Occasional Scribbles

Wow!  I’ve just been browsing through my stats on Sitemeter – I love this program, it gives all sorts of details about visitors to the site. I particularly like the world map showing visitors from far off places.  Looking at it this morning, I noticed a visitor right out in the sea off the coast of America which looked to be roughly adjacent to Florida.  I pondered this for a while.  Was there someone out there on a little boat, reading my blog, possibly waiting out a storm, or waiting for some wind in the sails?  I could imagine them sitting at the chart table in the cabin, maybe with a steaming mug of coffee fortified with a drop of Scotch, hunched over a laptop in storm gear and wet weather jacket.  Or, perhaps, up on deck in glorious sunshine, blue skies, calm waters, gleaming white deck and sails and sitting atop the cabin in shorts, T-shirt and sun glasses.  How exciting to think some brave sailor, sailing the seas of the oceans was reading about my supermarket trials, awkward Teen, pending diet and so on and thiking how lucky he was to be away from all the tedium that makes up the life of a Land lubber.  How he must be pleased to have left it all behind.  All he has to think about is setting his compass, adjusting his Jib and whether he has enough Gin to get him to the next port.  Oh the joy of life on the high seas!   

Not one of our boats, but sooo sweet!

Of course, other than in my day dreams, I wouldn’t really like to be sailing around the globe.  I’m a bit of a scaredy cat when it comes to bad weather on a boat.  My Dad has had one boat or another most of our lives.  He loves boats and the seas, being a Merchant Navy man in his youth.  Pottering around on deck is heaven for him.  Unfortunately, his wife and family were not quite so keen.  Many holidays spent on the French canals in the pouring rain, shimming up a slippery loch ladder, heaving ropes around bollards, being shouted at to ‘fend off’ as we swirlded around almost crashing into something, wore a bit thin on occasions.  Damp clothes, damp bunks and bedding, inadequate loos that had to be pumped and often got blocked much to the Captain’s irritation and cramped quarters, were frequent trials of life onboard. 

Of course there were a lot of good times too and in the misty eyed view of hindsite and comfortable in the knowledge that our boat days are over since the last boat was sold; we can look back on many a happy time.  All of the grand children have spent holidays in and around the waterways of France – Compiegne, St Valery and all sorts of places where there are either canals or river.  There were exciting times too.  The time we took one of the boats across the channel in the pitch black night, in a storm, (terrifying) to get it to France.  The time when my little, (mischievous) niece casually announced that Le Capitain had gone overboard and no one beleived her, until, seeing her grab the boat hook, we realised, with alarm, she was telling the truth and hoisted him out, though he later claimed we were trying to drown him, holding him under with the pointy boat hook .  The time when my younger Teen, unable to resist the lure of the red knobs on the gear levers, fiddled against intructions to the contrary and broke them.  Many a time we were almost washed away by enormous barges who stop for no one and own the rivers or squeezed up tight to giant barges and boats in a huge loch.  Or seeing another boat quite literally sink before us and a dead body actually appear alongside one day, (probably a murdered Capitain – they can be pretty annoying sometimes).  And watching over the side as Le Capitain dived under the stern to release a loose rope that got tangled around the propeller, all of us making useless suggestions from the safety of the deck.  Boiling hot trips where there was no shade or breeze and we all boiled in our cabins, the Capitain’s mate, (Mum) soaking swollen feet over the side in the cooling water.  Sleeping out on deck and being bitten alive by mosquitos.

We’ve had many a fun time too.  Found all sorts of lovely moorings alongside little islands with ruins on to explore.  We’ve had many a good bar-b-que alongside the boat with the wonderful smell of cooking meat for a hungry crew.  Met other fellow sailors, who on the whole are friendly and full of exciting tales. There’s been lots of fishing for the boys and swimming off the side.   Writing up the ships log which was sometimes a chore when we were younger, but fun to look back on.  Soaking up the feelings of being in France with it’s garlic smells, smelly drains (on occasions), cathedrals, old towns and best of all for me, visiting a Chateau or two.  Indulging in gorgeous French food – bread, lots of cheese and tomatoes and pate that the French do so well, out on the deck or in the cabin if it was raining.  Cooking in the little galley kitchen, steamed up windows but always tasty offerings.

I look again at the Sitemeter map, reluctantly pulling myself out of my reverie.  I decide to use the magnifier to hone in on this speck in the sea.  No boat appears.  It is the island of Hawaii!  Aloha!