So it’s been awhile since I’ve last written. Needless to say we’ve been busy and the last month is a blur so I’m just going to recap the last week or so. We are currently on charter for the boss who celebrates his birthday in three days. This charter was scheduled to begin on Friday and the plans were to travel down to Isola Elba in Italy and then travel north to the Cinque Terre area.
Supposedly Elba is lovely and most people who visit wind up wanting to buy property there so I was keen to have a look. The Cinque Terre area is a beautiful stretch of coast line which I visited on my backpacking trip and so I suggested we include that into the itinerary. The literal translation is “five lands” and not surprisingly is comprised of five small towns built along the terraced cliff sides overlooking the coast. Quaint towns with old world charm which until 1960 had no roads connecting them, but only the now infamous Cinque Terre Trail and the railroad. To this day most of the towns don’t allow automobile traffic.
I had scheduled our departure for early Wednesday morning so we would arrive in Livorno, Italy in the evening. I picked Livorno for two reasons: 1) It is very near to the Pisa airport and convenient for the guests. 2) The Benetti ship yard is in the area and so I could get them to come and do some warranty work on the boat.
So as of Tuesday morning all our reservations were set and we were taking on provisions for the trip. Tuesday afternoon I got the call saying that instead of Elba the boss would like to go to Portofino as well as still doing the Cinque Terre. The mad scramble was on to change the plans, cancel the reservations we had and make the new ones.
Portofino is a very desirable little marina about 25 miles west of La Spezia. It has only 8 berths for visitors and so it can be difficult to get a berth and in the summer damn near impossible. So I served up my volley of phone calls and got the ball rolling. We left port with no idea of whether or not it would be possible to berth there.
Our crossing to Italy went well. Low wind, calm seas, sun, blue skies, dolphins and I even spotted a small Sunfish. We made good time and arrived in Livorno by 7pm. I should have known that troubles laid ahead by the arrival form I had to send ahead to the port. An ugly place, a huge commercial port and also a military presence. Dirty, old and not at all appealing, but we were here to get work done and not for the scenery.
The next morning the port agent arrived to get our details. He wanted copies of every ship document we had on board, but we had them all so no problem. Or almost. The next morning (Friday) he was back with a problem. They noticed two of our documents were outdated. All have been applied for and we are awaiting the new documents, but apparently there is two much red tape to get through and 4 months later we still were without.
So without these documents the port will not let us leave! Detained in Hell and the guests are arriving in a few hours and they expect to leave immediately. Merde!! (French for Shit!) Now my back is up against the wall. I serve up another volley of phone calls rapidly burning through phone credit with my French phone and try to get a small army working to resolve this crisis ASAP. I might add that no one has ever heard of a yacht being detained for these documents, but there you are, just my luck.
One of the documents had to do with commercial chartering of the yacht which is required by the MCA, but we were able to bypass that one by having the owner on board and declaring that we were operating privately and not commercially. The other document we weren’t going to be so lucky with. We had to have it or we were stuck there and the document has to be issued from England and its Friday afternoon. After a herd of phone calls and putting the screws to a few people we managed to get an assurance that someone from the Italian office would arrive Saturday morning with a temporary certificate which would satisfy the port and allow us to leave.
Meanwhile the guests had been delayed. Their original flight plans went awry and they wound up flying into Rome on a private flight. The problem was that the airport they landed at didn’t allow private flights. So as they taxied to a stop they were surrounded by lots of lights and guns, local police, airport security and Interpol!! The authorities were in a good mood though, probably happy to have the rare opportunity to draw there weapons in the line of duty and let everyone off with a good talking to. The pilots were lucky there and could have lost their licenses.
So all in all a rough day for everyone, but they arrived in the evening and were understanding regarding the boats predicament. I was just praying the document would arrive in the morning and we could get the hell out of Dodge!
I had received confirmation of a berth not in Portofino, but the marina just next to it for Friday evening, but we weren’t going to make that although we would still have to pay for it. I let the agent know that we would still like the reservation at Porto Santa Margherita for Saturday and the next morning after the temporary document arrived, all the I’s were dotted an t’s crossed we made our way out of Livorno as fast as we could. I vowed never to go back. Of course, today I learned that I will in fact be going back in October to get the rest of our warranty work done before it expires. Se le Vie!
It would be about a six hour cruise to Santa Margherita and Cinque Terre is along the way. So my fears were realized when the boss asked to stop in Cinque Terre for a stroll. I had planned on doing this later in the week, not on the cruise up. We had to be in port by 6:30pm or we would be locked out and have to anchor for the evening. I hate anchoring!! You have to be on 24 hour anchor watch which means that Scott (Engineer/Mate) and I are lucky to get 4 hours sleep in a day. So as they were sitting down for lunch I pulled up close to Monterossa (the first of the five towns) and dropped anchor. That area is a wildlife park and there are restrictions along the coast with regard to anchoring, fishing, etc. I made sure that I stayed out of the no anchor zone, but quickly surmised that I might still be out of bounds as I spotted a zodiac making a beeline towards us.
Struggling through the Italian we realized that although it is possible to anchor where we were, our boat was too big so we would have to move on. At least I didn’t get a ticket. So we weighed anchor, moved offshore a bit and started doing slow circles to allow the guests to finish lunch before they went ashore for their excursion. I allowed the boat to get far enough offshore so that the ride in by tender didn’t look so appealing and sure enough they decided that they wouldn’t be going ashore after all and we could make our way to Santa Margherita. Maybe my luck is changing?!
Arriving in Santa Margherita we found it also to be very nice and dollar for dollar or euro for euro much more preferable in my opinion to Portofino. But then that’s just my sensibilities, I was never much on exclusivity such as Portofino has with its reputation for having celebrity yachts in harbour. So the only snafu there was that I couldn’t get a dinner reservation at their restaurant of choice.
In the morning after we picked up some fresh bread we headed out to cruise around the bay and finally anchored to wait for our berth in Portofino to open up. Check in time is normally 2pm so I wasn’t too pleased when it wasn’t until nearly 4pm that they gave me the OK to enter. Particularly when just before that a squall kicked up making it a challenge to get the guests back on board and put the tender back into the garage. Not to mention having to dock in heavy rain and wind.
No matter though, we got in, dropping both anchors to secure our bow, tied up and gave the dock master a tip. I didn’t particularly feel it was deserved, but good luck getting back in later in the season if you don’t spread some love. They were very appreciative, uncannily so really, but as long as they remember us, all is good.
In Portofino I was actually able to get a reservation for their restaurant of choice, "Puny" only to have them blow it off! The next day as I was visiting the Carabinierrie (immigration) to supply all our passports, even Max’s (Golden Lab) the guests went off and came back with a load of expensive silver knick knacks for the boat and 8 cases of fine wine.
We were booked for a second evening there, but as plans on this boat change with the movement of the planets I wasn’t surprised to learn that two of the guests wouldn’t be leaving today as planned, but we would all be setting sail together back for France that afternoon.
So we headed back in not the best weather, but managed to keep ahead of the worst of it and arrived back in Villefranche to anchor for the evening among a swarm of other boats. A stiff wind necessitated a vigil anchor watch and with a few hours sleep in the morning we went around the peninsula to Cap Ferrat where we are currently anchored for the evening.
So that brings us up to date. Our Grand Prix charter starts on the 27th and then we have a one day charter on the 2nd of June. An insurance survey right after that and then June 6th I fly home for two weeks! Our berth for the Grand Prix is just outside the tunnel before the chicane, front row. So if you watch on the tele you might get a glimpse of us or at least the boat. That is if it isn’t a complete blur as the camera follows F-1 cars speeding by…….
Bon Soiree
Update: Woke up this morning for my 4am anchor watch shift and saw a note from the boss, "Can we wake up in St. Tropez? That would be very good. Thanks". My immediate thought was that "waking up in Thailand with two asian girls giving me a Thai massage would be very good, but I guess St. Tropez is somewhat more practical." So I'll see ya in St. Tropez this morning if you are around and everyone will be around because the Cannes film festival begins today. Parking will be at a premium....
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Stuck in Livorno
So it’s been awhile since I’ve last written. Needless to say we’ve been busy and the last month is a blur so I’m just going to recap the last week or so. We are currently on charter for the boss who celebrates his birthday in three days. This charter was scheduled to begin on Friday and the plans were to travel down to Isola Elba in Italy and then travel north to the Cinque Terre area.
Supposedly Elba is lovely and most people who visit wind up wanting to buy property there so I was keen to have a look. The Cinque Terre area is a beautiful stretch of coast line which I visited on my backpacking trip and so I suggested we include that into the itinerary. The literal translation is “five lands” and not surprisingly is comprised of five small towns built along the terraced cliff sides overlooking the coast. Quaint towns with old world charm which until 1960 had no roads connecting them, but only the now infamous Cinque Terre Trail and the railroad. To this day most of the towns don’t allow automobile traffic.
I had scheduled our departure for early Wednesday morning so we would arrive in Livorno, Italy in the evening. I picked Livorno for two reasons: 1) It is very near to the Pisa airport and convenient for the guests. 2) The Benetti ship yard is in the area and so I could get them to come and do some warranty work on the boat.
So as of Tuesday morning all our reservations were set and we were taking on provisions for the trip. Tuesday afternoon I got the call saying that instead of Elba the boss would like to go to Portofino as well as still doing the Cinque Terre. The mad scramble was on to change the plans, cancel the reservations we had and make the new ones.
Portofino is a very desirable little marina about 25 miles west of La Spezia. It has only 8 berths for visitors and so it can be difficult to get a berth and in the summer damn near impossible. So I served up my volley of phone calls and got the ball rolling. We left port with no idea of whether or not it would be possible to berth there.
Our crossing to Italy went well. Low wind, calm seas, sun, blue skies, dolphins and I even spotted a small Sunfish. We made good time and arrived in Livorno by 7pm. I should have known that troubles laid ahead by the arrival form I had to send ahead to the port. An ugly place, a huge commercial port and also a military presence. Dirty, old and not at all appealing, but we were here to get work done and not for the scenery.
The next morning the port agent arrived to get our details. He wanted copies of every ship document we had on board, but we had them all so no problem. Or almost. The next morning (Friday) he was back with a problem. They noticed two of our documents were outdated. All have been applied for and we are awaiting the new documents, but apparently there is two much red tape to get through and 4 months later we still were without.
So without these documents the port will not let us leave! Detained in Hell and the guests are arriving in a few hours and they expect to leave immediately. Merde!! (French for Shit!) Now my back is up against the wall. I serve up another volley of phone calls rapidly burning through phone credit with my French phone and try to get a small army working to resolve this crisis ASAP. I might add that no one has ever heard of a yacht being detained for these documents, but there you are, just my luck.
One of the documents had to do with commercial chartering of the yacht which is required by the MCA, but we were able to bypass that one by having the owner on board and declaring that we were operating privately and not commercially. The other document we weren’t going to be so lucky with. We had to have it or we were stuck there and the document has to be issued from England and its Friday afternoon. After a herd of phone calls and putting the screws to a few people we managed to get an assurance that someone from the Italian office would arrive Saturday morning with a temporary certificate which would satisfy the port and allow us to leave.
Meanwhile the guests had been delayed. Their original flight plans went awry and they wound up flying into Rome on a private flight. The problem was that the airport they landed at didn’t allow private flights. So as they taxied to a stop they were surrounded by lots of lights and guns, local police, airport security and Interpol!! The authorities were in a good mood though, probably happy to have the rare opportunity to draw there weapons in the line of duty and let everyone off with a good talking to. The pilots were lucky there and could have lost their licenses.
So all in all a rough day for everyone, but they arrived in the evening and were understanding regarding the boats predicament. I was just praying the document would arrive in the morning and we could get the hell out of Dodge!
I had received confirmation of a berth not in Portofino, but the marina just next to it for Friday evening, but we weren’t going to make that although we would still have to pay for it. I let the agent know that we would still like the reservation at Porto Santa Margherita for Saturday and the next morning after the temporary document arrived, all the I’s were dotted an t’s crossed we made our way out of Livorno as fast as we could. I vowed never to go back. Of course, today I learned that I will in fact be going back in October to get the rest of our warranty work done before it expires. Se le Vie!
