One Less Plane

Antigua has been really good fun, and i’ve been lucky enough to stay the whole time with a friendly family, on Delightful Drive, Mount Pleasant (doesn’t it sound like Mr Men land?!), in the North of the island, which is mainly gentle rolling scrubland, dotted with small colourful concrete houses with tin rooves and mango and grapefruit trees, growling tied up dogs, and cris crossed with dirt tracks, and the odd tarmac road with insane deathwish minibuses and 4×4s racing along them, screeching to a halt every ten yards to give someone a lift. I’ve been clubbing with Sharee and Travis the teenagers of the house (just like my experience of clubbing in England, but the dancing’s a lot more ’suggestive’!), chatting about sailing and travelling with Guido, the sailor of the house, and chatting politics with Jennifer the political activist (and social worker, mother and bar tender) of the house. Politics are ‘hot hot hot’ (Jennifer’s words) here at the moment, with elections imminent. It all seems like just good Caribbean fun at first glance – the joyful banter on the buses, the flag waving rallys all day and all night, traffic jamming the roads and the 4×4s covered in flags, loudspeakers blaring out manifestos and annoying jingles, parading through the streets at all hours. However, as i learn more, and get more irritated  by the rubbish jingles everywhere (‘if you wanna stop Labour pain, vote for UPP again’ – imagine with calypso beat), it’s not so fun. There are just 2 parties (and a couple of independents) and it’s getting pretty tense  and even violent, between the supporters. Just one of the issues which heightens the tension is that, apparently, whichever party is elected consequently finds ways to sack any civil servants who didn’t support them in the election.  So they are in the end fighting for their livelihoods. Everything seems to run on rumours and speculation, and constant accusations of corruption, and parliament is crazy with personal insults about individual’s families being thrown both to and from the Prime Minister! (Though i should say that i don’t think this is a normal occurance – everyone was a bit shocked.)

Tension has heightened even more by the murder of the Australian yachtsman last week, as the goverment is blamed for poor policing. I don’t know how international this news was, but this guy was shot, next to his wife and baby, during a mugging. Things were really really sad down in English and Falmouth Harbour, for the few days after, all was very quiet, all the bars and restaurants closed and all the boats are starting to leave. The guy was very well known and liked, and you know that everyone is thinking in their heads – that could easily have been me. From my point of view, compared to my euphoric description in my blog entry of the idylic Caribbean, when i walk down that road now the enormous gap between the rich and the poor and the resentment there is suddenly much much more obvious. But from talking to lots of Antiguans about it, the rise in violent crime like this is more complicated than that other issues are -  drugs, unemployment, policing.

Feeling pretty nervous about being a lone, white, and supposedly rich tourist, i headed off into the hills, thinking that robbers wouldn’t be expecting money loaded tourists to be wandering regularly enough through the forest for it to be worth waiting to pounce. And my confidence was totally restored after meeting lovely, friendly, open and generous Antiguans, and a very cute mongoose eating a coconut, all day a long my way.

Apart from these more serious happenings, i have been having a jolly time whizzing round on the little buses, or being picked up by police or random people (usually concerned for my safety standing waiting for the bus) and, for example, invited to their beautiful organic (mostly) pineapple, mango , guava, banana farm. In between i have been searching for boats to island hop, and having many mini-adventures as i get directed by old ladies sitting selling plantains and drunken fishermen from one harbour to another. I did find the banana boat to Dominica which takes just three passengers and you have to call the captain’s mobile to book it.  I was very excited at the prospect of going South to lush, fruit filled, rainforest covered, French speaking Dominica. However, i have decided to go where the wind takes me, and have found a yacht to take me north to Tortola (British Virgin Islands), which is closer to the Dominican Republic where i hope i can settle, live cheaply, learn Spanish, volunteer for a charity, and wait for a boat to Bermuda in Spring.

