First year reflections

As I was reflecting back on this best-of-times / worst-of-times first year of sailing, those great folks at the Monkey’s Fist came up with a new collection of posts on Advice for Freshmen Cruisers.  Here are some of our thoughts on the matter:

We get by with a little (lot of) help from our friends.  Join as many local sailing associations as possible.  You will need experienced friends for help and advice with boat repairs and maintenance, but also on how to survive your first year with a boat.  It’s been a great comfort to us to know that when we’re in port working on the boat that we can always find a friend somewhere in the marina also working on his boat or pick up the phone and call a buddy.

Watch out for burn-out.  It’s hard not to spend all your time working on or sailing on your boat.  You’ve just spent a bundle on it and you need to prove to yourself and your family that it was not pure folly.  But there is a fine line between working on your boat because you enjoy it and becoming a slave to the boat that demands constant attention.  Plan some down time, at least some short vacations or weekends that have nothing to do with the boat.  Don’t ignore things you used to love … running, biking, skiing, cultural stuff, etc.  And don’t forget about your non-sailing friends and family.  It’s necessary to think about something else from time to time.

The transition was steeper than we thought.  We thought the transition from being experienced crew to being boat owners and skippers would be a smooth one.  It was, instead, a step function much like a brick wall.  Having to make decisions out there all alone is daunting and dealing with break-downs at sea also spices things up in a new (mostly unpleasant) way.  The only way to cope with this is to know that it will be tougher than you think and to go easy on yourself.  Don’t get too ambitious too fast.  Take the time to get used to the boat and your reactions to her.

Fear and anxiety are just part of it.  We spent many months sailing in the protected confines of our bay because we were anxious about venturing out further.  I thought that the anxiety would slowly go away as experience built.  Talking with more experienced friends made me realize that no matter how comfortable I feel sailing in the bay, it is normal to wet one’s pants the first time outside the comfort zone.  Fear and anxiety can be useful features.  As the saying goes, there are old sailors and bold sailors, but not many old bold sailors.  We found that the best way over the hump is to buddy boat, travelling in a little flotilla with other boats.  You are still master aboard your own boat with all the decisions and maintenance that this implies, but you have a safety net around you for exploring areas new to you and for decision-making for navigation strategies.  This goes back to advice number 1: have friends.

We’re turtles, not hares.  We thought we were hares, or at least had an image of ourselves as performance-oriented purists, but now we know that our biggest pleasure is getting from point A to B with the minimum of fuss and the maximum of comfort.  We’re in this for the long haul, at least 6 months at a time and we sail in some pretty rough areas.  If we only had 1-2 months each summer to sail, we might still be motivated to push the boat more, but living on the boat for ½ the year means we can take our time and enjoy the ride.  And we’re kind of getting tired of having to explain that to others who would double our distance in the same amount of time.  It’s not a race.  Slow down and smell the algae, guys.

That detachable forestay and collection of headsails we thought we couldn’t live without are almost never used.  We’ve put up the smaller jib a few times when we knew that we would be short-tacking in stiff winds.  But in general, when the wind starts picking up, the idea of going below to dig out heavy, bulky sails from the forward cabin lockers and wrestling them up the companionway and to the bow in a pitching sea really seems quite silly when we can simply roll up the jib sheet to an appropriate size from the comfort of the cockpit.  We considered ourselves purists who would never tolerate a partially-rolled jib sheet, but now we know better.  And that goes double for the times when you’re trapped in a surprise gale and really could use a storm sail up front … flip a coin to see who’s going to rig it ?  Nope. 

Blog “reality checks”.  Some family members and friends who are not cruisers will imagine your sailing life as one long, laid-back, care-free, baba-cool existence, pushed by gentle breezes along turquoise waters from island to island where the biggest danger is sunburn or running out of little decorative umbrellas for your cocktails.  Sympathy, even for the really bad days, will be hard to come by, even if you sail in gales in the cold waters of the North Sea, as we do.  Blogging about the bad days helps to keep it real. (But you still won’t get much sympathy…)    

It ain't all fun and games out here...

Read More

Homecoming Week

While it’s often true that “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”, Patrick and I have discovered this week that “you don’t know what you’ve got till you get it back”.  Coming home has been a process of rediscovering comforts and conveniences that we didn’t have on the boat, but that we didn’t really miss until we got home and "remembered".  Here’s a short list:

Hot water.  This stuff is great for washing dishes and taking showers.  On the boat, we have to heat up a kettle of water for the dishes, but I never really minded since I can make a nice after-dinner herbal tea at the same time.  Showers deserve their own category.