It would be about a six hour cruise to Santa Margherita and Cinque Terre is along the way. So my fears were realized when the boss asked to stop in Cinque Terre for a stroll. I had planned on doing this later in the week, not on the cruise up. We had to be in port by 6:30pm or we would be locked out and have to anchor for the evening. I hate anchoring!! You have to be on 24 hour anchor watch which means that Scott (Engineer/Mate) and I are lucky to get 4 hours sleep in a day. So as they were sitting down for lunch I pulled up close to Monterossa (the first of the five towns) and dropped anchor. That area is a wildlife park and there are restrictions along the coast with regard to anchoring, fishing, etc. I made sure that I stayed out of the no anchor zone, but quickly surmised that I might still be out of bounds as I spotted a zodiac making a beeline towards us.
Struggling through the Italian we realized that although it is possible to anchor where we were, our boat was too big so we would have to move on. At least I didn’t get a ticket. So we weighed anchor, moved offshore a bit and started doing slow circles to allow the guests to finish lunch before they went ashore for their excursion. I allowed the boat to get far enough offshore so that the ride in by tender didn’t look so appealing and sure enough they decided that they wouldn’t be going ashore after all and we could make our way to Santa Margherita. Maybe my luck is changing?!
Arriving in Santa Margherita we found it also to be very nice and dollar for dollar or euro for euro much more preferable in my opinion to Portofino. But then that’s just my sensibilities, I was never much on exclusivity such as Portofino has with its reputation for having celebrity yachts in harbour. So the only snafu there was that I couldn’t get a dinner reservation at their restaurant of choice.
In the morning after we picked up some fresh bread we headed out to cruise around the bay and finally anchored to wait for our berth in Portofino to open up. Check in time is normally 2pm so I wasn’t too pleased when it wasn’t until nearly 4pm that they gave me the OK to enter. Particularly when just before that a squall kicked up making it a challenge to get the guests back on board and put the tender back into the garage. Not to mention having to dock in heavy rain and wind.
No matter though, we got in, dropping both anchors to secure our bow, tied up and gave the dock master a tip. I didn’t particularly feel it was deserved, but good luck getting back in later in the season if you don’t spread some love. They were very appreciative, uncannily so really, but as long as they remember us, all is good.
In Portofino I was actually able to get a reservation for their restaurant of choice, "Puny" only to have them blow it off! The next day as I was visiting the Carabinierrie (immigration) to supply all our passports, even Max’s (Golden Lab) the guests went off and came back with a load of expensive silver knick knacks for the boat and 8 cases of fine wine.
We were booked for a second evening there, but as plans on this boat change with the movement of the planets I wasn’t surprised to learn that two of the guests wouldn’t be leaving today as planned, but we would all be setting sail together back for France that afternoon.
So we headed back in not the best weather, but managed to keep ahead of the worst of it and arrived back in Villefranche to anchor for the evening among a swarm of other boats. A stiff wind necessitated a vigil anchor watch and with a few hours sleep in the morning we went around the peninsula to Cap Ferrat where we are currently anchored for the evening.
So that brings us up to date. Our Grand Prix charter starts on the 27th and then we have a one day charter on the 2nd of June. An insurance survey right after that and then June 6th I fly home for two weeks! Our berth for the Grand Prix is just outside the tunnel before the chicane, front row. So if you watch on the tele you might get a glimpse of us or at least the boat. That is if it isn’t a complete blur as the camera follows F-1 cars speeding by…….
Bon Soiree
Update: Woke up this morning for my 4am anchor watch shift and saw a note from the boss, "Can we wake up in St. Tropez? That would be very good. Thanks". My immediate thought was that "waking up in Thailand with two asian girls giving me a Thai massage would be very good, but I guess St. Tropez is somewhat more practical." So I'll see ya in St. Tropez this morning if you are around and everyone will be around because the Cannes film festival begins today. Parking will be at a premium....
Supposedly Elba is lovely and most people who visit wind up wanting to buy property there so I was keen to have a look. The Cinque Terre area is a beautiful stretch of coast line which I visited on my backpacking trip and so I suggested we include that into the itinerary. The literal translation is “five lands” and not surprisingly is comprised of five small towns built along the terraced cliff sides overlooking the coast. Quaint towns with old world charm which until 1960 had no roads connecting them, but only the now infamous Cinque Terre Trail and the railroad. To this day most of the towns don’t allow automobile traffic.
I had scheduled our departure for early Wednesday morning so we would arrive in Livorno, Italy in the evening. I picked Livorno for two reasons: 1) It is very near to the Pisa airport and convenient for the guests. 2) The Benetti ship yard is in the area and so I could get them to come and do some warranty work on the boat.
So as of Tuesday morning all our reservations were set and we were taking on provisions for the trip. Tuesday afternoon I got the call saying that instead of Elba the boss would like to go to Portofino as well as still doing the Cinque Terre. The mad scramble was on to change the plans, cancel the reservations we had and make the new ones.
Portofino is a very desirable little marina about 25 miles west of La Spezia. It has only 8 berths for visitors and so it can be difficult to get a berth and in the summer damn near impossible. So I served up my volley of phone calls and got the ball rolling. We left port with no idea of whether or not it would be possible to berth there.
Our crossing to Italy went well. Low wind, calm seas, sun, blue skies, dolphins and I even spotted a small Sunfish. We made good time and arrived in Livorno by 7pm. I should have known that troubles laid ahead by the arrival form I had to send ahead to the port. An ugly place, a huge commercial port and also a military presence. Dirty, old and not at all appealing, but we were here to get work done and not for the scenery.
The next morning the port agent arrived to get our details. He wanted copies of every ship document we had on board, but we had them all so no problem. Or almost. The next morning (Friday) he was back with a problem. They noticed two of our documents were outdated. All have been applied for and we are awaiting the new documents, but apparently there is two much red tape to get through and 4 months later we still were without.
So without these documents the port will not let us leave! Detained in Hell and the guests are arriving in a few hours and they expect to leave immediately. Merde!! (French for Shit!) Now my back is up against the wall. I serve up another volley of phone calls rapidly burning through phone credit with my French phone and try to get a small army working to resolve this crisis ASAP. I might add that no one has ever heard of a yacht being detained for these documents, but there you are, just my luck.
One of the documents had to do with commercial chartering of the yacht which is required by the MCA, but we were able to bypass that one by having the owner on board and declaring that we were operating privately and not commercially. The other document we weren’t going to be so lucky with. We had to have it or we were stuck there and the document has to be issued from England and its Friday afternoon. After a herd of phone calls and putting the screws to a few people we managed to get an assurance that someone from the Italian office would arrive Saturday morning with a temporary certificate which would satisfy the port and allow us to leave.
Meanwhile the guests had been delayed. Their original flight plans went awry and they wound up flying into Rome on a private flight. The problem was that the airport they landed at didn’t allow private flights. So as they taxied to a stop they were surrounded by lots of lights and guns, local police, airport security and Interpol!! The authorities were in a good mood though, probably happy to have the rare opportunity to draw there weapons in the line of duty and let everyone off with a good talking to. The pilots were lucky there and could have lost their licenses.
So all in all a rough day for everyone, but they arrived in the evening and were understanding regarding the boats predicament. I was just praying the document would arrive in the morning and we could get the hell out of Dodge!
I had received confirmation of a berth not in Portofino, but the marina just next to it for Friday evening, but we weren’t going to make that although we would still have to pay for it. I let the agent know that we would still like the reservation at Porto Santa Margherita for Saturday and the next morning after the temporary document arrived, all the I’s were dotted an t’s crossed we made our way out of Livorno as fast as we could. I vowed never to go back. Of course, today I learned that I will in fact be going back in October to get the rest of our warranty work done before it expires. Se le Vie!
It would be about a six hour cruise to Santa Margherita and Cinque Terre is along the way. So my fears were realized when the boss asked to stop in Cinque Terre for a stroll. I had planned on doing this later in the week, not on the cruise up. We had to be in port by 6:30pm or we would be locked out and have to anchor for the evening. I hate anchoring!! You have to be on 24 hour anchor watch which means that Scott (Engineer/Mate) and I are lucky to get 4 hours sleep in a day. So as they were sitting down for lunch I pulled up close to Monterossa (the first of the five towns) and dropped anchor. That area is a wildlife park and there are restrictions along the coast with regard to anchoring, fishing, etc. I made sure that I stayed out of the no anchor zone, but quickly surmised that I might still be out of bounds as I spotted a zodiac making a beeline towards us.
Struggling through the Italian we realized that although it is possible to anchor where we were, our boat was too big so we would have to move on. At least I didn’t get a ticket. So we weighed anchor, moved offshore a bit and started doing slow circles to allow the guests to finish lunch before they went ashore for their excursion. I allowed the boat to get far enough offshore so that the ride in by tender didn’t look so appealing and sure enough they decided that they wouldn’t be going ashore after all and we could make our way to Santa Margherita. Maybe my luck is changing?!
Arriving in Santa Margherita we found it also to be very nice and dollar for dollar or euro for euro much more preferable in my opinion to Portofino. But then that’s just my sensibilities, I was never much on exclusivity such as Portofino has with its reputation for having celebrity yachts in harbour. So the only snafu there was that I couldn’t get a dinner reservation at their restaurant of choice.
In the morning after we picked up some fresh bread we headed out to cruise around the bay and finally anchored to wait for our berth in Portofino to open up. Check in time is normally 2pm so I wasn’t too pleased when it wasn’t until nearly 4pm that they gave me the OK to enter. Particularly when just before that a squall kicked up making it a challenge to get the guests back on board and put the tender back into the garage. Not to mention having to dock in heavy rain and wind.
No matter though, we got in, dropping both anchors to secure our bow, tied up and gave the dock master a tip. I didn’t particularly feel it was deserved, but good luck getting back in later in the season if you don’t spread some love. They were very appreciative, uncannily so really, but as long as they remember us, all is good.
In Portofino I was actually able to get a reservation for their restaurant of choice, "Puny" only to have them blow it off! The next day as I was visiting the Carabinierrie (immigration) to supply all our passports, even Max’s (Golden Lab) the guests went off and came back with a load of expensive silver knick knacks for the boat and 8 cases of fine wine.
We were booked for a second evening there, but as plans on this boat change with the movement of the planets I wasn’t surprised to learn that two of the guests wouldn’t be leaving today as planned, but we would all be setting sail together back for France that afternoon.
So we headed back in not the best weather, but managed to keep ahead of the worst of it and arrived back in Villefranche to anchor for the evening among a swarm of other boats. A stiff wind necessitated a vigil anchor watch and with a few hours sleep in the morning we went around the peninsula to Cap Ferrat where we are currently anchored for the evening.
So that brings us up to date. Our Grand Prix charter starts on the 27th and then we have a one day charter on the 2nd of June. An insurance survey right after that and then June 6th I fly home for two weeks! Our berth for the Grand Prix is just outside the tunnel before the chicane, front row. So if you watch on the tele you might get a glimpse of us or at least the boat. That is if it isn’t a complete blur as the camera follows F-1 cars speeding by…….
Bon Soiree
Update: Woke up this morning for my 4am anchor watch shift and saw a note from the boss, "Can we wake up in St. Tropez? That would be very good. Thanks". My immediate thought was that "waking up in Thailand with two asian girls giving me a Thai massage would be very good, but I guess St. Tropez is somewhat more practical." So I'll see ya in St. Tropez this morning if you are around and everyone will be around because the Cannes film festival begins today. Parking will be at a premium....
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Easter
Well we had a day and a half off after the MIPIM conference charter during which time I brought on Iwona (Eva) as stewardess. Monday came and it was time to get prepared for our Easter charter which was to begin on Thursday and end on the following Monday.
During that time we cruised between Monaco and Cannes and the weather was spotty at best. It all went pretty well until Sunday evening when the boys came back to the boat around 11:30pm and asked for a snack. I asked the chef to prepare them something and he refused! So about 30 seconds later I fired him and he was packing his bags. The first time I’ve had that pleasure, but probably not the last. It’s a difficult position to be in letting go of a chef during a charter, but I really didn’t have a choice except to wait until the next afternoon when the charter ended. Although by then I might have done something stupid and forgiven him. It really wasn’t working out anyway and I think he wanted to go. So now I’m looking for a chef and they are in short supply and high demand so it will be a challenge. And if anyone wants to come by for a BBQ, please do. I have about 100 lbs of meat and fish that he over ordered which is bound to go bad!