During the many hours of staring out to sea, my thoughts often drifted to others who i knew would also be floating out at sea, somewhere in the world. Here are three of them, on much more heroic, risky and altruistic missions than me!:

OJ in Palestine. OJ is one of the people who inspired me to sail, she is amazing, and last year travelled over land and sea to Cyprus from where she then sailed through Israeli military blockades to Palestine, and has since been going out to sea with Palestinian fishermen, acting as a human shield to try to stop the military shooting at them, as they fished for their daily food. Unbelievably and humblingly, OJ took the time to email me 2 weeks ago, from the warzone, to congratulate me on my Atlantic crossing. From panicking for her when i first heard the news once we had landed, i was so relieved to hear she was ok, but she also told me she, along with the Palestinians, was in a ‘living hell’. Even if the main bombings have stopped (so i hear), i know that the aftermath will be as hellish, and the suffering continues. So i don’t know what to do but we can read about it, and do something, at the very least, about it here:  www.freegaza.org

Then i thought about Vitze (i actually have no idea how to spell his name!), from Nottingham, who i met just before we both set sail for different oceans. He is on the Sea Shepard, and looks from their blog, like they are currently in Japanese waters trying to save the Minke and Fin whales from being hunted. (You can read about that here: www.seashepherd.org)

And i thought about Lista Light – a beautiful beautiful old wooden boat, with proper rigging you have to haul (no winches), and a crew of ecologists ( and a  fiddle player, shanty singer, and tandem riders), who were setting off for the Atlantic crossing Las Palmas – Antigua, at the same time as i did.  They planned to do the whole crossing without engine power for propulsion, and were even attempting to navigate old style – with a sextant. So i had wondered how long they would have been bobbing around for in the no wind patch that we had hit (which we used our engine to escape from!) and I had started to worry about them when two weeks after we arrived i had not yet sighted them. However, i have since heard from them, to my relief, that they ended up in St Martin instead (deliberately), but had indeed been becalmed for a week, plus had a disastrous snapping of the mast or boom or something, and almost abandoned ship, but even with this managed to cross in only about 6 days more than we did. Wuhoo for wind power!! You can read about them here: www.listalight.co.uk   and for an gripping account (better than mine) of their atlantic crossing, you can read some of the crew’s account here (everyone has blog these days!): www.3mproundtheworld.com

Here’s what it was  like, for me, to cross the Atlantic by wind power (mostly):

It took about 3 weeks, i was queasy for the whole of the first rocky week, until i reached the end of my tether and actually shouted at the sea ‘will you please just stop moving, just for one minute!!’, and Patchamama answered again (i didn’t even have to bury an orange this time) – we were becalmed the next day!

WILDLIFE

As for wildlife –  i saw 3 beautiful dorados (all fighting with our fish hook, killed and eaten), 1 shiny silver tuna (killed an eaten), 1 little stripey fish which lived under our boat the whole way, hundreds of flying fish ( they literally do fly – hundreds of metres across the water, fluttering their wing – fins), an elegant white bird with a long long tail circled above us for about a week , and 3 black coloured birds whizzed around skimming the waves nearby for about a week too (unbelieveable how they don’t rest),

SAILING

i also saw a moonlit rainbow, about 3 other boats (and only at either end near to land), i swam in the ocean twice, hanging off the boat and being dragged along, until the thought of the 3000 fathoms of water below me and man-eating sharks made me panic and jump back out, sang christmas carols (slightly different Canadian and Dutch versions), celebrated New Year twice as we crossed time zones, we tacked, gybed, went wing on wing, tried every sail configuration as the wind came at us from a different direction nearly every day, we sailed through huge crashing waves, floated up and over gentle hills, glided through smooth flat planes, when the auto pilot was working i sat silently on my nightwatches, the boat rocking from side to side, knitting and watching for shooting stars (and glancing about for unlikely ships on the horizon, and for dark clouds coming our way), the phosphoresence in the wake of the boat made it feel like we were floating in the stars, then when the autopilot couldn’t cope with the gusty wind, we steered for 2-3 hours each at a time, my first few shifts of steering were very stressful what with the skipper, Dirk, being quite a shouty skipper even in the calmer times - when you’re steering sometimes a wave throws the boat off course (or, for example, if you maybe occasionally lose concentration due to an AMAZING blazing shooting star or you lose your bearings with blurred tired vision due to a very long shift of steering in the middle of the night) – then the wind gets suddenly round the wrong side of the sail, and the slamming of the sail cloth pulling against the mast bangs and echoes all through the boat and makes the skipper awake and be a bit shouty about the potential tearing of his very expensive sails – those times were a bit tense, especially when there were actually several tears in the sails, but my steering got better and after a week or so i was enjoyng steering with the wind, with the momentum of the boat and surfing down the waves. I think if you do long distance sailing like this without an autopilot (which does use some energy – for which you have to run the engine to charge up the batteries, although this boat had solar panels which provided about enough for the auto), then you would definately need more crew than 3! I think the vision of the compass is etched into my eyes now from staring at it so much, particularly the sector between 260 – 270 degrees.