Showers.  Public showers in the port offices come in many flavours, from chic (Jersey) to infected pits (Camaret).  Most are passably clean, but almost none have temperature controls, and having a really hot shower is simply out of the question.  They keep the temperature at a carefully-studied level just above that which provokes complaint. The other water-saving trick is to operate the showers with tokens (1 or 2 euros), giving you access to exactly 7 minutes of luke-warm water.  Showering barefoot is another joy we’ve rediscovered, since you never, ever put a naked foot down on the public shower stalls.  We love our crocs, but I’m tickled pink to shower barefoot again.

Standing fully upright while cooking.  We’d almost forgotten how fun that is.

Laundry.  Patrick is a bit of a laundry freak.  It’s one of his favourite sports and borders on obsessive-compulsive.  I thought life on the boat would be good for him since the extra effort  required would wean him off his habit gently.  Finding good public laundry services near a marina is not so easy, but we usually manage to find a well-placed laundrette every 3 weeks or so, and hand-washing easy-to-dry items is a weekly occurrence.  When we got home, Patrick went into high-gear, making up for an entire summer of missed laundry opportunities. Even I will admit it’s nice to have really clean (and DRY) clothes again.

Dry clothes and sheets.  For most of the summer, this wasn’t a problem since the humidity was relatively low.  But during our last week or so at sea, the temperatures started getting lower and the humidity / condensation on the boat higher.  It’s no fun to crawl into a clammy bed at night, or to put on a cold damp shirt in the morning.  I really need to put clothes in sealable plastic bags, but I didn’t think this would be an issue in the summer.

Our bed.  The mattress on the boat is reasonably comfortable and we had no complaints, but when we sank down into our super memory-foam mattress the first night, we could feel the muscles in our backs relaxing in ways they simply hadn’t in months.

The barbeque.  We barbeque year round on a small Weber gas grill and almost never cook meat or fish of any kind inside the house.  We will invest in a small gas grill for the boat. 

Letting our hair down.  When I knew we would be living on a boat for long stretches of time, I opted for longish hair that can be simply pulled back in a pony tail for sailing and otherwise ignored for months.  The downside is that I end up spending 90% of my waking hours with my hair pulled back, and 10% with it down but contorted from its imprisonment in a tight elastic, making me wonder if it just wouldn’t be better to cut it all off.  I even had an idea for a new blog based on short hair: bad haircuts around the world.  Having been home for a few days now and not spending 8-9 hours a day exposed to the elements, I’m enjoying having my long hair (especially as it’s become quite chilly here.)  Patrick, on the other hand, is now sporting a 3 day beard, whittled down just this morning from a 10 day scraggly mess by our local Turkish barber who used fire to burn out the hair in his ears !  Quite a performance !  We’ll see how easy (or difficult) it is to maintain at sea.  He certainly won’t miss shaving every day.

Colors other than blue and white.  I didn’t realize it was fall until we were in the car driving home through the countryside and was gobsmacked by all the fall colors.  At sea, our eyes became accustomed to a palette of blues and whites, sometimes punctuated by a little green or sand/rock muted earthtone colors.

Having said all this, we would both hop back in the boat in a heartbeat and are more than a little frustrated that “real life” has settled in and it doesn’t look like we’ll be able to get away for even a little local sail for at least 4 weeks.

   

Read More

The Best for Last

Our migration north brought us once again to Yeu island, a paradise for biking along wild coastal trails and a great place for snorkelling, provided you don an appropriately thick wet suit.   

Bike trails on the south coast of Yeu island.

We decided to bike down to the center part of the wild south coast this time to visit an old castle erected in the early days of the Hundred Years' War (around 1350), and the famous Yeu perched rock, a massive boulder of granite posed on a cliff side that can be rocked back and forth with only a moderate amount of well-placed effort.  I almost didn’t take my camera since we had visited Yeu several times before and I had already gushed on and on about how lovely it was in previous posts.  The compromise I offer is to post more Yeu photos but refrain from re-gushing verbally…

 

Patrick rocking the perched rock.