Of course again the crew is bordering on exhaustion because the two the guests decided to stay another week turning our 4 day charter into a 11 day charter. I won’t air out all my laundry, but suffice to say that there has been a lot going on behind the scenes which has made it a stressful week.
By the way, thank you all for the Birthday well wishes. I can hardly believe I’m 30!! ;) I must admit that I’m a little miffed that it will be a week after my birthday before I get a chance to step off the boat for a celebratory drink. Oh well, there is always next year.
So now all the guests have gone and I’ve had a chance to get the crew some time off. I worked though, albeit at a more relaxed pace. It’s the weekend now and although I can’t seem to completely stop working I’m not killing myself with the load.
Spring is in the air here in the Riviera with nice sunny and warm days. Captain Pierre is back from Florida and in the area so I’ll get to catch up with him over lunch tomorrow. All the big boats are trickling back into the area. One of them arrives Tuesday and we are in their berth so we have to move. Our time is running out here in Port Hercule I think. We may be able to bounce around from one empty berth to another for another week or two, but after that I expect that all the berths will be filled with their rightful owners and we will have to move around the hill to Port Fontvielle.
Interesting note: We are paying about 100 euro ($150) a day for electricity! We aren’t even running the air conditioning! It would actually be cheaper for us to live on generator power except for the wear and tear on the gen sets. Not my problem though, you want to live the life, you gotta pay the price.
And I don’t know what gas prices are up to in the states, but this might make you all feel a little better. It’s 1.20 euro a litre here. There are 4 litres to a gallon so that’s 4.80/gal. !!! Now you realize why there are so many matchbox cars in Europe.
Anyway, I’m going to go and mix in with the nightlife and get my dance on.
Take care,
PS. Still looking for another stewardess and chef for any yachtees out there reading this. Oh, and a captain for our chase boat too. And a relief capatain for the yacht so I can take a holiday! ;)
Well we had a day and a half off after the MIPIM conference charter during which time I brought on Iwona (Eva) as stewardess. Monday came and it was time to get prepared for our Easter charter which was to begin on Thursday and end on the following Monday.
During that time we cruised between Monaco and Cannes and the weather was spotty at best. It all went pretty well until Sunday evening when the boys came back to the boat around 11:30pm and asked for a snack. I asked the chef to prepare them something and he refused! So about 30 seconds later I fired him and he was packing his bags. The first time I’ve had that pleasure, but probably not the last. It’s a difficult position to be in letting go of a chef during a charter, but I really didn’t have a choice except to wait until the next afternoon when the charter ended. Although by then I might have done something stupid and forgiven him. It really wasn’t working out anyway and I think he wanted to go. So now I’m looking for a chef and they are in short supply and high demand so it will be a challenge. And if anyone wants to come by for a BBQ, please do. I have about 100 lbs of meat and fish that he over ordered which is bound to go bad!
Of course again the crew is bordering on exhaustion because the two the guests decided to stay another week turning our 4 day charter into a 11 day charter. I won’t air out all my laundry, but suffice to say that there has been a lot going on behind the scenes which has made it a stressful week.
By the way, thank you all for the Birthday well wishes. I can hardly believe I’m 30!! ;) I must admit that I’m a little miffed that it will be a week after my birthday before I get a chance to step off the boat for a celebratory drink. Oh well, there is always next year.
So now all the guests have gone and I’ve had a chance to get the crew some time off. I worked though, albeit at a more relaxed pace. It’s the weekend now and although I can’t seem to completely stop working I’m not killing myself with the load.
Spring is in the air here in the Riviera with nice sunny and warm days. Captain Pierre is back from Florida and in the area so I’ll get to catch up with him over lunch tomorrow. All the big boats are trickling back into the area. One of them arrives Tuesday and we are in their berth so we have to move. Our time is running out here in Port Hercule I think. We may be able to bounce around from one empty berth to another for another week or two, but after that I expect that all the berths will be filled with their rightful owners and we will have to move around the hill to Port Fontvielle.
Interesting note: We are paying about 100 euro ($150) a day for electricity! We aren’t even running the air conditioning! It would actually be cheaper for us to live on generator power except for the wear and tear on the gen sets. Not my problem though, you want to live the life, you gotta pay the price.
And I don’t know what gas prices are up to in the states, but this might make you all feel a little better. It’s 1.20 euro a litre here. There are 4 litres to a gallon so that’s 4.80/gal. !!! Now you realize why there are so many matchbox cars in Europe.
Anyway, I’m going to go and mix in with the nightlife and get my dance on.
Take care,
PS. Still looking for another stewardess and chef for any yachtees out there reading this. Oh, and a captain for our chase boat too. And a relief capatain for the yacht so I can take a holiday! ;)
Saturday, March 15, 2008
MIPIM
I write to you red eyed from the Bay of Cannes. We have been here on charter for the last few days for the MIPIM conference, 'the world's largest property and hotel development' conference in the world. It's been a long month and this week's straw is weighing heavy on this camels back. We have been busy, very busy. The owner has a flat in a hotel overlooking Port de Monaco so since we moved into that port he has been around everyday. I'm afraid that like a kid who gets his favorite toy on Christmas day he is going to play with it too much and too hard to the point where he breaks it! It's not that he only comes around everyday, but he wants to take the boat for a cruise everyday also!
Now you may be saying, 'what's wrong with that, his boat, he should use it.' Fair enough, but it ain't like taking a car for a spin. The real problem though is that when he is around we can't get any of the business done that really needs to be done. And of course he doesn't have a clue of what goes on behind the scenes. He probably thinks we sit around all day sipping coffee and watching soap operas. He doesn't understand weather either. Last Wednesday I put my foot down and told him we couldn't go out because there was a forecast for high winds which was true and it was also a perfect excuse to get a little break. But, of course, the weather men made a liar out of me. The next day I get the call, "I'm looking out my window and it looks like a flat lake. Let's go out.". Even though the forecast was again bad I couldn't really stuff him two days in a row so I warned him that things could turn bad quickly and that we might need to high tail it back to port. So away we went and no sooner did we drop anchor when the winds kicked up. Perfect for flying a kite, not so good for boating.
So we were anchored in the lee so the swell was relatively calm, but still very heavy swirling winds due to the land mass and we did drag the anchor a bit and had to reset it. So he went ashore with the dog, oh the dog. Lovely Retriever pup of 1 year, "Max". He's great, but having a dog on a yacht is a pain in the ass. Luckily he is really well trained in the deficating area and hasn't had any accidents, yet! But he did get sea sick on deck the other day. And so we often need to walk him which is fine except he really only goes on grass and finding a patch of grass around here can be like finding a needle in a hay stack. The other night we were in the commercial port of Nice and Glenn and I took him out. It was hilarious. No grass around and two grown men trying to coax Max into relieving himself. I even resorted to lifting him into a large tree pot, but he just hopped back down. Now he's getting brave in the tender and wants to leap out and back onto the yacht perhaps a little too early. He will definately be learning to swim this summer.
Anyway, finally I said to him that the forecast was coming true and that we should return to port or we might get stuck at anchor for a couple of days which would jeopardize our being prepared for the MIPIM conference. He was oblivious. Partly because we were in the lee, partly because he was within the vinyl enclosure on the deck which blocks the wind and partly because we had the zero speed stabilizers smoothing things out. He didn't argue though and said he gather his things and get off there in Cap Ferrat. That was a disappointment because I really wanted to teach him a lesson. If he came back with us he would have seen how shitty it got and perhaps gained some much needed understanding with regard to boating and weather. That the sea looks like a pancake from your window doesn't mean squat!! Even as I was depositing him into the tender to go ashore he asked me if I was sure, "it doesn't look so bad." I assured him that outside it wouldn't be pretty and that it would only be getting worse. He left and we had a washing machine ride home, surfing some large swells. Always a strange sensation and humbling when a fifty eight ton yacht's engines are rendered null and a swell that's moving faster than you picks you up and pushes you forward. Great for gas mileage, not so good for the nerves. The boat isn't supposed to be taken out in anything above Force 4 winds, coming in we had Force 8 winds. Luckily the port is well protected so once we got past the seawall it wasn't too tricky to get back into our berth.So that was last week.
Oh, Glenn, my engineer, his contract is up and he's now enjoying himself in Turkey. Lucky bastard. My new engineer is Scott and he seems to be working out well. I've got a stewardess flying in on Saturday. Hopefully she will work out. For the moment I have Jean Claire as stewardess for the conference. So they have a lot of important meetings set up for this conference and wanted to use the boat as a base. For the sake of maintaining my confidentiality agreement I'll say Mr. X asked me last week to try and get a berth for the conference. I had to bite my tongue to keep from asking if 'Hell just froze over', 'Do you see pigs flying', or 'for next year or the following'??? I made the calls of course and all the ports were kind enough not to laugh in my face. Most of the boats booked for this conference last year, it's full, full, full. I even made a round of calls again this weekend. I heard that there was one cancellation and that was taken in five minutes. No suprise since there were about 20 boats already at anchor in the area ready to pounce on any openings.
So all week the forecasts weren't looking good so we weren't sure if we would be able to go at all. In the end it looked like the storm front was going to clear out earlier than expected and we might get to the conference after all if maybe a little late. On Monday I gave them the update: Tuesday-bad. Wednesday-improving, but still bad. Thur/Fri-Good. Did Mr. X listen, of course not. Tuesday evening we pulled out of port headed for Cannes which is about 2 hours at normal cruising speed. Got just to the seawall and realized that we would not be running at normal cruising speed. Two meter swells on the nose. Big smile on my face. See the light, see the light. Actually I think what Mr. X saw was the inside of the toilet bowl. Pray to the porcelin god! I think a guest or two were also green and I heard later that Jean the stew also lost it. It was clear that we couldn't do this for another 3 hours so we pulled into the lee of Cap Ferrat and anchored there for the night.
In the morning we set sail bright and early still into decent sized swells on the nose. We arrived at the Antibes point and rounded the corner which afforded us relief from the swell. I dropped the anchor and off loaded the guests to go to their meetings for the day. I was on anchor watch in the afternoon when I got a call from Neil. As I was speaking to him I noticed a boat getting very close to us. Or were we getting really close to the other boat. Sorry Neil, gotta go, Click! It was us who were dragging our anchor. The wind had switched 180 degrees and strengthened all of which I was very aware of and I monitored the anchors bite during the switch. It had appeared ok. But apparently the spin loosened it just enough to slowly drag and then it got to a hole where the depth doubles and that was it, away we went. That's why someone is always on anchor watch!
So I hustle over the the ignitions and crank over the engines. Only one starts due to a battery problem which I won't get into except to say that I'm ready to cut off someone's balls at Benetti. So I hit the general ships alarm (the first time doing it for anything other than a drill). We can parallel the batteries from the engine room so I sent the engineer down to get the other engine started. But we were moving too fast and too close so it was too late by then to wait for the second engine. So I worked with what I had and using the bow thruster and one engine slid past the other boat. Once we got to the other side of the hole the anchor dug in again, we let out more chain and breathed a sigh of relief. Neil wasn't on board, but after I told him about the incident he really grasped the seriousness of this battery problem which I have been bitching about for about 2 months now. So now it will get resolved quickly. Unfortunately it's not like going out and buying another car battery nor is it cheap. Probably 10,000 euros to replace them, but Benetti should pick up the bill because they didn't set up the battery chargers correctly and thus they haven't been getting charged up for, oh, about 8 months!!
Today we moved to another spot heavily populated. What a pain in the ass anchoring is here. We set it and half an hour later the wind switched and we had to move again due to the proximity of another boat. It's crowded, space limited and all these different boats swing on their chains differently so all you can do is keep a sharp lookout and wait for things to develop. And hope your engines start if you need them!!
So needless to say, I'm knackered. Sharing the anchor watches with Scott and neither of us getting too much sleep.
Oh well, the wind has died down, it's all over tomorrow and did I mention I got another raise. I won't say what I'm making, but I will say that I definately think higher tax brackets suck!! Never could of or would of said that before!