LIFE IN THE SUNLIGHT

In the day time, i learnt to knit from Ann (i did intend to knit a scarf but have ended up with a nice small square, with lots of holes – dropped stiches where i got distracted by a flying fish or a hasty sail adjustment), and i made rope out of every bit of rubbish on the boat, with which i learnt to crochet and practiced my sailors knots. I scrubbed every tiny bit of rust off the metal parts of the boat, with a toothbrush, and i polished the fibreglass deck. I marvelled at Ann preparing delicious meals, baked bread and cakes with just one gas hob and whilst we rocked at 45 degree angles (so said the lev-o-metre), and, anxious to help i tried to edge my way in to the kitchen, but with my strange vegan tendancies and after a few spillages Ann tactfully said that actually she really likes doing ALL the cooking, so i didn’t get to perfect my boat culinary skills much more than making hummus and cultivating bean sprouts, but i do in theory now know how to bake bread in a pressure cooker and how to make a few Dutch dishes. I also listened to a hundred and one tales of the high seas from the two of them, and tales of hunting bears, dredging for gold in the Yukon, a childhood of eating tulip bulbs (due to post-war poverty, not a Dutch delicacy), emmigrating on a big ship to Canada, and 50 more years of life after that – of which i now know most of the details. Dirk spent his time wondering whether to adjust the sails, change direction, and fixing things (including the engine several times and sewing up tears in the sails – with a beautiful old hand powered sewing machine), and telling me tales. Ann spent her time cooking, crocheting covers for the fenders, adjusting the sails, and searching for loose items in the cupboards making annoying banging sounds on every rock of the boat.

ODE TO THE FISHES

We also fished, and i ate the fish we caught, as i had promised my hosts in a compromise to their meaty diet, and as i had considered that maybe fishing, rather than, for example, carrying processed and canned beans, was the more environmentally harmonious and therefore moral diet when at sea.  I don’t know if this right or how you work out if it is right, but this is what it was like: the first one we caught, a 2 foot, shimmering golden with blue spots, dorado, it had the hook through it’s cheek and it’s eyeball, it fought against being reeled in for 20 minutes, then was dragged on board using another big hook gauged into it’s side, then Dirk used a big wooden mallet to hit it on the head 4 or 5 times, blood pouring out, until it stopped flipping about. Dorados, apparently, have long and loyal relationships with their partners, and this one’s partner stayed right next to it whilst it was being reeled in, and swum next to the boat for a few minutes after it was pulled onboard. Before we ate it that night, Dirk said his grace to god, and i said my grace to the fish and it’s partner, and all fishes (much to their bemusement). But it was really tasty and nutricious, and so were all the fish we ate after that. Since landing, i haven’t felt a particular need to eat fish, and i have loads of fun and adventures seeking out non-animal derived and local produce, so don’t think i am giving up on the veganism yet… (Actually i did eat fish once in a cafe, as the lady was absolutely adament that i could not possibly eat the ‘funghi’ (sort of corn/polenta cake) and vegetables, without meat.  We were both confused and i REALLY wanted to try the funghi, as it’s corn which is grown more locally and every other traditional dish just has imported rice or wheat bread with it, (though i think they might grow rice in Trinidad))

SINGING AT SEA!