We had only intended to stay for a 2-3 days, waiting for the wind to pick up at some point during this lovely summer-like high pressure system.  When we checked in at the port office, the clerk asked if we were in town for the big Tuna Fest, about which we were completely ignorant.  Other sailors told us we simply MUST stick around for it, and we watched the local excitement build as the little port area slowly became decorated with large cardboard tunas, multiple rows of picnic tables and strings of colored lightbulbs.  We did stay and … well, it was a bit disappointing, really.  There were thousands of people squeezed together on the picnic table benches that stretched out for hundreds of yards in multiple rows, listening to sea shanties sung by local groups.  This would have been appealing if the sound system had actually permitted you to hear any of the words being sung, but we appreciated the atmosphere anyway.  The Tuna Fest is, we later learned, a community barbeque for islanders to celebrate the fact that the tourists have gone home for the season.  Having arrived fashionably late, we only just managed to squeeze into the cheap seats at the end of the street, and spent a lovely evening with a young couple of lawyers from Paris.  So much for local color.  We ate our tuna steaks and potatoes (4 euros), had a glass of wine (“chateau cardboard” from the super market for 1 euro), and a piece of pie (2 euros).  We wandered around looking for some other great tuna fast happenings, but it seemed as though most people were just content to eat and listen to muffled music.  We were told that the party really gets moving after midnight but we felt a bit out of place and decided to leave the islanders to themselves.  (Hey wait a minute...maybe that's part of the trick:  bore the bejeezus out of the remaining tourists so they wander off early and then start the real party?  Hmmm... next year we'll be prepared !)

The next morning we pulled out of port at the crack of dawn (8:30 am here whilst we wait for the time change later this month.)  We decided to head directly to Belle Isle, a  50 mile hop, to skip some of the less exciting port stops we’d made on our way down.  Since there was very little wind, we motor-sailed for an ear-numbing 11 hours.  But the calm weather also allowed us to duck into a beautiful mooring on the east side of Belle Ile for the night (Port An Dro), which we had to ourselves.  The next morning, with summer temps still smiling down on us, we rowed the dingy out to the beach and went snorkelling along the rocks.  The weather forecast announced 24 hours more of extended summer and we timed our arrival in our new home port of Arzal a mere 6 hours before the rain and cold front hit; clearly the final period at the end of our summer sailing story.  

Beach cove near Port An Dro... great for (cold) snorkeling. 

Nothing says summer like light reading in a sunny cockpit.

Read More

Shell art at the Sands

Les Sables d’Olonne (the sands of Olonne) is a town best known as the start and finish of the solo round-the-world race, The Vendee Globe.  The racing beasts were not in port when we were there, but thanks to our trusty bikes that allow us to cover lots of ground, we found other attractions in Les Sables.  One of the most notable attractions is a small neighborhood in the old town called the Ile Penotte, where artist Dan Arnaud has created beautiful murals out of shells, beach glass, and other natural materials.  Here is a small sampling of his work.

An  afternoon of gawking at shells gave us an appetite…for shells.  The weather was spectacular for the start of October and we managed to squeeze in a few bike-and-beach days.  

Our own shell art...

But alas, the day we decided to head north for Ile d’Yeu, rain settled in to remind us that it really was October and time to think about heading home.  But slowly…

Yes, it really is October...

Read More

Ah, La Rochelle !

The wind was weak and our 50 mile trek south had to be put on hold.  La Rochelle was only 10 miles north of the mouth of the Charente river, but it was officially closed to visitors in preparation for the Grand Pavois, the largest in-water boat show in Europe.  But we had heard via “dockside radio” (boatyard gossip) that they would grudgingly accept visitors for 1 night if you simply showed up and acted innocent.  As this approach was in complete harmony with Patrick’s life philosophy (e.g., it’s always easier to get forgiveness than permission) off we went.

The entrance to the old port of La Rochelle (at very low tide.)

We had visited La Rochelle by road once before, but it was just for a lunchtime stop on the way somewhere and we only visited the port area, which is, in itself, quite impressive.  This time, we took time to wander through the streets of the large old town area, and we fell head-over- heels in love.  The town is a labyrinth of old stone galleries and arcades, a reminder of its mercantile past where vendors would hawk their wares under the stone archways, protected from the sun and rain.  The vendors have been replaced by chic boutiques to rival Paris (many of the same boutiques, in fact, including the Mecca of high-brow, ready-to-wear clothing stores, The Galeries Lafayette.)   The old stone backdrop is highlighted with palm trees and maritime pines that add a certain Mediterranean ambiance.  

One of the many gates into the old town of La Rochelle.

