Porky & Beluga cook at sea

Post 20 - Porky & Beluga Cook at Sea Key hand over time at last... I'm delighted to introduce you to Beluga. She's my newly acquired boat, a Sun Odyssey 49P, made by the large French boat builder, Jeanneau. Beluga was built in 2005 which was around my target year. Boats built after 2008 (financial crash) are typically a lighter construction and made using a multilayer design. From my own experiences in business, cost cutting exercises are often cursed with higher warranty costs and this proved to be the case for Beneteau, Jeanneau and Bavaria, the boats on my buying radar. And these boats are typically owned by cruising sailors and charter companies. Introducing Beluga. A beautiful boat with a beautiful name. I love every inch of her... There are two versions of my particular boat, mine is the performance model - Sun Odyssey 49P. It has a taller, racing mast, longer boom plus a deeper, heavier and different shaped keel, giving her a draft of 2.35 metres. The total sail area...

  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 Matth...

 Post 17     Pondering Sunset at the very tranquil St Annes beach Content s I'll cover the following topics in this post:- 1. Exploring Martinique 2. Communication 3. Music here 4. My flat mate Zag 5. Answers to my moon question plus a further question. Summary Having taken on board some of your suggestions, I will start each post with a short summary for those of you short on time. Please note, there is no sailing mentioned in this one. I hired a motorbike for three days to do some exploring and I wasn't disappointed with what I saw. On separate days, I rode up the western and eastern coastal rodes. The eastern windward side is very arid compared to the lush, green leeward side of this beautiful island. I discuss the difficulty that I sometimes encounter when I'm talking with someone who's hiding behind a shield. For many reasons, some people just find it hard to lower their guard that I totally respect, but find a challenge for real communication. Having spent more th...

Different subjects... I'm not sailing currently, just been recovering over the past few days from a New Year's eve party and enjoying some time writing and thinking or hopefully thinking first and then writing, plus a little sketching. 🤔 Some of my likes... 1. Nelson Mandela. Without any question, he is my all-time  hero. What a change he made to one of the most racially oppressed nations on our planet, through his personal sacrifice, courage and humility. Nothing brings a tear to my eyes quicker than watching him lift the Rugby World Cup in 1995, wearing a rugby jersey identical to his captain's. Around that tournament, the SA team did great work in some different ghettos, totally inspired by my hero. The entire nation, almost without except, just loved the man and what he'd done for their country. But sadly many of his legacies have already been eroded by greed. His wife's behaviour just left me gobsmacked, he deserved so much better. He spent almost 30 years beh...

Time to reflect... balcony view from my apartment, just 400m from the marina I've made some new friends here in Martinique and I have been busy looking for another boat to join. But I'll evaluate each opportunity before I jump into anything new, including when it's right or even possible for me to return home. I have already decided not to sail on two boats because things didn't seem quite right. I was hoping to sail to St Martin with Zag on a lovely catamaran but the owner has decided to sell the boat after spending January aboard it with his wife. So it's likely to be back here in Martinique before February and then to be sold. The owner has paid Zag to fly out here from Corsica and work for him, to demonstrate the cat to potential buyers and maintain it. If I haven't found anything else in the meantime, I may join Zag for some cruising on it in February, we'll see... I've never sailed before on a cruising cat and I'd love to experience the smoothe...