Reading the hardback copy of Harry Potter in Spanish, which i was presented with in Gran Canaria, didn’t end up being compatible with my boat life (so i will be lugging that round the Caribbean with me ridiculously), but what i did find was very compatible was singing sea shanties! They really do roll perfectly with the rocking of the boat, the words are less so like my experience of sailing  – mostly about prostitutes at ports and whale hunting.  So i made up my own, and there has been a new shanty verse for every occasion! (It’s going to be a very long song by the time i get back to the UK). And of course, i learnt lots and lots about sailing, mostly from observation, as Dirk and Ann, having lived in the boat for 20 years have their routines and rolls fairly set, so it’s hard to butt in. But i did sometimes manage to persuade them to let me pull some ropes, and have a go at plotting on the chart, and in between Dirk’s tale telling, i would question them about sail configurations, weather predicting and navigation.

We sighted land at sunset  on the 12th January, and i couldn’t believe that it actually worked – just as the map said, thousands of miles of nothing but sea, and then there is land! Navigating in to English Harbour, around rocks, reefs and other boats, i found really nerve racking after not having anything dangerously solid nearby by for a long while. It was also, obviously, incredibly exciting, and i felt like an old explorer reaching unknown exotic lands (except i didn’t plan to enslave and kill everyone i met.)

P.S. For those interested in the carbon footprint of sailing across the Atlantic,  when i say i travelled by wind power (mostly) – i mean that, over 2800 nautical miles or 24 days, we used the engine for about 47.5 hours and so about 24 gallons of diesel. We had to use the engine every few days to charge the batteries – to give the fridge a boost (it was off for the rest of the time), for the navigational computers and so that there was battery power to start the engine if needed in an emergency. On top of that Dirk, not one to ever like sitting still, put the engine on a couple of times when the wind dropped too much for his liking.  He reckoned that if we had not used the engine for propulsion at all, then it would have taken about the 3 days more.

Hello from the other side of the enormous Atlantic!! After 24 days at sea we have set down our anchour in English Harbour, Antigua, it is beautiful, lush, green, full of tiny pineapples, beautiful accents, and i am happy, exhilarated,  hot and a little overwhelmed by all the lovely heartfelt emails people have sent me wishing me well, so thank you so much everyone!

It feels like i have been floating, rocking, in the universe for 3 weeks, just floating in our little home through the sea and the sky, surrounded by stars, clouds, waves, rain  and occasionaly visted by passing birds, fish and dolphins. We were not without our small hiccups, including torn sails and strange  holes in the engine, constant squalls and non-stop rocking, but my incredibly resourceful and confident hosts got us safely, healthily and happily across the ocean, and i feel like the luckiest person alive.

I can’t BELIEVE i am here! It is exactly how you imagine the Caribbean, like a postcard, little beautiful palm tree beaches, little wooden shacks with tin rooves, painted bright colours, the local Antiguans have the most beautiful accent which makes me melt,  and there are English people everywhere too, on yachts and living here. Ah, and after dreaming of pineapples and coconuts all the way across the sea as we ate shrivelled dried mandarins and tinned vegetables (i am exaggerating, we did have some apples and a little fresh veg till the last day), i am returning to my fruit gorging habit, despite the expensive fruit (it’s height of tourist season – everything is very expensive) – i’m eating tiny pineapples, big bananas, normal sized grapefruits, tiny cucumbers, mmmmmmmm. Most fruit however, the  fruit man told me, is from Dominica (2 islands southwards, but not far really and i imagine comes by boat, but will have to check that out), they don’t grow much here. However i did spot a custard apple hanging off a tree today, so i shall investigate further, maybe people grow their own but don’t sell it…

Anyway, i have to stop writing due to expensive internet, however i will share with you more stories of my Atlantic crossing, soonish, when i am a little more settled, for now i am wondering and working out what will happen next… although already the adventure unrolls in front of me, the lady at the bar in the internet cafe just invited me to stay for a while with her family on the other side of the island…

Also – i have to confess – i have had to do the unthinkable and buy a PLANE ticket to leave the country! This was to satisfy immigration, and very sadly there are NO ferries leaving the island, so it’s back to sail boat hitching, and i hope to cancel that ticket once i have a boat… but we’ll see what happens…

Until soon, lots and lots of love and sunshine to you all, especially back in England, where i hear it is really quite chilly at the moment.

xxxxxxxx Charlotaknots