Bon Soir
Now you may be saying, 'what's wrong with that, his boat, he should use it.' Fair enough, but it ain't like taking a car for a spin. The real problem though is that when he is around we can't get any of the business done that really needs to be done. And of course he doesn't have a clue of what goes on behind the scenes. He probably thinks we sit around all day sipping coffee and watching soap operas. He doesn't understand weather either. Last Wednesday I put my foot down and told him we couldn't go out because there was a forecast for high winds which was true and it was also a perfect excuse to get a little break. But, of course, the weather men made a liar out of me. The next day I get the call, "I'm looking out my window and it looks like a flat lake. Let's go out.". Even though the forecast was again bad I couldn't really stuff him two days in a row so I warned him that things could turn bad quickly and that we might need to high tail it back to port. So away we went and no sooner did we drop anchor when the winds kicked up. Perfect for flying a kite, not so good for boating.
So we were anchored in the lee so the swell was relatively calm, but still very heavy swirling winds due to the land mass and we did drag the anchor a bit and had to reset it. So he went ashore with the dog, oh the dog. Lovely Retriever pup of 1 year, "Max". He's great, but having a dog on a yacht is a pain in the ass. Luckily he is really well trained in the deficating area and hasn't had any accidents, yet! But he did get sea sick on deck the other day. And so we often need to walk him which is fine except he really only goes on grass and finding a patch of grass around here can be like finding a needle in a hay stack. The other night we were in the commercial port of Nice and Glenn and I took him out. It was hilarious. No grass around and two grown men trying to coax Max into relieving himself. I even resorted to lifting him into a large tree pot, but he just hopped back down. Now he's getting brave in the tender and wants to leap out and back onto the yacht perhaps a little too early. He will definately be learning to swim this summer.
Anyway, finally I said to him that the forecast was coming true and that we should return to port or we might get stuck at anchor for a couple of days which would jeopardize our being prepared for the MIPIM conference. He was oblivious. Partly because we were in the lee, partly because he was within the vinyl enclosure on the deck which blocks the wind and partly because we had the zero speed stabilizers smoothing things out. He didn't argue though and said he gather his things and get off there in Cap Ferrat. That was a disappointment because I really wanted to teach him a lesson. If he came back with us he would have seen how shitty it got and perhaps gained some much needed understanding with regard to boating and weather. That the sea looks like a pancake from your window doesn't mean squat!! Even as I was depositing him into the tender to go ashore he asked me if I was sure, "it doesn't look so bad." I assured him that outside it wouldn't be pretty and that it would only be getting worse. He left and we had a washing machine ride home, surfing some large swells. Always a strange sensation and humbling when a fifty eight ton yacht's engines are rendered null and a swell that's moving faster than you picks you up and pushes you forward. Great for gas mileage, not so good for the nerves. The boat isn't supposed to be taken out in anything above Force 4 winds, coming in we had Force 8 winds. Luckily the port is well protected so once we got past the seawall it wasn't too tricky to get back into our berth.So that was last week.
Oh, Glenn, my engineer, his contract is up and he's now enjoying himself in Turkey. Lucky bastard. My new engineer is Scott and he seems to be working out well. I've got a stewardess flying in on Saturday. Hopefully she will work out. For the moment I have Jean Claire as stewardess for the conference. So they have a lot of important meetings set up for this conference and wanted to use the boat as a base. For the sake of maintaining my confidentiality agreement I'll say Mr. X asked me last week to try and get a berth for the conference. I had to bite my tongue to keep from asking if 'Hell just froze over', 'Do you see pigs flying', or 'for next year or the following'??? I made the calls of course and all the ports were kind enough not to laugh in my face. Most of the boats booked for this conference last year, it's full, full, full. I even made a round of calls again this weekend. I heard that there was one cancellation and that was taken in five minutes. No suprise since there were about 20 boats already at anchor in the area ready to pounce on any openings.
So all week the forecasts weren't looking good so we weren't sure if we would be able to go at all. In the end it looked like the storm front was going to clear out earlier than expected and we might get to the conference after all if maybe a little late. On Monday I gave them the update: Tuesday-bad. Wednesday-improving, but still bad. Thur/Fri-Good. Did Mr. X listen, of course not. Tuesday evening we pulled out of port headed for Cannes which is about 2 hours at normal cruising speed. Got just to the seawall and realized that we would not be running at normal cruising speed. Two meter swells on the nose. Big smile on my face. See the light, see the light. Actually I think what Mr. X saw was the inside of the toilet bowl. Pray to the porcelin god! I think a guest or two were also green and I heard later that Jean the stew also lost it. It was clear that we couldn't do this for another 3 hours so we pulled into the lee of Cap Ferrat and anchored there for the night.
In the morning we set sail bright and early still into decent sized swells on the nose. We arrived at the Antibes point and rounded the corner which afforded us relief from the swell. I dropped the anchor and off loaded the guests to go to their meetings for the day. I was on anchor watch in the afternoon when I got a call from Neil. As I was speaking to him I noticed a boat getting very close to us. Or were we getting really close to the other boat. Sorry Neil, gotta go, Click! It was us who were dragging our anchor. The wind had switched 180 degrees and strengthened all of which I was very aware of and I monitored the anchors bite during the switch. It had appeared ok. But apparently the spin loosened it just enough to slowly drag and then it got to a hole where the depth doubles and that was it, away we went. That's why someone is always on anchor watch!
So I hustle over the the ignitions and crank over the engines. Only one starts due to a battery problem which I won't get into except to say that I'm ready to cut off someone's balls at Benetti. So I hit the general ships alarm (the first time doing it for anything other than a drill). We can parallel the batteries from the engine room so I sent the engineer down to get the other engine started. But we were moving too fast and too close so it was too late by then to wait for the second engine. So I worked with what I had and using the bow thruster and one engine slid past the other boat. Once we got to the other side of the hole the anchor dug in again, we let out more chain and breathed a sigh of relief. Neil wasn't on board, but after I told him about the incident he really grasped the seriousness of this battery problem which I have been bitching about for about 2 months now. So now it will get resolved quickly. Unfortunately it's not like going out and buying another car battery nor is it cheap. Probably 10,000 euros to replace them, but Benetti should pick up the bill because they didn't set up the battery chargers correctly and thus they haven't been getting charged up for, oh, about 8 months!!
Today we moved to another spot heavily populated. What a pain in the ass anchoring is here. We set it and half an hour later the wind switched and we had to move again due to the proximity of another boat. It's crowded, space limited and all these different boats swing on their chains differently so all you can do is keep a sharp lookout and wait for things to develop. And hope your engines start if you need them!!
So needless to say, I'm knackered. Sharing the anchor watches with Scott and neither of us getting too much sleep.
Oh well, the wind has died down, it's all over tomorrow and did I mention I got another raise. I won't say what I'm making, but I will say that I definately think higher tax brackets suck!! Never could of or would of said that before!
Bon Soir
Sunday, February 17, 2008
My "First Ride"
My "First Ride" was a 1975 Chevy Caprice Classic affectionately called the “Metallic Dinosaur”. Twenty plus feet of American steel powered by an ample V8 which would torque the whole car as you revved the engine. In its heyday I’m sure it was a fine luxurious vehicle. When I got a hold of it, well it had big rust outs, the ceiling fabric massaged your scalp and it was questionable whether or not there was any silver paint on it or it was just the bare metal? It was however a ride and it never let me down even that time on a surf trip to Cape Hatteras when we lost the muffler just before getting on the Cape May ferry and roared through the mideastern seaboard scaring the wildlife and hoping we wouldn’t get arrested for noise pollution!
My "Second, First Ride" was a girl named Heather, but let's skip past that.
Well my ‘Third, First Ride’ is slightly more glamorous. A 2007 Thirty meter, 48 ton Benetti Tradition. No rust outs, twin Catapillar diesel engines, sparkling paint, fresh teak wood trimming and it uses only slightly more fuel than the ‘Metallic Dinosaur’. Two weeks ago at a surprise birthday party for Neil he sat down next to me and I immediately got the sense that something of gravity was coming. I didn’t feel that anxiety which usually precedes bad news, but that equanimity which tells me to just wait for it. I try to pay attention to these intuitions and follow them, but there is always that struggle with doubt so when he said “What if we got a really good 1st Mate?”, I had to stop for a second and think to myself “Is he firing me??” No he was promoting me to Captain!!
Although Glenn and myself had been thinking that in the boat’s current situation it probably would be the best thing and that eventually Neil might come around to seeing it, it wasn’t something I was really pushing for. In fact, I was just looking forward to getting a captain on board to take the weight off me and allow me to concentrate on the job I was actually hired to do.
But would I accept the position? Hell yes! It’s a daunting position, but since I’ve essentially been doing it for the last three months I might as well get the credit and official position. And the first ride is always the most difficult to secure. After the first, you’re in the club. You’ve reached the apex and can stroll along the ‘captain’s plateau’ knowing your career is well on its way. As long as you don’t royally screw up.
So yesterday it became official as the insurance company accepted me on to the policy. That wasn’t a sure thing as insurance companies seem to enjoy snuffing out would be applicants, especially ones applying for their first ride. Being an American doesn’t help either. Some foreign companies flat out won’t accept U.S. captains. Luckily our insurance company is pretty liberal and just added a little ‘screw the American’ premium which Neil said he was happy to pay. So I have my ‘First Ride’!!
Last week we moved the boat from Nice to Fontvielle, Monaco. We went to the Bay of Beauleau and did some maneuvers to get a feel for the boat and then went into port Fontvielle. I’m still waiting for the experience of the “Med style” docking where you back into your spot by cramming the boat in between two other boats with barely enough space to fit your fenders. This first berthing of the boat was a little more relaxed. We are on the inner sea wall and they space the boats out because of the swell surge we receive here. Since there are significant surges at this berth they require us to drop both anchors in addition to using the preset bow mooring lines. That was a good exercise especially since we had to do it twice.
I maneuvered the boat into position with the bow a few feet from the opposite quai to drop the Starboard anchor and we set it. Then we maneuvered to drop the Port anchor, but it wouldn’t drop. As Glenn frantically and hopelessly tried to jar the anchor loose I patiently held the boat in position. Finally we had no choice, but to add ‘windlass repair’ to our ‘to do’ list and lower the anchor link by link using the windlass’s motor. With both anchors down we backed towards the quai and secured the stern lines and then the bow mooring lines. It was then that we noticed that the anchor lines were crossed. The delay in dropping the port anchor allowed the starboard chain to drift under the port chain and so we would have to untangle the chains and reset the anchor. But that would have to wait until the dock guy came back from his 3 hour siesta/lunch break. So in the meantime Glenn ripped the windlass apart, cleaned it up and slapped it back together. After lunch we went through the drill again and settled into our new home.
An ideal home it is not and that is a severe understatement! In fact it is probably the worst berth in Monaco, perhaps Europe and maybe even the world! We are trying to get a permanent berth in Port de Hercules and we have to pay our dues and get our foot in the door here. So we are on the seawall where we regularly get large swells rolling and rocking us around. The blessing is that this boat has a ‘stabilization at anchor’ mode which theoretically is meant to keep you still and stable even if you aren’t moving. We have been working the system more days than not, but the reality is that although it helps it only cuts down on the rocking by maybe 40%. Both Glenn and I aren’t apt to ‘sea sickness’ and on the bright side we are getting ‘sea sickness’ acclimation training which may strengthen ourselves against future rough conditions. That said, it really is quite annoying with all this movement. To add insult to injury we are detached from the mainland and have to take the tender ashore to get off the boat. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers’ comes to mind.
So there are lots of challenges on the horizon not the least hiring a good crew. I lose Glenn at the end of the month and it is going to be difficult to replace him. I have to be ‘charter ready’ by March 8th so that means along with getting all the loose ends taken care of I need a Engineer/Deckie, Chief Stew and Stew/deck. Additionally, there is still a 2 week GMDSS course I need to fit in as well as probably sending one or two of the crew off to a 1 week Power boat course so they can legally operate our tenders.
There simply aren’t enough hours in the day, but I’m only here because it’s what I wanted so head down, axe to the grind, all aboard for my crazy first ride on ‘Jazz’ in the Med.
My "Second, First Ride" was a girl named Heather, but let's skip past that.
Well my ‘Third, First Ride’ is slightly more glamorous. A 2007 Thirty meter, 48 ton Benetti Tradition. No rust outs, twin Catapillar diesel engines, sparkling paint, fresh teak wood trimming and it uses only slightly more fuel than the ‘Metallic Dinosaur’. Two weeks ago at a surprise birthday party for Neil he sat down next to me and I immediately got the sense that something of gravity was coming. I didn’t feel that anxiety which usually precedes bad news, but that equanimity which tells me to just wait for it. I try to pay attention to these intuitions and follow them, but there is always that struggle with doubt so when he said “What if we got a really good 1st Mate?”, I had to stop for a second and think to myself “Is he firing me??” No he was promoting me to Captain!!