Miles and miles of arcades and galleries.

Old town seen through the forest of masts in the port area.

Tears welled up when I saw this happy reminder of my parisian past...

Patrick’s eyes were all a-twinkle and his heart rate soared when we stumbled onto the farmer’s market.  When we first started sailing alone together, my biggest fear was getting into a rough situation where we wouldn’t be able to handle the boat.  Patrick’s biggest fear was that we wouldn’t eat well.  After almost 4 months at sea now, he has conquered his fears, and discoveries such as the market at La Rochelle have led him to utter the phrase, unthinkable a few months earlier, “We eat better on the boat than at home!”  

The La Rochelle market.

Cafes and shops around the market area.

The esplanade area of the market.

We settled in for lunch at a little bistro near the market and struck up a conversation with the owner, who happened to be Breton and had lived in Vannes for some time.  Patrick told him we were having fantasies of moving to La Rochelle but that it was probably too expensive.  The owner remarked that the housing prices between the old town of Vannes and La Rochelle were comparable, and the fantasy started taking root, if not in reality, then at least in possibility.  

The new port area (Les Minimes) is one of the largest pleasure-craft ports in France, with 3700 places for yachts of all sizes.  There are literally miles of ship chandlers and other boat-related services all around the port area.  It was so huge that I didn’t take a photo… boats and masts stretch out as far as the eye can see.  They are currently undertaking an expansion to include (I think they said) more than 1000 new places.  The port used to have a 15 year waiting list, but with this new expansion, all those on the waiting list will now be placed, and the new waiting list is only ½ that of Vannes.  We took the plunge and put our names on the waiting list with a 12 meter boat.  It doesn’t cost anything to dream! 

But alas, our one night came and went too fast, and with good winds and warm weather, we headed to Royan at the mouth of the Gironde river.  Royan is a nice, once-chic seaside retreat with a long beach and boardwalk that was accidentally bombed during the war, sparing only a few of the belle-époque houses along the waterfront.  After the war, the town was chosen as one of several to be handed over to a committee of architects and urban planners to build “the city of tomorrow”.  This was apparently a roaring success and the town today positively screams 1950s.  Two of the treasured landmarks from this period are the saddle-back cathedral and the market in the form of an overturned seashell.  After the old stones, palms and pines of La Rochelle, it was hard to get too excited by either.  But we appreciated the many miles of bike paths along the cliff-side drives and even swam in the muddy waters of the Gironde.  Time to start the trek north.

The saddle-back cathedral.

The Royan market of "tomorrow".

Inside the Royan market.

Great bike trails along the shore more than make up for the 1950s plastic chintz of the town.

Read More

River navigation: Up La Charente

Everyone told us that visiting the historical town of Rochefort was worth the 2.5 hour motor-sailing slog up the river.  Since we were supposed to have very light winds anyway (wrong again, Meteo France) and our rendez-vous with family for a weekend sail in Royan was cancelled, we had some time on our hands and were game for a little river adventure.

A 12 nautical mile river navigation from the mouth of the Charente river to Rochefort.

Rochefort was chosen by Louis 14th in 1665 to be the naval center of France, where battleships would be built, repaired, and outfitted.  The arsenal included facilities for ship-building, sail and cord making, iron works, and the world’s first naval medical school (which continued until the 1960s and still houses a creepy medical museum with “specimens” from the French penal colony that was established here).  It is also the port from which Lafayette sailed in 1780 to help the Americans in their revolution against the English.  A replica of his ship, the Hermione, is under construction with plans for a 2015 sail to America.

Arriving in the Rochefort loch and port with its restored 17th century buildings.

With beautifully restored buildings along the river, sailing into Rochefort is like arriving in a small riverside Versailles.  The old town area, while small, resembles a Parisian neighborhood, complete with palm trees.  And as is usually the case in the off season, the third night in port was free, so we took our time to bike around town and wander through its side streets.

The Royal Corderie (cord works), the longest building in the world when built.

The Hermione replica and the sail-making workshops.

One of the many gates into the arsenal area.

The more modern part of the town and HUGE farmers market.

The river cruise up to Rochefort was not without its charms and amusements, either.  The river is lined with fishing cabins, privately owned shacks on stilts that are the envy of every local. 

Fishing cabin at the mouth of the river.

Fishing cabins line the river near Rochefort.

Just before arriving in Rochefort, two bridges pass overhead, with a comfortable 32 meter clearance.  The center of the channel is marked on top of the bridge (red cylinder on the left, greed triangle on the right… yes, North American friends, it’s “backwards”.)

