ST JUDES, ISLE OF MAN. 2 AUGUST 2018
We’re back home, so I’m typing our blog up from memory and my diary, it’s the 2nd of August, and raining here in St Judes, the trees outside our cottage window are losing leaves in the winds, and I’m fighting cabin fever with cups of tea and fruit and nut chocolate. Since returning we’ve both found we don’t like being indoors for long, not that we are, there are far too many outside jobs to do on our cottage and replacing our ancient septic tank is just one, hacking back ten months growth of our hedges another. We’re wearing tshirts, jeans and socks rather than trunks and bikinis, well at least here at home I’ve got pockets to put rubber gloves, paintbrushes and sandpaper rather than tucking them into the straps of my bikini..…… All too soon we will be off again in early November, but that’s the next series of blogs!
Like the children’s book The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe, on leaving Sisu behind in Curacao we really felt as though we had pushed our way through the dense fur coats and came back through the wardrobe door into our land world, there was a very physical and mental sense of doing so, our way of life here and there are poles apart in temperature, culture, environment and pace of life. Though we enjoy being back with our family and friends, the time at home is flying by, we are already working through lists of things to bring back to the boat, and making decisions to shelve jobs we won’t have time to do here. Already we are mentally shifting from life here to life back on Sisu. Once we have endured the challenge and had our senses thoroughly assaulted at Manchester Airport we will soon climb back into the wardrobe, part the fur coats and go through the back of the wardrobe, re entering our own magical world ready to explore new Islands.
In writing up the last blog of the season, I can drift back to life on board in Curacao and sorting the boat out for laying up, including the tough job of using up the wine boxes as they won’t keep, perhaps they might, but we weren’t willing to take the risk.
CURACAO END OF MAY TO 8 JUNE 2017
We moored up at a pontoon, it was the weirdest feeling. We weren’t moving, some marinas can be fairly “swelly” and lively, passing boats creating a wave or winds gusting through a marina can push you around too. Here, we were in a very sheltered spot between the pontoon itself and another boat, and as steady as a rock. Took a bit of getting used to, it was the first time we’d not been at anchor since December 2016!
It was hot, one entry in my diary starts “hot,hot,hot!” , you really can have too much of a good thing, if this was hotter than we’d experienced previously, what the hell was it going to be like up in the boatyard? We bought a big fan, we now had the luxury of mains electricity, we set up the monster fan on our chart table and kept it going 24 hours a day. We even decamped our bed from the oven like forecabin into the main saloon as we could be nearer our big fan! At night the fan would blow cooling air over us, bliss……
Curacao Marine has been recently taken over and improvements are being made and during our stay, nothing was too much trouble, the showers were clean, we had a drop and collect laundry service to wash our own versions of the Turin Shroud, in other words our bedding, bucket washing just doesn’t do the job, we had imprints of our shapes on the bottom sheets no matter how much they were washed…. The Marina also had the service of a free bus to a local supermarket and Budget Marine and a bar area with superb wifi where you could you bring your own booze with leather settees to recline upon, well I say reclining, we just constantly sweated, so we would gradually slide around and off the leather cushions as we sat drinking our beers.
We were scheduled for lift out on the 1st June, prior to that we had a long list of paint jobs to do whilst on the pontoon. Firstly we had to clear in with Immigration at Willemstad. The Marina is about 35/40 minutes easy walk to Willemstad, and as we walked to the Immigration and Customs offices, we made our way past the Venezuelan floating markets, gaily painted little boats with their names exuberantly painted along the hulls, well worn heavy material slung over the booms creating shelter for the market vendors who lived on board. They set out their stalls all down the quayside alongside their boats, calling out their wares they bounced around the quay, joshing with each other, like a load of magpies, big, loud and flashes of colour amongst the drabness of the old tarpaulin backdrop of their stalls.
