, away from all the wood guard rails and huge fenders, and towards a nasty solid concrete side. I hastily rearrange our fenders just as we come alongside. Telling me that the diesel will automatically switch off when the tank is full, I stand and squeeze the handle. Of course, it doesn’t do what it should do and about two pints of bright orange diesel spurts out all over my newly cleaned cockpit. I am not amused. But Mike is distracted and happy about the news that he can get the diesel duty free as we have already checked out and the news of saving $100 allows my complaining to just wash straight over him.

While it’s duty free, Mike fills all the jerry cans too. The winds are forecast to be light and there might be a lot of motoring for the second half of the trip to Bermuda.

We head for Cane Garden Bay where we are due to stay for the night before setting off tomorrow. Apparently you don’t set sail for a long passage on any Friday, let alone a Friday 13th. As we pass Nanny Cay we notice a nasty squall coming which looks like it might miss us. We see lots of flapping sails as yachts are caught out and try to get their sails down quickly. As we watch, the squall spreads out and it is soon obvious that it is going to get us too. I head inside to shut the hatches and Mike dons his waterproofs – then it’s bucket time as the water comes down and the wind picks up to over 40 knots. At least it helps get rid of the salt water and detergent that we poured over the cockpit to get rid of the diesel. Every cloud and all that – literally in this case.

Photo: Mike, the jerry cans and my not-so-clean cockpit

Rounding Steel Point, Mike decides to check the rigging. I assume my position by my newly labelled jammers and attempt to pull the main up. It won’t move more than about a foot. Shit. Mike walks all around the boom and mast checking everything, then glances over at me and my jammers. Having gone all around the world with the bloody things unlabelled and never having a problem, I have now managed to attempt to pull up the main by having the topping lift sheet on the winch. What a dork! I swap them over looking sheepish and all is well. The sail and it’s rigging arrangement work just fine.

We pick up a mooring ball in Cane Garden Bay because Mike wants a good night’s sleep without having to worry, shower and then go over to The Elm to have dinner with Malcolm and Candace. As usual it is good and tonight the Elmtones are playing. They wish us good luck and dedicate a song to our journey. Not sure of the relevance as it’s Steve’s train song, but he’s British so maybe that’s it.

Photo: That Cane Garden sunset again