Channel markers posted on top of the bridge.

Now, you may ask, why put the channel markers way up there?  Because it’s easier for the CARGO TRAFFIC to see.  I had read that the Charente still had an active river commerce and traffic but we thought we would be safe on a Sunday.  Thus you can imagine our surprise (and explicatives) as we rounded a corner of this bucolic river scene and saw a cargo barreling down on us in a narrow part of the river channel.  My first high-pitched scream to Patrick was, quite naturally, “GET OVER !  GET OVER !”  Then after a mad dash down to look at the chart to see how much water was actually over there, I retracted. “NO !  Stay where you are !  DON’T get over !”  As he got closer we realized there was more room than we thought and we passed more or less comfortably.

Yikes ! Big neighbors on the river.

These big guys also have some alignments (transit markers) to help them find the middle of the channel.   For some reason, they’ve chosen the letters A and T to mark either side of the channel.  The game is to line up the two poles so that the A’s are on top of each other, which puts you in the deepest part of the channel.  Smaller boats like ours don’t really need this but it’s fun to play along anyway.

Alignments (or transits) to find the deepest part of the channel.

We had been dodging stand-up-paddleboarders since the mouth of the river.  We figured there was a rental site somewhere on the river and that this fad (a very peculiar one that I thoroughly fail to understand) was big on the river.  As we neared Rochefort, one young man was very (dangerously) close to us and Patrick jokingly asked if he wanted a tow.  With a big smile, he dashed behind Spray and used her as a wind break from the 15 knot headwind that had kicked up in the afternoon.  He stayed with us for about 10 minutes and had no problems doing 5 knots behind us.  He said he was participating in the Fort Boyard Challenge, a race from Fort Boyard in the bay to Rochefort, a 25 mile endurance race.  He said he would probably get in trouble for using our boat as a wind break, but we told him we would vouch for him and tell the race organizers that we were lost and asking for directions.

Drafting behind Spray after 25 miles of paddling.

We plan to leave Rochefort tomorrow night (loch opening and tidal constraints) and will head 1 hour down river to the port of Soubise for the evening, and then back out into the bay to parts unknown ! (to us…).

Read More

Time for an Upgrade: Spray is for sale !

The onset of fall and rainy day reveries have led us to several conclusions:  1)  We love the cruising life and want to expand our time and space horizons,  2)  Spray is not the right boat for such a live-aboard cruising lifestyle, and  3)  The clock is ticking and we aren’t getting any younger. 

You can see the announcement (in French) at: www.dehler34vannes.blogspot.com   

Five years ago when we were building our plans to stop working early and go sailing, the strategy was to buy a 27-32 foot boat and spend 1-2 years cruising locally to see if we really wanted to do more ambitious sailing.  We ended up buying a 34 foot boat and cruising further than we thought we would in our first year.  We thought Spray would be the right size to carry us all around Europe and the Med, but with approximately 2500 nautical miles sailed on her in this first year, we’ve decided she’s just not the right boat for us.  It’s not just about size; she’s also too light, fast and furious for the long tranquil cruising we want to do.  If we were to modify her to suit our needs, it would completely de-nature her original character.  She deserves owners who will use her full capabilities, not two old farts who reef her down when she wants to fly.

So what would an appropriate old-fart retirement-home cruising boat look like?  In general, it would look like the floating camping cars we’ve always made fun of:  heavy (>8 tons), long (40 feet minimum), with easy-to-handle sails (2 headsails on furlers, big winches, and maybe even the mainsail furled in the mast.)  It would also have a real “owner’s stateroom,” very important if we plan to live onboard 6-8 months out of the year, and a galley that allows you to stand up fully while cooking.  Hot water and a shower would not be luxuries, and the water tank would have capacity for more than a week of autonomy for 2 people.  Bonus points for a bow thruster and heavy ground tackle with lots of chain.  At the same time, we don’t want to abandon sailing performance, but the combination of comfort and performance is quite pricey.  We also really like the center cockpit boats that offer more protection and security, not to mention kick-ass aft cabins. 

So we’ve taken the plunge, put Spray up for sale, and started looking around for our next home-away-from-home.  We’ve already had several calls from interested potential new owners, and we’ve placed several calls to sellers of floating camping car boats ourselves.  We know that this will be a painful transition, since any boat we buy will need months of fixing-up and shaking down to get it into the shape we want.  I also fear that having another boat ready to go by late spring of next year may be too ambitious.  But simply knowing that we do, indeed, love the cruising life will make the work much easier than it was the first time around when we weren’t really sure what we were getting into.

