Post 19  -  'Lord, why do you sleep?'  Psalm 127:1-5

A very common bird here in le Marin, any guesses?

I moved out of the apartment I was sharing with Zag almost three weeks ago. I'm now living on a boat on the outermost pontoon on the marina; I found it via AirB&B. I was ready to have my own space again and I've been busy helping with a local project here and learning to scuba dive. I'm not giving a summary to start this post, you'll just have to read it all or just look at the pictures.

Contents

⦁ Scuba Diving

⦁ An Historic Ship

⦁ My Local Hero

⦁ Sailing Again 

Scuba Diving

the beautiful but dangerous Lion Fish are actively being culled to prevent over-population

I have scuba dived several times before but never with the aim of becoming a certified diver. I decided to dive with my friend Audrey and she chose Matthew and Carol's dive school based at the entrance to the old marina here in le Marin.

all of these pictures were taken by Matthew during our first dive

To date I've had nine of my lessons and won't be good enough to pass the exam after ten. My eighth dive was a complete mess, I made three basic mistakes which didn't impress Matthew at all. Plus I really struggled with my ears that just wouldn't adjust to the increasing pressure. I haven't dived now for almost two weeks because my ears still aren't right despite various medications. I'll see the local ear, nose and throat specialist if the problem doesn't clear by the weekend. I think a pipe cleaner pushed through one ear and out of the other should sort it - lol.
I've been given a book to study before I take the written exam. What I've also enjoyed is getting to know other divers. They're mainly French vacationers and most of them have been miles better than me. Typically we go for a coffee or a beer afterwards and I've made some envious friends, that I'm still in touch with back in France.

after dive drinks...

An Historic Replica Ship

It's not often I come across a cause that's really worth fighting for, but I've recently found one here in Martinique. But first a bit of her history to set the scene...

A photograph of the original Nao Victoria... lol

In 1519, a spanish expedition left Seville attempting to circumnavigate the world. Remember too, during that time the world was still considered to be flat by the uneducated masses and the closed minded faithful. One ship in Ferna de Magalhaese's expedition fleet was called the Nao Victoria; it was skippered by Juan Sebastian Elcano. Having sailed across the Atlantic and around Cape Horn, they arrived in the lands of spices already known to the European sailors at that time.  However no European ship had ever approached from the east. When Captain Elcano continued west to Seville in 1522, he became something of a local hero. 

If you like stories about modern day heroes, you'll hopefully enjoy the latter part of this story, but please read on.

The Victoria Golden Hind is the only remaining wooden replica of this historic ship. It was built entirely from wood in the time-old traditional way. It was started in the early 1970s in Poland and finished more than ten years later after the original builder died. It subsequently proved its durability by sailing almost 50,000 nautical miles (nm) and it too circumnavigated the world.

For the past three years, this now deteriorating ship has been anchored in a quiet lagoon amongst the mangroves, here in le Marin bay. It is currently leaking around 25,000 litres of sea water per day, so it has to be constantly pumped out by electric bilge pumps, powered from just batteries and solar panels! 

A forward view from the wheel house - so characterful

The group who currently own the Victoria Golden Hind were reportedly prepared to invest more than half a million Euros to fully restore it.

The boat has been booked to sail on a suitable sea freighter on 5th April, in less than 6 weeks from now. If money cannot be raised in time, it's going to be allowed to sink. The owners are apparently not prepared to invest almost €50,000 to have the ship sea freighted back to Poland through fear that it will arrive as a pile of wooden planks. But I suspected there was far more to it than that and, over the past few days, I've discovered this to be the case... So down it will go, in about seven metres, to remain as just a semi-submerged tourist attraction. Oh well at least the superstructure won't be removed, good for the local birds...

Victoria Golden Hind pictured here in 1992

My local hero - Vojtech Šotkovský 

Vojtech has become a great friend and I was determined to help him save this ship

You may remember from my first post from Martinique published on the 4th January, I went to a party on this ship on the evening of Christmas day 2020. I met up with Vojtech again a couple of weeks ago, he was selling off stuff from the ship to raise some money at a Sunday market held at the marina. 

Vojtech is a Czech national and trained as a carpenter, he's just 30 years old and he speaks English fluently. He later went to sea and became a qualified skipper as well as an accredited Scuba Diving instructor. Just over three years ago, Vojtech became involved with the Victoria Golden Hind project and has lived on the boat ever since. He has made many repairs to it and installed the solar panels to provide power for the pumps that are keeping her afloat. He earns money by making repairs to other boats in le Marin and often dives to clean the hulls of boats before they voyage.

the beautiful mangroves looking out of the main upper cabin...

He's restored the lower deck berths that can now accommodate about 16 people. Over the past three years, countless world travellers have stayed on this ship, given a bed and an evening meal and most of all, real companionship from Vojtech and his shipmates. Many of these travellers are virtually penniless but this base, usually enables them to get some work locally, earn some money before they move on.  Some stay for just a few days, some stay for months...

But alas, on 6th April he will remove the solar panels, batteries and pumps to sell off to repay some of the hundreds of Euros that he has personally invested. He'll probably film Victoria sink on to the sea bed just seven metres down. The two owners based in Czech and Slovak will quickly realise the stupidity of their neglect when they are formally charge with removing the wreckage by the local port authority. 

I hope Karma will take care of all the parties involved with this rather sad story and I wish Vojtech good luck with his life going forward! He's a very special guy and the sort of hero we need many, many more of to end these troubled times...

Vojtech and Maciej relaxing in the main cabin...

Sailing Again...

I was fortunate to spend last Friday sailing away from le Marin bay, after seven weeks on dry land. I sailed with several friends here and we went out towards St. Lucia and then back. The winds have been significantly stronger over the past three weeks because it's now the winter season here in Martinique, it's howling through the rigging as I write this. The wind was a steady 22kts once we cleared the surrounding hills in the bay and Vincent, the owner, kindly let me take over the helm once we'd lifted the anchor from our location just south of St. Annes.

Wow did this boat shift!!! It's a Sun Odyssey 49 made by Jeanneau boats in France. We had two reefs in the main and only about 60% of the genoa actually raised which kept the boat pretty upright but we still maintained 8kts quite comfortably. In fact we peaked at almost 12kts on two occasions and that really is fast for a cruising monohull. When the wind gusted over 25kts you could feel the boat accelerate - superb! Especially when I compare its performance to the Beneteau 50 that I sailed to Martinique on. And that boat was no slouch either.

True Blue skipper, well one can pretend...

I hogged the helm for more than two hours and just loved it, no autohelm for me thank you very much, at least not on this occasion. It may sound strange but during my Atlantic crossing, I was the only person to switch off the autohelm to actually sail and steer the boat manually. I think it's so important to get the feel of a boat so that if push comes to shove, you can always control the boat comfortably without any dramas should conditions change for the worse.

I absolutely loved it and it was capped off by an emerging turtle just after we'd return to anchor. It was my first ever sighting of a turtle in the wild but I wasn't quick enough to capture it on camera because as is typical, they come up for just three breaths before disappearing again. Later this week I'm due to go to a bay with a friend where you can actually swim with turtles. I can't wait, I love these beautiful creatures! 

What a lovely day, great people and a fantastic experience, finished off with a cold beer in the cockpit... perfection!

A cold beer in the cockpit after a lovely sail

Thanks for reading my blog, hope you enjoyed it. I'll post again when I've swam with them there turtles...lol.

God bless and take care! x

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