Immigration offices can be a jolly experience or a salutary experience depending on the person behind the desk. In Antigua, because we didn’t know the local pleasantries we were completely ignored and then soundly bollocked because we didn’t know to say good morning when we entered the Immigration office. We had just waited quietly for someone to attend to us, wrong! From then on we always said “Good morning!” At Willemstad Immigration Office, we handed over our passports to a straight faced, well built uniformed Officer. He looked at us, opened our passports then his whole face suddenly lit up! “Isle of Man!” He beamed at us, Terry and I looked at one another. “I was there, 16 years ago for the TT Races, the racers are madmen!” It’s a small world all right. Paperwork flicked through, bang, bang went the rubber stamps on our documents, and in between the thumping of the official stamps we heard about his holiday on our Island, we offered him a place to stay if he ever visits, a great welcome to Curacao! God help us if everyone we’ve offered a bed and boarding to on our journey decide to arrive during the TT or the Classic TT races!
Next was the list of jobs to be tackled in the searing heat, even writing the list of jobs was a challenge, as we sweated onto the paper rendering the list soggy to read afterwards! The list was long and varied, the anchor locker and cockpit lockers needed painting, steps into the saloon and the rest of the floor needed to be re varnished, sails taken down, Rib wrapped up in tarpaulin to protect it from the sun’s rays. We had to make new solar panel holders for the two new panels we would buy at some point before next season. Being on the pontoon gave us the opportunity to take off the sprayhood, wash it and scrub both the big sunshades laying everything out on the pontoon so I could go over them with a scrubbing brush and hose, then washed just about every halyard and sheet we possessed in every bucket we possessed! Top tip, fabric conditioner softens them for next season’s use. Sorting through our food cupboards, meals became imaginative in their combination! We had to use up opened packets of rice and pasta, sauces and condiments. We also had to judge beer and wine quantities, get the maths wrong and we’d run out or have too much left over and wasted. Tough job. After considerable chewing on a pencil over a sweaty bit of paper we carefully rationed our drinks cupboard working out consumption on the basis of beers for thirst quenching, rewards for jobs tackled, crappy days where things go wrong, good days when things go right and entertaining guests. Our booze maths cocked up on two events, a) the owner of the Marina threw a birthday party for his birthday with a free bar for his family, staff and boat owners in the marina, well it would have been rude not to share his celebration, and b) our time in the boatyard coincided with the owner and his son having the regular Friday night happy hour free beers in the bar! We recalculated our rations with a big smile!
Life on pontoons is interesting, neighbours become friends quickly as we live outside most of the time and very little is private. We enjoyed friendships with Portuguese, Dutch and French sailors, and though we were only moving a matter of a few hundred yards onto the hard standing we felt like we could have been moving out of town, there’s a slight sense of separation from living two feet apart. Friends came to visit rather than lean over and chat. It’s a fascinating environment and a way to observe how folks live together in close company.
1st of June and haul out day. An early start, no wind, just the gentlest of breezes, we were first haul out. E back out of our pontoon and slowly motor up the short distance to the slipway. The haul out two man team are experts, carrying out their job with minimum of fuss, we are advised to leave Sisu in their hands. We wait on the edge of slip whilst she is gently brought onto the cradle which will hold her safely whilst the driver of the biggest tractor we’ve ever seen tows her out. It was incredibly emotional. Sea water dripped off her sides, like watching a lady bashfully dropping her robe to the floor, revealing herself, we hadn’t seen Sisu out of the water for ten months and she looked naked and vulnerable. The men treated her with dignity and she proudly allowed herself to be guided by them, up the slipway and slowly drawn through the boatyard to her resting place in between two grand dames, one a large yacht and the other a big motor boat who both seemingly took charge and gave her the shelter and reassurance from the shock of no longer having the clothing of the sea around her. If this sounds far fetched, it is not to those who sail or simply appreciate the beauty and grace of boats, she is truly a living thing and we are bound to her and her feelings. We knew she would feel better once we started to clean her hull and repaint over our clumsy handling when entering berths.
Sisu was chocked up, her hull and rudder off the ground, we would need to remove the shoe at the base of the rudder for repair. We rigged up a ladder against her hull, climbed up and viewed our new view, we had a panoramic vista over the whole boatyard from the cockpit and mercifully a breeze. Living on the yard was like a train standing in the station, you can’t use the loo for obvious reasons, if you think about it. Still, it was no hardship, the loos were a matter of a few yards away and the showers were now even closer! Let me tell you though, I’m sure you’ve all had the walking up stairs or into a room and wondered why you did that or what was it you’d forgotten. It’s a right pain in the butt, getting down or up a long ladder and forgetting why you went up, or down, it in the first place………..
