Part VIII - The boat that rocks...
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We arrived in the marina at Arrecife on Saturday around 1.30pm. We had good winds for most of our voyage. Initially 20kts on the nose that swung through to the west and the last 3 days, directly behind us. Easy conditions for me to cook so no excuses were possible or actually necessary.
The marina is quite small but very well appointed with
excellent showers, shops, coffee houses and bars and there's even a
night club within a stone throw from our boat. A large draught beer is
just 1.5 Euros and eating dinner out is around 12 Euros - much cheaper
than Cascais.
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| Sitting on the bow with my feet dangling in the sea, sun on my face - life doesn't get much better |
Our skipper Grunde is into his heavy metal. The boat is named after one of his favourite bands - Hate Breed - he's abbreviated to H.Breed. Music plays from our Spotify playlists most of the day which suits me well. But Grunde dislikes my reggae collections intensely, he's even threatening to avoid Tobago if I continue playing it. My excuse is that he needs to become more familiar with reggae if he's serious about stopping off in the Caribbean. But he's not really wearing it...
While Gunnar and I were in Cascais, we enjoyed the singer's closing renditions of Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline. It's a great sing along number and O'Neills did it proud as their closing number at 2am most nights. Within my CD collection on board I just happened to have that very number. It has since become the boat's anthem and I have to play it prior to serving the boys their evening meal. The volume has been creeping up each day and now it has to be full blast otherwise there are howls of abuse shouted at me through the hatch. But that's one of the many benefits of being miles and miles from the nearest souls...
Sweet Caroline also happens to be my team's (Reading FC) welcome song played before kick-off at the Mad Stad, funny that... Another sweet victory away at Wigan yesterday, 30th November, 1-3. Well done boys!
Birds...
You're probably not expecting me to write about Tubenoses. I was quite a keen bird watcher back in my mid-teens; taking part in monthly wildfowl counts on some of the lakes in south Gloucestershire. Back then, I also hitched down to the observatory at Portland Bill on several occasions. It's one of the best places to spot rare birds during their migrations. But I found it incredibly difficult to spot anything of note. Identifying these special seabirds from land is pretty restricted and requires much expertise and strong onshore winds.
The Tubenoses include the Albatross species with which most of you will be familiar. Fulmers, Petrels, Shearwaters and Gannets are also part of this family and are common around most of the British coastline. These pelagic critters only spend time ashore during their short breeding season, for the rest of the year they remain airborne, over our oceans, never touching land. Even the most expert twitcher will struggle to confidently identify them from land so the opportunity to watch them at close quarters at sea, was an opportunity not to be missed for me.
But to be within ten feet of five Northern Fulmers, hovering a few inches above the sea right behind the stern of our boat was fantastic. I was alone on watch at about 3am, completely transfixed by their grace, as they 'sheared' above our phosphorescent wake. The wind was brisk, about 18kts but they so adeptly fed with just their bills touching the sea. Later that day I saw many shearwaters from about 80 metres distance. Whether they were Manx or Great Shearwaters I'm not sure. With their swept back wings of more than a metre span and their dark colour, they too were a sight to behold.
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| A Storm Petrel - these tiny seabirds have twice landed on boats that I've been sailing on this year, TS Pelican -August and H.Breed - November |
Later that evening (Tuesday 26th November) I came up on deck to relieve Steinar from his watch. He was holding in his hand a Storm Petrel that had crash-landed in the cockpit. Sadly, upon closer inspection of this tiny bird, a bit smaller than a Starling, it revealed a broken leg. We watched this little dark friend fly off into the night sky. But as it won't need to use its legs for another five months, maybe it'll survive. So three different Tubenoses in one day - brilliant!
Fishing
Alas our fishing thus far has been less than successful. Gunnar and I have both brought our own tackle and he challenged me to a contest later on Thursday after another day of basking in beautiful sunshine. In true Robson Green style, I accepted the gauntlet and his wager. Loser buys 20 beers for the winner; so it'll be a fairly sober night for us by our Cascais standards - lol.
Gunnar setting up his tackle had us all in hysterics - one tangle followed another and another. We were rolling around for a good ten minutes, so much banter, tears running down our cheeks. So refreshing for me to be on this boat with these guys after my past two passages with captains Serious and Sensible. Thank the good Lord, fun isn't dead just yet! We reached the marina in Arrecife, both of us having blanked - an honorable draw was declared, to be continued...
The almost 'naked cook...'
I use the word cook rather than chef because that would be rather presumptuous and frankly, I'm still on a pretty steep learning curve. The crew have complained a couple of times but only because they're putting on weight. They've had meat loaf, roast piri piri chicken, meatballs with tomato and haricot beans, chicken chasseur and my own take on spaghetti Alfredo. Brunch has been a mixture of fry-ups, soups, salads and hot dogs. So far so good and only one minor spill! These Norges love their fresh coffee. Several flasks are made during the day to keep them bright and cheery.
So apologies to Marcus and Paul, I won't be back in time to join your Christmas parties but I'll be thinking of you all. Best wishes and God bless!
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