Read More

3rd night's free and other navigational traps

We’ve made it to the island of Oleron, the largest island of the French Atlantic coast, and we’re currently pinned down by a combination of weather, tides, currents, early nightfalls, and promotional offers (3rd night free) enticing sailors to stay in port longer than they otherwise would have if not pinned down by weather, tides, currents, etc.  Our neighbors in the marine include Brits, Dutch, and Belgians, all of whom also seem content like us to hang around for a few days more.   

Fall has fallen with high temps in the mid 60s (18 C) and our regular pattern of squalls every other day is beginning to set in. Our strategy in such situations is to take advantage of the weather windows in between squalls to head to a port where we would be happy to be pinned down for several days.  Oleron is, in a word, DEAD in the off-season, but with our bikes on board this time out, we’ve managed to take advantage of the extensive bike trail system.  With a farmer’s market every day in town and good internet, we’ve been happy as clams here.  Next up:  La Rochelle and Rochefort, both short hops from here that can be done by carefully juggling the tide needed to get out of Oleron, the tide needed to get into the other ports, the currents in between, and unstable weather.

Chassiron lighthouse.

The view from the top.

Happier going down than going up the 300 stairs of the lighthouse. 

Tasting the local wines in their earliest form.  This region is known for its sweet Pineau wines and cognac. 

Sampling the local white.

The landscape here is quite different from that of Yeu island 60 miles to the north, where we spent a delightful few days enjoying the last rays of summer snorkeling (wet suits needed) and biking.  We had anticipated that heading south would help us to prolong summer a bit longer, but that was, in retrospect, quite a silly notion since we only migrate at a rate of about 40 miles every 2 or 3 days. 

Yeu island's wild coast in the last days of summer.

Today is the first real rainy day that we’ve had since early July and we’re happily holed up on Spray, cleaning, reading, blogging, cooking, watching movies, and just plain old “layin round the shanty” type activities.  We’ve got 1 month to make it back home, and we’re just about at our furthest point south, so we’re got time to take it easy and enjoy the rain.

Read More

Controlled !

Some sailors go their whole sailing careers without ever having their papers controlled or inspected by Customs officials.  It happened to us yesterday … AT SEA !

We were several miles offshore sailing south towards the shipping lanes of the Loire estuary when we saw what we took to be a fishing boat barreling down on us.  We stood up and stared at them, letting the fishermen know we didn’t appreciate their little game.  Luckily I held Patrick back from flipping them the bird as he was intent on doing.

As they pulled up closer, I saw a discreet “DF” on the side of the boat:  Douanes Francaises (French Customs).  They pulled right up behind us and noted the name on the boat and undoubtedly looked in the cockpit to see if we had the now-mandatory license number posted in the cockpit.  We had just glued on our plaque that morning.

The boat pulled up beside us and two men came out of the pilot house, one with a huge fender and another with a big fishing net.  I started preparing fenders for them to come aboard.  All of this happened at 5 knots with us entirely under sail and I kept waiting for a loud-speaker to boom out “pull over please” or the nautical equivalent.  They signaled that they weren’t coming aboard and simply wanted me to place the ship’s documents into the fishing net that one of the officers held out to me.  

Preparing to be "pulled over"

My documents are, I must say, SCRUPULOUSLY organized in a water-resistant folder that includes everything from our ships registration, navigation taxes paid, insurance, home port contract, radio station license, our radio permits, our coastal and high-seas permits, and the life raft and fire extinguisher inspection documents.   Patrick, for once, did not make fun of me for my organization of our official documents and my “respect for authority a-la-Anglo-Saxon”.  I put my folder in a plastic bag and handed it over to the officials.

As they inspected the documents, Patrick and I reviewed everything mentally to try to imagine what fault they might find.  After a few minutes, they came out and I asked meekly, “is everything okay?”  The officer, with a funny little smile, said everything was fine (which I also took to be a silent commentary on my obsessive-compulsive organizational prowess).   I also think they were amused that I was taking pictures of them !  (Not sure that’s really allowed, but they didn’t say anything.)  

A smug Patrick prepares to recuperate the ship's documents (in the big fishing net of the officer on the right.)

Read More