Although Glenn and myself had been thinking that in the boat’s current situation it probably would be the best thing and that eventually Neil might come around to seeing it, it wasn’t something I was really pushing for. In fact, I was just looking forward to getting a captain on board to take the weight off me and allow me to concentrate on the job I was actually hired to do.
But would I accept the position? Hell yes! It’s a daunting position, but since I’ve essentially been doing it for the last three months I might as well get the credit and official position. And the first ride is always the most difficult to secure. After the first, you’re in the club. You’ve reached the apex and can stroll along the ‘captain’s plateau’ knowing your career is well on its way. As long as you don’t royally screw up.
So yesterday it became official as the insurance company accepted me on to the policy. That wasn’t a sure thing as insurance companies seem to enjoy snuffing out would be applicants, especially ones applying for their first ride. Being an American doesn’t help either. Some foreign companies flat out won’t accept U.S. captains. Luckily our insurance company is pretty liberal and just added a little ‘screw the American’ premium which Neil said he was happy to pay. So I have my ‘First Ride’!!
Last week we moved the boat from Nice to Fontvielle, Monaco. We went to the Bay of Beauleau and did some maneuvers to get a feel for the boat and then went into port Fontvielle. I’m still waiting for the experience of the “Med style” docking where you back into your spot by cramming the boat in between two other boats with barely enough space to fit your fenders. This first berthing of the boat was a little more relaxed. We are on the inner sea wall and they space the boats out because of the swell surge we receive here. Since there are significant surges at this berth they require us to drop both anchors in addition to using the preset bow mooring lines. That was a good exercise especially since we had to do it twice.
I maneuvered the boat into position with the bow a few feet from the opposite quai to drop the Starboard anchor and we set it. Then we maneuvered to drop the Port anchor, but it wouldn’t drop. As Glenn frantically and hopelessly tried to jar the anchor loose I patiently held the boat in position. Finally we had no choice, but to add ‘windlass repair’ to our ‘to do’ list and lower the anchor link by link using the windlass’s motor. With both anchors down we backed towards the quai and secured the stern lines and then the bow mooring lines. It was then that we noticed that the anchor lines were crossed. The delay in dropping the port anchor allowed the starboard chain to drift under the port chain and so we would have to untangle the chains and reset the anchor. But that would have to wait until the dock guy came back from his 3 hour siesta/lunch break. So in the meantime Glenn ripped the windlass apart, cleaned it up and slapped it back together. After lunch we went through the drill again and settled into our new home.
An ideal home it is not and that is a severe understatement! In fact it is probably the worst berth in Monaco, perhaps Europe and maybe even the world! We are trying to get a permanent berth in Port de Hercules and we have to pay our dues and get our foot in the door here. So we are on the seawall where we regularly get large swells rolling and rocking us around. The blessing is that this boat has a ‘stabilization at anchor’ mode which theoretically is meant to keep you still and stable even if you aren’t moving. We have been working the system more days than not, but the reality is that although it helps it only cuts down on the rocking by maybe 40%. Both Glenn and I aren’t apt to ‘sea sickness’ and on the bright side we are getting ‘sea sickness’ acclimation training which may strengthen ourselves against future rough conditions. That said, it really is quite annoying with all this movement. To add insult to injury we are detached from the mainland and have to take the tender ashore to get off the boat. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers’ comes to mind.
So there are lots of challenges on the horizon not the least hiring a good crew. I lose Glenn at the end of the month and it is going to be difficult to replace him. I have to be ‘charter ready’ by March 8th so that means along with getting all the loose ends taken care of I need a Engineer/Deckie, Chief Stew and Stew/deck. Additionally, there is still a 2 week GMDSS course I need to fit in as well as probably sending one or two of the crew off to a 1 week Power boat course so they can legally operate our tenders.
There simply aren’t enough hours in the day, but I’m only here because it’s what I wanted so head down, axe to the grind, all aboard for my crazy first ride on ‘Jazz’ in the Med.
Sunday, February 03, 2008
London Boat Show
So off to the London Boat Show I go….
I flew Easyjet to Gatwick airport and withdrew a hundred pounds from the ATM. Of course it doesn’t weigh a hundred pounds, but since you only get 1 pound for every 2 U.S. dollars it certainly feels weighty.
They have decent train service in the U.K. but it doesn’t come cheap. I hopped on the “Gatwick Express” for a 17 pound half hour ride into London. From there I hopped into one of those quaint London cabs and drove to the ‘Royal Thames Yacht Club’. Neil is a member and had reserved a room for me there. Small, but sufficient although the dress code prevented me from hanging around and chatting up the club members.
I was staying right on the Thames River and Hyde Park was just two blocks away. However, we had typical London weather; cold and rainy, so I wasn’t too keen on walking the city much. So I settled for exploring the famous Harrod’s Department store. A rare pleasure for an avid shopper like myself. All the super expensive designer goods anyone could ever ask for. I spent countless hours trying things on. NOT! I was impressed with one department though, the food court. Fresh made delicacies from every genre of food. The kind of place where you wish you hadn’t eaten for a few days so you could strut in and gorge yourself.
The next morning I met Neil and we went to the London Boat Show at the Expo Center. The Expo is outside the city and was a huge project that went bankrupt. Now they are trying to revive it and have worked a deal with the Boat show. Unfortunately, the show used to be right in the city and now that it’s kind of a hassle to get to the attendance has suffered. Both in terms of the public and the vendors. So I don’t really have anything special to report here, just a lot of walking around getting ideas for the boat. We did see a couple of interesting items and made a few contacts that might be helpful in the future.
So after we had our fill we got a car to the train station, grabbed some take away dinner and waited for the stampede to the train. It was Friday night and the throngs of Londeners were trying to make there way home. It’s an interesting system they have there in their busy main station. There are some 18 tracks and they don’t tell you which track your train is on until the last minute. So you stand there staring at the board getting a kink in your neck while trying to jockey for position at the front of the pack. As soon as the track assignment is posted the stampede begins as everyone starts making their way at anywhere from a speed walking pace to full out sprint. I was one of the fools at a full out sprint. That’s because there are no seat assignments and a very limited amount of comfortable seats with tables to spread out to. Definitely a sought after commodity on a crowded three hour train ride where if you are slow you could actually wind up standing the whole way.
So Neil was in charge of our bags and it was my job to get a couple of good seats. I thought I’d play it smart and head to the farthest cars. At first things looked easy, but then I saw that most of the prized seats had been reserved and so the frantic search began. In the end I barely managed to secure a couple of seats while beating off others until Neil arrived to claim his seat. We were on our way and had some nice conversation with a couple of locals while we dined somewhat comfortably at our table with a high speed view. We arrived in Manchester and hopped into a cab and started to go to our destination, Liverpool. But Liverpool had their opening night as the “City of Culture” and those Mod Liverpool Lads, Ringo and Paul were back in their hometown to play a concert for the opening ceremonies. Who knows maybe John and George were there also, but one thing was for sure, a hell of a lot of other people would be there and hotel rooms might be hard to come by. So instead of possibly being stuffed we decided to stay in Manchester for the evening.
The next morning we made our way to Liverpool to pick up Neil’s new baby. A 7.5 ton Mercedes covered flat bed truck customized and decked out with all the necessary goodies to transport his little Riva boat. We picked the truck up from a tall, lanky mohawked, skull jewelry wearing ex-Hells Angel. Of course looks can be deceiving and I don’t think this guy would hurt a fly.
Not un-typically the truck needed gas so that was our first stop. After the fill up it wouldn’t start. Luckily we were on an incline so we just gained some momentum, popped into second and away we went pledging to not to turn off the truck until we got to our destination so it could get a good charge. We drove South East through the English countryside and the areas where some of the bloodiest battles of World War I took place and finally arrived at the “Chunnel” (English Channel Tunnel).
I had envisioned a typical tunnel that you simply drive through. Not the case. You have to cue up into six long lines of trucks and await your turn to load up on the train. After driving your rig on to the train you have to hop out and take a seat in the passenger compartment. It’s a short trip, but they actually serve dinner. Well everyday except Saturday and Sunday. It was Saturday. So we missed out on dinner, but that wasn’t our only problem. When we got back in the truck and tried to start it up, well you can guess, it didn’t start. We figured the battery was just flat and after a day’s drive would be fully charged. Obviously it wasn’t a flat battery problem or it was compounded by a bad alternator or something else. So with the truck on a dark train on the coast of France with 10 other trucks stuck behind us and patiently waiting for us to move our ass I popped off the battery box cover to investigate. Fortunately the problem was quickly obvious. The battery cable was loose on the terminal.
So we cranked the rig up and got off the train and drove our way to a hotel for the evening. We got in just in time to sweet talk a hostess to convince the kitchen to serve one more meal at a typical French family restaurant in town. The next morning surprise, surprise the truck wouldn’t start. Off with the battery box again. The cable wouldn’t stay on the terminal because all the arcing the first day wore away some of the terminal. I held the cable on to the terminal and amid a small shower of sparks we cranked it over once more.
Another day of monotonous driving and another hotel. We probably could have made it home that night, but we had a little delay along the way. Neil was driving and I was stretching out in the loft above the cab when I felt us slowing down. I opened the hatch and popped my head in to see what was up. “I think we are running out of gas”. Greeaaaaat!! He managed to get off the freeway and we actually got lucky enough to stall out exactly where there was a sort of rest lane along the lonely single lane road. OK so it’s Sunday in France and nothing is open on Sunday in France. I would have called AAA, but by the time they shipped a tow truck overseas well….
Well the stars must have be shining on us because against all odds we managed to find a very helpful Frenchman who had a gas can and drove us to a non attended, but credit card self service fuel station. There wasn’t a funnel on the gas can so I improvised with a wet/dry vacuum house. Now we had some fuel and just had to go through another shower of sparks to get her started. Another hurdle overcome and the next morning we would only have a few more hours to drive and a small detour through Nice because of a tunnel closing.
It’s a good thing we made it when we did because we wouldn’t have been able to start the truck again. The battery terminal had completely disintegrated! Well another adventure over and it’s back to work…..
I flew Easyjet to Gatwick airport and withdrew a hundred pounds from the ATM. Of course it doesn’t weigh a hundred pounds, but since you only get 1 pound for every 2 U.S. dollars it certainly feels weighty.
They have decent train service in the U.K. but it doesn’t come cheap. I hopped on the “Gatwick Express” for a 17 pound half hour ride into London. From there I hopped into one of those quaint London cabs and drove to the ‘Royal Thames Yacht Club’. Neil is a member and had reserved a room for me there. Small, but sufficient although the dress code prevented me from hanging around and chatting up the club members.
I was staying right on the Thames River and Hyde Park was just two blocks away. However, we had typical London weather; cold and rainy, so I wasn’t too keen on walking the city much. So I settled for exploring the famous Harrod’s Department store. A rare pleasure for an avid shopper like myself. All the super expensive designer goods anyone could ever ask for. I spent countless hours trying things on. NOT! I was impressed with one department though, the food court. Fresh made delicacies from every genre of food. The kind of place where you wish you hadn’t eaten for a few days so you could strut in and gorge yourself.
The next morning I met Neil and we went to the London Boat Show at the Expo Center. The Expo is outside the city and was a huge project that went bankrupt. Now they are trying to revive it and have worked a deal with the Boat show. Unfortunately, the show used to be right in the city and now that it’s kind of a hassle to get to the attendance has suffered. Both in terms of the public and the vendors. So I don’t really have anything special to report here, just a lot of walking around getting ideas for the boat. We did see a couple of interesting items and made a few contacts that might be helpful in the future.
So after we had our fill we got a car to the train station, grabbed some take away dinner and waited for the stampede to the train. It was Friday night and the throngs of Londeners were trying to make there way home. It’s an interesting system they have there in their busy main station. There are some 18 tracks and they don’t tell you which track your train is on until the last minute. So you stand there staring at the board getting a kink in your neck while trying to jockey for position at the front of the pack. As soon as the track assignment is posted the stampede begins as everyone starts making their way at anywhere from a speed walking pace to full out sprint. I was one of the fools at a full out sprint. That’s because there are no seat assignments and a very limited amount of comfortable seats with tables to spread out to. Definitely a sought after commodity on a crowded three hour train ride where if you are slow you could actually wind up standing the whole way.