We rigged up a big blue tarpaulin over the boom and tied it so it funnelled what breeze there was down into the boat and watched the little sugar ants already beginning to explore around our decks, we were going to have to keep an eye on these little divils. On leaving Sisu we will lay down cockroach and ant powder throughout the boat, in all the cupboards, in corners. I stock up on powder and tin foil in readiness. We will only leave sealed packets of food, anything that is opened will be ditched or handed to the Marina staff for them to use, we won’t know if we’ve done a good job till we come back, as it’s the first time we’ve left her, it could be an interesting return!
Terry is very allergic to epoxy resin so once we’ve scraped all the paint off from under the sprayhood, we mix epoxy to fill holes and ensure a smooth finish, I love the alchemy of mixing epoxy and enjoy this job. The boat is covered in grey bits of anti slip paint, it’s everywhere inside and out. I see from my diary it’s described as “what a bloody job, taken all day”. It’s not entirely comfortable living, the boat is in bits, we’re working flat out every day and it’s so hot. The most physical jobs are done first thing, by noon it’s just too hot and our pace slows. We also scrape her blue water line, I could rob a bank and get away with it as my fingerprints have been erased by the harshness of the scourers, it’s not one of my favourite jobs but worthwhile. Most of the floor inside is up and laid down on the yard, sailors coming past are now used to me hunched over steps and floor boards laid out on the concrete, which becomes red hot by noon, sanding away with a sanding machine, I love it and feel very at home in the bustle of the yard. Terry is inside the saloon taking apart the engine casing to paint the water maker brackets. Because the engine casing is in the saloon it means the saloon is pretty much out of bounds during the day, we have a rough ladder to clamber down into the saloon as the steps are outside on the ground. We tidy up each evening as we are also sleeping in the saloon, it’s too hot in the forecabin, funny how we get used to living like this, with tools and stuff all over the place, there’s no other option for the time being, jobs need to be done. It’s tweaking the OCD tendancy within……. Fortunately there’s a diversion on the nearby pontoon. Four flash motor boats have arrived from Venezuela. Each boat has a crew of two to four men who spend literally all day washing and buffing every inch of these boats, day in, day out. They play loud pop muzak from early till late, so I don’t feel very sorry when our paint scrapings blow over towards their boats……. One day the crews constant mop flourishing is rewarded, the owner of one of the boats has arrived, we watch open mouthed as box after box of champagne is carried on board, a crewmember struggles with the weight of the boxes as he heaves them into the lounge area. These boxes are followed with boxes of food, bags of rice and more boxes of beer. It’s going to be some party and sure enough, his friends arrive and there’s mass back slapping and full blooded swaggery going on lasting into the evening. It’s great entertainment! They are a quieter bunch of guests in the morning, we peer over our cockpit from our lofty viewpoint as they revive themselves with breakfast glasses of champagne for a new day of male bonding and sharing goodness knows what kind of stories. The immaculate boats leave, pontoon users can walk down the pontoon without tripping over mops, brooms and hosepipes from the motor boats and we can listen to our own types of music without being drowned out by muzak, they were fine and made for an interesting few days conversation and musings as to what their business in Venezuela is for the owners to have boats like that!
We’ve done what we can as our leaving date is upon us. We’ve refitted our newly varnished steps, drunk our beers, eaten our consumables, laid out little pieces of tin foil with cockroach powder every where, place looks like a drug den with all these bits of foil lying around. Hope they do the job! Packing our bags, the last job is to haul the mainsail in its cover from where it’s been lying on the deck. We manhandle it down the steps into the saloon, it takes up all the floor space, if we’ve forgotten anything inside it’s tough, we can’t reach the forecabin! We climb down the ladder and take it down. Sisu will be towed up to the secure yard later in the day. We can’t bear to leave her, I stroke her hull and remind her we’ll be back soon. She looks good, her hull painted, we still have the blue water line to do when we get back but we’ve done the best we can in the time available. Sisu will be safe from the hurricanes and we know she’s in good hands at Curacao Marine. We jump into the taxi and give her a final wave as we leave for the airport. Terry and I have shared so much history and experiences in our beautiful boat, there’s more to come so rest easy Sisu, we’re back soon!
sisu journey 