So Neil was in charge of our bags and it was my job to get a couple of good seats. I thought I’d play it smart and head to the farthest cars. At first things looked easy, but then I saw that most of the prized seats had been reserved and so the frantic search began. In the end I barely managed to secure a couple of seats while beating off others until Neil arrived to claim his seat. We were on our way and had some nice conversation with a couple of locals while we dined somewhat comfortably at our table with a high speed view. We arrived in Manchester and hopped into a cab and started to go to our destination, Liverpool. But Liverpool had their opening night as the “City of Culture” and those Mod Liverpool Lads, Ringo and Paul were back in their hometown to play a concert for the opening ceremonies. Who knows maybe John and George were there also, but one thing was for sure, a hell of a lot of other people would be there and hotel rooms might be hard to come by. So instead of possibly being stuffed we decided to stay in Manchester for the evening.
The next morning we made our way to Liverpool to pick up Neil’s new baby. A 7.5 ton Mercedes covered flat bed truck customized and decked out with all the necessary goodies to transport his little Riva boat. We picked the truck up from a tall, lanky mohawked, skull jewelry wearing ex-Hells Angel. Of course looks can be deceiving and I don’t think this guy would hurt a fly.
Not un-typically the truck needed gas so that was our first stop. After the fill up it wouldn’t start. Luckily we were on an incline so we just gained some momentum, popped into second and away we went pledging to not to turn off the truck until we got to our destination so it could get a good charge. We drove South East through the English countryside and the areas where some of the bloodiest battles of World War I took place and finally arrived at the “Chunnel” (English Channel Tunnel).
I had envisioned a typical tunnel that you simply drive through. Not the case. You have to cue up into six long lines of trucks and await your turn to load up on the train. After driving your rig on to the train you have to hop out and take a seat in the passenger compartment. It’s a short trip, but they actually serve dinner. Well everyday except Saturday and Sunday. It was Saturday. So we missed out on dinner, but that wasn’t our only problem. When we got back in the truck and tried to start it up, well you can guess, it didn’t start. We figured the battery was just flat and after a day’s drive would be fully charged. Obviously it wasn’t a flat battery problem or it was compounded by a bad alternator or something else. So with the truck on a dark train on the coast of France with 10 other trucks stuck behind us and patiently waiting for us to move our ass I popped off the battery box cover to investigate. Fortunately the problem was quickly obvious. The battery cable was loose on the terminal.
So we cranked the rig up and got off the train and drove our way to a hotel for the evening. We got in just in time to sweet talk a hostess to convince the kitchen to serve one more meal at a typical French family restaurant in town. The next morning surprise, surprise the truck wouldn’t start. Off with the battery box again. The cable wouldn’t stay on the terminal because all the arcing the first day wore away some of the terminal. I held the cable on to the terminal and amid a small shower of sparks we cranked it over once more.
Another day of monotonous driving and another hotel. We probably could have made it home that night, but we had a little delay along the way. Neil was driving and I was stretching out in the loft above the cab when I felt us slowing down. I opened the hatch and popped my head in to see what was up. “I think we are running out of gas”. Greeaaaaat!! He managed to get off the freeway and we actually got lucky enough to stall out exactly where there was a sort of rest lane along the lonely single lane road. OK so it’s Sunday in France and nothing is open on Sunday in France. I would have called AAA, but by the time they shipped a tow truck overseas well….
Well the stars must have be shining on us because against all odds we managed to find a very helpful Frenchman who had a gas can and drove us to a non attended, but credit card self service fuel station. There wasn’t a funnel on the gas can so I improvised with a wet/dry vacuum house. Now we had some fuel and just had to go through another shower of sparks to get her started. Another hurdle overcome and the next morning we would only have a few more hours to drive and a small detour through Nice because of a tunnel closing.
It’s a good thing we made it when we did because we wouldn’t have been able to start the truck again. The battery terminal had completely disintegrated! Well another adventure over and it’s back to work…..
Monday, January 14, 2008
Aye, Aye Captain or rather Bye, Bye Captain
Well Captain Paul “worked” for four days and then went on Xmas holiday. He was due to return on January 7th. He called on January 4th to say he was not coming back! I’m not a mind reader, but it seems pretty clear to me what happened. Antibes, which is about a half hour from Nice, is a big oasis of ‘yachtees’ and along with that comes a certain conglomerate of ‘crew culture’. In fact, there is the PYA which is the Professional Yachtsman Association, but they use it in the ‘Med’ to refer to Antibes crew as “Pratts on Yachts in Antibes”. Most in this culture are addicted to partying, working as little as possible and constantly looking for the next best thing.
Now I’m not saying that Paul was your average Antibes worker, but he had certain expectations which didn’t include working in the off season. He has a girlfriend and an apartment in Antibes and I believe he was looking to kick back this offseason and do, well very little work.
But the owners have a brand new boat and understandably want to use it and as soon as possible. That means that there is lots of work to do and no time for sitting back on our heels. Paul realized this and decided to bow out. At least that is my take on it.
So we are back down to a crew of two, Glenn and I. And Glenn is only contracted to stay through January although he will probably stay through February. Much of the reason for his longer stay is to help me in my new role. I am now to become First Mate/Chief Engineer and Glenn is going to be my trainer. A boat our size has a very low engineering requirement so it seems to make sense. The boat is new, under warranty and doesn’t seem to have any major issues so in theory the engineering comes down to typical maintenance.
On a boat our size to run the boat we are required to have a minimum crew of three. A captain, a mate, an engineer and a deckhand. Ah, you say, but that’s four crew. True, but someone can do double duty as long as it’s not the captain. So I’ll need to take a 5 day course, Engineering 101, and then I’ll be qualified and satisfy the legal manning requirements for the boat. It has a slight disadvantage because my sea time will be split between ‘deck’ time and ‘engine’ time, but in the end I think it will be good to have on my resume. I’ve always been keen on diversity of skill so I happy to do this even though it will definitely increase my work load.
The challenge now is to crew up. The owners want to use the boat as soon as possible, in fact there is talk of going to Turkey in the beginning of March. However, it won’t be going anywhere without a crew. And March is going to be here in no time. As a mate once again without a captain I’m now back on double duty and about to start on triple duty training as engineer.
A bit of good news: I renegotiated my contract and got a nice raise and a decent bonus coming if I stay through October. And I’m headed to the London boat show this Thursday. After that I’ll be driving with Neil back to Nice in his new truck which is a custom boat hauler for his little Riva motorboat.
I’ll give you the update next week….
Now I’m not saying that Paul was your average Antibes worker, but he had certain expectations which didn’t include working in the off season. He has a girlfriend and an apartment in Antibes and I believe he was looking to kick back this offseason and do, well very little work.
But the owners have a brand new boat and understandably want to use it and as soon as possible. That means that there is lots of work to do and no time for sitting back on our heels. Paul realized this and decided to bow out. At least that is my take on it.
So we are back down to a crew of two, Glenn and I. And Glenn is only contracted to stay through January although he will probably stay through February. Much of the reason for his longer stay is to help me in my new role. I am now to become First Mate/Chief Engineer and Glenn is going to be my trainer. A boat our size has a very low engineering requirement so it seems to make sense. The boat is new, under warranty and doesn’t seem to have any major issues so in theory the engineering comes down to typical maintenance.
On a boat our size to run the boat we are required to have a minimum crew of three. A captain, a mate, an engineer and a deckhand. Ah, you say, but that’s four crew. True, but someone can do double duty as long as it’s not the captain. So I’ll need to take a 5 day course, Engineering 101, and then I’ll be qualified and satisfy the legal manning requirements for the boat. It has a slight disadvantage because my sea time will be split between ‘deck’ time and ‘engine’ time, but in the end I think it will be good to have on my resume. I’ve always been keen on diversity of skill so I happy to do this even though it will definitely increase my work load.
The challenge now is to crew up. The owners want to use the boat as soon as possible, in fact there is talk of going to Turkey in the beginning of March. However, it won’t be going anywhere without a crew. And March is going to be here in no time. As a mate once again without a captain I’m now back on double duty and about to start on triple duty training as engineer.
A bit of good news: I renegotiated my contract and got a nice raise and a decent bonus coming if I stay through October. And I’m headed to the London boat show this Thursday. After that I’ll be driving with Neil back to Nice in his new truck which is a custom boat hauler for his little Riva motorboat.
I’ll give you the update next week….
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Port de Nice
Courchevel December 2007
Oh before I begin, hold the presses! I found a spot in France where gravity breaks the law of physics! Driving back to Nice from Monaco the other day (shopping for a new Bentley, didn’t have the color I wanted though.) I was in rush hour traffic on the scenic road running along the coast. I brought the car to a stop on an incline, took my foot off the break and slowly began rolling UPHILL!! I know, I know. You’re thinking, ‘DJ, get off the drugs’, but I’m not kidding and I had Glenn in the car as a witness! Should I inform the International Society of Eggheads, can I repeat the experiment, who knows, who cares! Sad, huh. It might be the one single spot in the entire universe where this singular event can take place possibly giving some scientist’s brain an insight into the biggest mystery of the universe and it will be overlooked and forgotten almost as soon as it happened. Well, I’ve put the observation down in writing now and wash my hands of it. Run with it, if you will, I’ll send you the location on google maps. (I will however accept part of the Nobel Prize money though! Fair is fair)
Back to my holiday: Well it is a bit of an epic journey to get up to Courchevel from Nice via the train. You have to go way out of the way to Lyon and change trains to back track to Courchevel. Part of the way is along the Mediterranean coast so there is something to look at and the trains are reasonably comfortable so it’s easy to just sit back and have a read.
I arrived at my destination of Moutiers Salins de Bains with only one event of interest to report. Well, two. 1) Lyon was cold as a witche’s tit! At this point I’m still thin skinned and shivering which may or may not have led to the other point of interest. 2) I got picked up by the cops in the train station! Hilarious really, even in a foreign country. Well maybe not in a third world country because you never know what they’ll shake you down for in the corrupt areas of the world. But in Europe and knowing I had my passport and nothing else (illegal) it was rather amusing plus it was much warmer in the train station’s Police office. After my ‘Je ne parle pa le France!’ he informed me in English that he would like me to come with him so they could “control my identity”. Maybe someone had changed my name without my awareness and they were going to help me straighten it out. Maybe the voice in my head had finally managed to usurp control and my identity did need some controlling?! Well I have always thought I had fairly good control over my identity, but I wasn’t going to argue.
I don’t know if it is a question of translation or not, but they had no interest in my identity whatsoever. They didn’t even look at my passport. They did however ask me if I was carrying anything “dangerous”. When he clarified this as meaning ‘are you carrying cannabis?’ I almost burst out laughing. “Do you want to know if I’m carrying anything “dangerous” or do you want to know if I’m carrying any “pot”? Again, maybe a translation thing. Unfortunately, we all know that is not the case! But don’t get me started!
So he searched my pockets and my bag and fortunately didn’t get overzealous and want to check any other possible trafficking areas of my person. It definitely pays to smile and cooperate in this type of situation. They were friendly and even asked me about my book. Now if I had been carrying a large quantity they would have found it. Of course, if I was carrying a large quantity they would have smelled it. And of course if I was carrying a large quantity I sure as hell wouldn’t be taking the train. But all that is moot. The point I would like to make is that if I had been carrying a personal stash, in this case at least, they wouldn’t have found it. Not that I would and not that I’m condoning that, just an observation.
So I was picked up at the train station by Rachael who has moved on from the boat and is now up in Courchevel managing a Chalet. It was about a 40 minute drive up the mountain until we arrived at Hotel Courcheneige. It is not your typical warm bright hotel reception. You pull up to a fairly nondescript garage door, ring the buzzer and drive into an underground garage. I grabbed my bag and walked up the ‘tunnel’ which reminded me of a cross between a mine shaft tunnel and a trip through a stadium to the locker rooms. I grabbed the elevator and made it to the lobby where Lara and Hotel manager Robert were there to greet me. Robert had stayed up to greet me which was completely unnecessary, but Neil did tell them to take care of me so perhaps he felt he had to. Then again he is gay and I’m sure he was more than a bit curious about this 'DJ guy' he had heard so much about.
I thought I might be stuck in the staff quarters, but since the hotel hadn’t any real guests yet I was pleasantly surprised by a very nice sized room complete with my own snow encrusted porch. Only one real drawback. No shower curtain! God, I don’t remember the last time I took a bath! And I didn’t bring my rubber ducky!
On Tuesday Robert invited me out with the heads of departments for a pre-opening celebration. I tried to decline, not wanting to impose, but he insisted. Twelve of us grabbed a cab van and drove down the mountain to “Piggy’s Piano Bar” A cozy, sophisticated place with fine furniture, expensive drinks and a DJ spinning American music in lieu of a ‘Piano Man’.
We were served finger foods and the gorgeous hostess kept our champagne glasses filled with some top notch bubbly. I’m not really into champagne, but this was exquisite and I’m sure just one of the three huge bottles would have blown my drink budget for the year.
Next we were off to dinner at a fondue restaurant. I had already eaten dinner so I kept it light and started off with a cheese ravioli in a mushroom cream sauce. It’s hard to remember having any better. For my main plate I got a selection of hard cheeses to munch on while the others shared sizzling fondue pots, dipping their raw meat and breads. The gentlemen across from me had what looked like a 10lb block of cheese slowly melted by a portable table furnace which I think may have cooked the guy across from me as much as the cheese. He looked at least two shades tanner after dinner!
Now they all speak a least a little bit of English and many speak a fair bit. Still it’s not their preference and that is partly why I didn’t want to come along and impose. Although I did have a few little conversations, the group did of course carry on mostly in French although never long enough to alienate me. But the bottom line is that I really did enjoy the dinner, thoroughly, regardless of the language barrier.
After dinner, the smart ones excused themselves and went home. The rest of us went to the disco. I decided not to embarrass the French by showing them up on the dance floor (or myself), but sufficed with sipping some more champagne and chatting up the bartender from “Piggy’s”. We exchanged numbers and I may not ever here from her, but she will be in San Trope this summer and I’m sure I will be to, so you never know?
Of course I did have some fun in the snow too. I have been snowboarding for the longest time now, but I decided to give skiing a try again this time. It didn’t snow the entire week I was there, but there was already plenty of snow around and it was good. There are ‘Tres Vallees’ in the area to ski, but that is a bit overkill unless you are going to race around like a bat out of hell attacking everything you can ski to so I just got the pass for Courchevel Valley. I surprised myself really. Of course, I was a little rusty, but I only fell a couple of times and even more surprising was that the expected intense soreness in the days after never materialized. Late in the day I did however make a little mistake. While trying to explore more territory I wound up taking a wrong time and found myself in another valley, Merribel. Fortunately it wasn’t like Vermont when I went off trail and had to hike back in the dark. This time I just paid six more Euros and got the lift back to where I should have stayed.
So after two days I was confident that I wasn’t going to be crippled by muscle soreness and I hit the slopes again. This day I actually started to get the real flow going again. I went faster, looked for the bumps and flew off of jumps. Well, maybe not flew, more like barely got off the ground and not so smoothly at that, but I was making progress. I think I will actually stick with skiing as opposed to snowboarding. You can generate you own speed, get through flat spots, really attack moguls, and you don’t have to do that annoying skateboarding maneuver that you do on snowboards. From now on if I board there will be a wave underneath me and I’ll never trade in my surfboard for waterskis!!
The staff were all really great. I didn’t get really close to any of them though. I don’t think they wanted to. A. I’m not one of them even if we do all work for the same owners. B. They are much younger. C. Language barrier. D. I might be a spy. (they knew who I was and how close I am to the owners so….) But I did talk with Laura a bit. She had worked on Jazz for a while when it was in Italy and is working on the mountain for this season so a familiar face was a nice surprise for both of us. And of course it helps that English is both our native tongue even though she does pretty well with French and I’m sure by the end of the season she will have it well in hand.
So at the end of the week I got a ride back to the train from one the hotels drivers and he happened to be a guitarist. We talked music all the way to the train station which gave me pause to think. I really should try to find a floating studio! I wished him ‘bon musique’ and he said farewell ‘DJ Jazz” and I got ready for the 9 hour train back to Nice. Since I only had 30 minutes between trains I avoided the interior of the train station just in case I have one of those faces that French Police can’t resist ‘indentity controlling’!
I’m back in Nice now and New Year’s is just around the corner. The year has flown by. I have no special plans, but the thought just occurred that maybe this year I’ll flip things around. Get drunk on the 30th so I’m good and hungover for New Year’s Eve. Then on the 1st I’ll be fresh as a daisy. Maybe, maybe not.
I added a couple of pics to the ‘Port de Nice’ gallery experimenting with stitching photos together for a panoramic view and also my very first picture quiz.
Happy New Year, Bon Annee’
Oh before I begin, hold the presses! I found a spot in France where gravity breaks the law of physics! Driving back to Nice from Monaco the other day (shopping for a new Bentley, didn’t have the color I wanted though.) I was in rush hour traffic on the scenic road running along the coast. I brought the car to a stop on an incline, took my foot off the break and slowly began rolling UPHILL!! I know, I know. You’re thinking, ‘DJ, get off the drugs’, but I’m not kidding and I had Glenn in the car as a witness! Should I inform the International Society of Eggheads, can I repeat the experiment, who knows, who cares! Sad, huh. It might be the one single spot in the entire universe where this singular event can take place possibly giving some scientist’s brain an insight into the biggest mystery of the universe and it will be overlooked and forgotten almost as soon as it happened. Well, I’ve put the observation down in writing now and wash my hands of it. Run with it, if you will, I’ll send you the location on google maps. (I will however accept part of the Nobel Prize money though! Fair is fair)
Back to my holiday: Well it is a bit of an epic journey to get up to Courchevel from Nice via the train. You have to go way out of the way to Lyon and change trains to back track to Courchevel. Part of the way is along the Mediterranean coast so there is something to look at and the trains are reasonably comfortable so it’s easy to just sit back and have a read.
I arrived at my destination of Moutiers Salins de Bains with only one event of interest to report. Well, two. 1) Lyon was cold as a witche’s tit! At this point I’m still thin skinned and shivering which may or may not have led to the other point of interest. 2) I got picked up by the cops in the train station! Hilarious really, even in a foreign country. Well maybe not in a third world country because you never know what they’ll shake you down for in the corrupt areas of the world. But in Europe and knowing I had my passport and nothing else (illegal) it was rather amusing plus it was much warmer in the train station’s Police office. After my ‘Je ne parle pa le France!’ he informed me in English that he would like me to come with him so they could “control my identity”. Maybe someone had changed my name without my awareness and they were going to help me straighten it out. Maybe the voice in my head had finally managed to usurp control and my identity did need some controlling?! Well I have always thought I had fairly good control over my identity, but I wasn’t going to argue.
I don’t know if it is a question of translation or not, but they had no interest in my identity whatsoever. They didn’t even look at my passport. They did however ask me if I was carrying anything “dangerous”. When he clarified this as meaning ‘are you carrying cannabis?’ I almost burst out laughing. “Do you want to know if I’m carrying anything “dangerous” or do you want to know if I’m carrying any “pot”? Again, maybe a translation thing. Unfortunately, we all know that is not the case! But don’t get me started!
So he searched my pockets and my bag and fortunately didn’t get overzealous and want to check any other possible trafficking areas of my person. It definitely pays to smile and cooperate in this type of situation. They were friendly and even asked me about my book. Now if I had been carrying a large quantity they would have found it. Of course, if I was carrying a large quantity they would have smelled it. And of course if I was carrying a large quantity I sure as hell wouldn’t be taking the train. But all that is moot. The point I would like to make is that if I had been carrying a personal stash, in this case at least, they wouldn’t have found it. Not that I would and not that I’m condoning that, just an observation.
So I was picked up at the train station by Rachael who has moved on from the boat and is now up in Courchevel managing a Chalet. It was about a 40 minute drive up the mountain until we arrived at Hotel Courcheneige. It is not your typical warm bright hotel reception. You pull up to a fairly nondescript garage door, ring the buzzer and drive into an underground garage. I grabbed my bag and walked up the ‘tunnel’ which reminded me of a cross between a mine shaft tunnel and a trip through a stadium to the locker rooms. I grabbed the elevator and made it to the lobby where Lara and Hotel manager Robert were there to greet me. Robert had stayed up to greet me which was completely unnecessary, but Neil did tell them to take care of me so perhaps he felt he had to. Then again he is gay and I’m sure he was more than a bit curious about this 'DJ guy' he had heard so much about.
I thought I might be stuck in the staff quarters, but since the hotel hadn’t any real guests yet I was pleasantly surprised by a very nice sized room complete with my own snow encrusted porch. Only one real drawback. No shower curtain! God, I don’t remember the last time I took a bath! And I didn’t bring my rubber ducky!
On Tuesday Robert invited me out with the heads of departments for a pre-opening celebration. I tried to decline, not wanting to impose, but he insisted. Twelve of us grabbed a cab van and drove down the mountain to “Piggy’s Piano Bar” A cozy, sophisticated place with fine furniture, expensive drinks and a DJ spinning American music in lieu of a ‘Piano Man’.
We were served finger foods and the gorgeous hostess kept our champagne glasses filled with some top notch bubbly. I’m not really into champagne, but this was exquisite and I’m sure just one of the three huge bottles would have blown my drink budget for the year.
Next we were off to dinner at a fondue restaurant. I had already eaten dinner so I kept it light and started off with a cheese ravioli in a mushroom cream sauce. It’s hard to remember having any better. For my main plate I got a selection of hard cheeses to munch on while the others shared sizzling fondue pots, dipping their raw meat and breads. The gentlemen across from me had what looked like a 10lb block of cheese slowly melted by a portable table furnace which I think may have cooked the guy across from me as much as the cheese. He looked at least two shades tanner after dinner!
Now they all speak a least a little bit of English and many speak a fair bit. Still it’s not their preference and that is partly why I didn’t want to come along and impose. Although I did have a few little conversations, the group did of course carry on mostly in French although never long enough to alienate me. But the bottom line is that I really did enjoy the dinner, thoroughly, regardless of the language barrier.
After dinner, the smart ones excused themselves and went home. The rest of us went to the disco. I decided not to embarrass the French by showing them up on the dance floor (or myself), but sufficed with sipping some more champagne and chatting up the bartender from “Piggy’s”. We exchanged numbers and I may not ever here from her, but she will be in San Trope this summer and I’m sure I will be to, so you never know?
Of course I did have some fun in the snow too. I have been snowboarding for the longest time now, but I decided to give skiing a try again this time. It didn’t snow the entire week I was there, but there was already plenty of snow around and it was good. There are ‘Tres Vallees’ in the area to ski, but that is a bit overkill unless you are going to race around like a bat out of hell attacking everything you can ski to so I just got the pass for Courchevel Valley. I surprised myself really. Of course, I was a little rusty, but I only fell a couple of times and even more surprising was that the expected intense soreness in the days after never materialized. Late in the day I did however make a little mistake. While trying to explore more territory I wound up taking a wrong time and found myself in another valley, Merribel. Fortunately it wasn’t like Vermont when I went off trail and had to hike back in the dark. This time I just paid six more Euros and got the lift back to where I should have stayed.
So after two days I was confident that I wasn’t going to be crippled by muscle soreness and I hit the slopes again. This day I actually started to get the real flow going again. I went faster, looked for the bumps and flew off of jumps. Well, maybe not flew, more like barely got off the ground and not so smoothly at that, but I was making progress. I think I will actually stick with skiing as opposed to snowboarding. You can generate you own speed, get through flat spots, really attack moguls, and you don’t have to do that annoying skateboarding maneuver that you do on snowboards. From now on if I board there will be a wave underneath me and I’ll never trade in my surfboard for waterskis!!
The staff were all really great. I didn’t get really close to any of them though. I don’t think they wanted to. A. I’m not one of them even if we do all work for the same owners. B. They are much younger. C. Language barrier. D. I might be a spy. (they knew who I was and how close I am to the owners so….) But I did talk with Laura a bit. She had worked on Jazz for a while when it was in Italy and is working on the mountain for this season so a familiar face was a nice surprise for both of us. And of course it helps that English is both our native tongue even though she does pretty well with French and I’m sure by the end of the season she will have it well in hand.
So at the end of the week I got a ride back to the train from one the hotels drivers and he happened to be a guitarist. We talked music all the way to the train station which gave me pause to think. I really should try to find a floating studio! I wished him ‘bon musique’ and he said farewell ‘DJ Jazz” and I got ready for the 9 hour train back to Nice. Since I only had 30 minutes between trains I avoided the interior of the train station just in case I have one of those faces that French Police can’t resist ‘indentity controlling’!
I’m back in Nice now and New Year’s is just around the corner. The year has flown by. I have no special plans, but the thought just occurred that maybe this year I’ll flip things around. Get drunk on the 30th so I’m good and hungover for New Year’s Eve. Then on the 1st I’ll be fresh as a daisy. Maybe, maybe not.
I added a couple of pics to the ‘Port de Nice’ gallery experimenting with stitching photos together for a panoramic view and also my very first picture quiz.
Happy New Year, Bon Annee’
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Xmas, Santa, Jesus and South Park
Alternate title: Sun of God or Son of God??
Merry Christmas or Merry Xmas or Happy Birthday Sun (not Son)
I watched a Xmas episode of South Park on Christmas Eve which caused me to lay up thinking. All that high brow intellectual cartoon stimulation has a way of kicking my brain into gear causing me to lay awake late. Which probably caused Santa to skip me this year because of his peculiar shyness, or maybe Buddha was protecting me?! Anyway…..
Like most episodes of South Park they take a reverse psychology approach to pointing out some flaw or folly in our society. Last night Santa was shot down over Baghdad trying to bring Xmas cheer and shameless commercialism to Iraqis. Jesus was called in to save Santa because Jesus can save anyone and he went in to Baghdad weighed down with AK47s. He saved Santa, but was killed in the process. “You Bastards!!” Santa winds up forcing Xmas cheer onto the Iraqis, but what this scenario would do to Easter rituals god only knows?! In the end, Santa gives a speech stating that from now on instead of being celebrated purely on the basis of commercialism, Xmas will be “celebrated as the day that Jesus gave his life to save me!”
So what is Xmas? Bear in mind that my opinions are contrived from things I’ve heard or read or maybe just invented in my head. All that follows you may already be familiar with. If not, it should be noted that this not been thoroughly fact checked by myself although you can find plenty of both supporting and contradictory information on the internet. I leave it up to you to sift through the sources and decided on which ‘truth’ you accept.
Merry Christmas or Merry Xmas or Happy Birthday Sun (not Son)
I watched a Xmas episode of South Park on Christmas Eve which caused me to lay up thinking. All that high brow intellectual cartoon stimulation has a way of kicking my brain into gear causing me to lay awake late. Which probably caused Santa to skip me this year because of his peculiar shyness, or maybe Buddha was protecting me?! Anyway…..
Like most episodes of South Park they take a reverse psychology approach to pointing out some flaw or folly in our society. Last night Santa was shot down over Baghdad trying to bring Xmas cheer and shameless commercialism to Iraqis. Jesus was called in to save Santa because Jesus can save anyone and he went in to Baghdad weighed down with AK47s. He saved Santa, but was killed in the process. “You Bastards!!” Santa winds up forcing Xmas cheer onto the Iraqis, but what this scenario would do to Easter rituals god only knows?! In the end, Santa gives a speech stating that from now on instead of being celebrated purely on the basis of commercialism, Xmas will be “celebrated as the day that Jesus gave his life to save me!”
So what is Xmas? Bear in mind that my opinions are contrived from things I’ve heard or read or maybe just invented in my head. All that follows you may already be familiar with. If not, it should be noted that this not been thoroughly fact checked by myself although you can find plenty of both supporting and contradictory information on the internet. I leave it up to you to sift through the sources and decided on which ‘truth’ you accept.
What we know:
1) There is absolutely no conclusive evidence that December 25 was the day Jesus of Nazareth was born.
2) Dec. 25 is (according to the calendar in use at the time) the day of the Winter Solstice.
3) Paganism was very popular at the time Constantinople decided to deify Jesus and impose the religion on the kingdom.
4) The winter solstice would obviously be a day of celebration for any Pagan believer.
So was December 25th chosen as Jesus’s Birthday based on honest attempts to truly determine his birthdate or was it chosen to usurp the power of the Pagan celebration. I don’t think I need to inform anyone of this skeptic’s opinion here. Historically speaking there is a lot here to be hot about and there could be much finger pointing. But in this day and age does it make any difference? I don’t think so. It doesn’t really matter whether you’re into going to Midnight Mass, just enjoy giving and getting presents, or favor the Pagan celebration of getting naked and worshipping the Sun. Although, I do wonder why this last option isn’t still alive and strong. How did midnight mass ever get more popular than orgies??
Like everything manifested in the universe, this day, all days in fact, have dualistic qualities inherent in them. A good and a bad, if you choose to look at things from that type of perspective. Of course, I would say the terms, a plus side and a negative side are more appropriate, but even this has relative connotations which could come across as… uhm… ‘bad’….er….. ‘negative’…. ah Hell!! You know what I mean. Things have sides, this one or that one. (But they also have that middle point.) (Meditation is so much easier than preaching! All you have to do is maintain your balance in the middle of both sides and not worry about what to call them!)
The point is that it all really only depends on how you look at it and what you do with it. A knife can harm someone or cut them free. So in this respect Xmas is really the same as any other day.
So I shall say not Bah Hum Bug, nor Happy Birthday to the ‘Sun’, nor Happy Birthday to the ‘Son’, but that I look forward to the days becoming sunnier and I wish all a ‘Wonderful Day’ no matter why or if you are celebrating today.
XOXO,
DJ
1) There is absolutely no conclusive evidence that December 25 was the day Jesus of Nazareth was born.
2) Dec. 25 is (according to the calendar in use at the time) the day of the Winter Solstice.
3) Paganism was very popular at the time Constantinople decided to deify Jesus and impose the religion on the kingdom.
4) The winter solstice would obviously be a day of celebration for any Pagan believer.
So was December 25th chosen as Jesus’s Birthday based on honest attempts to truly determine his birthdate or was it chosen to usurp the power of the Pagan celebration. I don’t think I need to inform anyone of this skeptic’s opinion here. Historically speaking there is a lot here to be hot about and there could be much finger pointing. But in this day and age does it make any difference? I don’t think so. It doesn’t really matter whether you’re into going to Midnight Mass, just enjoy giving and getting presents, or favor the Pagan celebration of getting naked and worshipping the Sun. Although, I do wonder why this last option isn’t still alive and strong. How did midnight mass ever get more popular than orgies??
Like everything manifested in the universe, this day, all days in fact, have dualistic qualities inherent in them. A good and a bad, if you choose to look at things from that type of perspective. Of course, I would say the terms, a plus side and a negative side are more appropriate, but even this has relative connotations which could come across as… uhm… ‘bad’….er….. ‘negative’…. ah Hell!! You know what I mean. Things have sides, this one or that one. (But they also have that middle point.) (Meditation is so much easier than preaching! All you have to do is maintain your balance in the middle of both sides and not worry about what to call them!)
The point is that it all really only depends on how you look at it and what you do with it. A knife can harm someone or cut them free. So in this respect Xmas is really the same as any other day.
So I shall say not Bah Hum Bug, nor Happy Birthday to the ‘Sun’, nor Happy Birthday to the ‘Son’, but that I look forward to the days becoming sunnier and I wish all a ‘Wonderful Day’ no matter why or if you are celebrating today.
XOXO,
DJ
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Corisca to Nice
I’ll pick off where I left off in Corsica: The next morning we had a diver cut the line from the prop and throughout the day the wind abated. In the early afternoon I took a walk to pay the 300 euro diver’s fee and to get some cash for the boat. However, the ATM machine wasn’t working and the next closest one was 20 miles away. I wonder what they do in Corsica for cash in times like these. Perhaps they still accept seashells at the seashore!?
On the way back I arranged a taxi for Brenda, our chef. She ran out of time and had to fly back to Antibe to pack up her things and fly to Palm Beach for her next gig. We had a window of opportunity so we were stuffing Brenda into her cab while at the same time setting up a line for a local fisherman to assist pulling us off the dock lest we catch another of the underwater lines.
With Brenda away we cast the lines away and with the little tow we were up, up and away or out, out and away. All in all, the ordeal caused some damage, but it could have been worse. There is a small patch of fiberglass which got scraped up and the terry cloth fender covers, all ten of them, were a complete loss, but nothing serious. There was still a fair bit of swell rolling about, but nothing the boat and its stabilizers couldn’t handle so we chugged away towards Nice. Late in the evening/early morning we pulled along shore of Cap Ferret and dropped anchor for the evening.
In the morning we weighed anchor and cruised for a few miles to Port de Nice where I had a chance to get a feel for the boat while driving via the remote controls on the flybridge. As soon as they were awake in the port we entered and backed into our spot. Ah, at last we were home, at least our temporary home.
Neil had arranged for a couple of Russian guys to show up and clean the boat so I got them started on the wash down and went about other business. The next few days were spent cleaning up the boat and doing various boat things. On Saturday night I actually got to go to a party which Brenda had invited me to. Sort of a going away for her at a pizza joint in Antibe. So I hopped into the crew car and made the trip down there. I had a little trouble finding the place because google maps had me trying to drive down streets barely wide enough for a donkey to travel which is what I’m sure they were originally made for. Eventually I ditched the car and made my way on foot. Brenda introduced me to her friends, we ate pizza, drank wine, danced a little, took some photos and it was a nice evening.
At this point I’m aching for some time off, but I still have a few more days to grind out. Paul, the new captain starts on Wednesday so I stick around to get him orientated. The major concern for the week, at least from the owners’s point of view is to remedy the carpet situation. They went with a very expensive natural fiber in off white. Well when I pealed back all the protective covering on the carpet I found a huge stain and a few smaller ones too. So now we have to find a better carpet choice, but unfortunately there aren’t any “Stainmaster” dealers in Europe and of course the owner is stuck on the white color. Funny thing. The owner brought over a lady to take a look at the carpet samples and get her opinion. They opened a bottle of Port Wine. Well needless to say some of it is now dotted on the carpet. Not your traditional way of christening a boat. Maybe that will make him consider a different color carpet, perhaps Port?
So I work through the week and get Paul up to speed and the owners have offered a free stay at their hotel in the French Alps so on Saturday I’m set to hop on the train and go. Only I didn’t get any sleep Friday night because of the headaches caused by the stress in my back. And into the morning I felt horrible so I postponed the trip. But on Sunday I felt better I was making my way to the train.
So its off to Courchevel for some fun in the snow……
On the way back I arranged a taxi for Brenda, our chef. She ran out of time and had to fly back to Antibe to pack up her things and fly to Palm Beach for her next gig. We had a window of opportunity so we were stuffing Brenda into her cab while at the same time setting up a line for a local fisherman to assist pulling us off the dock lest we catch another of the underwater lines.
With Brenda away we cast the lines away and with the little tow we were up, up and away or out, out and away. All in all, the ordeal caused some damage, but it could have been worse. There is a small patch of fiberglass which got scraped up and the terry cloth fender covers, all ten of them, were a complete loss, but nothing serious. There was still a fair bit of swell rolling about, but nothing the boat and its stabilizers couldn’t handle so we chugged away towards Nice. Late in the evening/early morning we pulled along shore of Cap Ferret and dropped anchor for the evening.
In the morning we weighed anchor and cruised for a few miles to Port de Nice where I had a chance to get a feel for the boat while driving via the remote controls on the flybridge. As soon as they were awake in the port we entered and backed into our spot. Ah, at last we were home, at least our temporary home.
Neil had arranged for a couple of Russian guys to show up and clean the boat so I got them started on the wash down and went about other business. The next few days were spent cleaning up the boat and doing various boat things. On Saturday night I actually got to go to a party which Brenda had invited me to. Sort of a going away for her at a pizza joint in Antibe. So I hopped into the crew car and made the trip down there. I had a little trouble finding the place because google maps had me trying to drive down streets barely wide enough for a donkey to travel which is what I’m sure they were originally made for. Eventually I ditched the car and made my way on foot. Brenda introduced me to her friends, we ate pizza, drank wine, danced a little, took some photos and it was a nice evening.
At this point I’m aching for some time off, but I still have a few more days to grind out. Paul, the new captain starts on Wednesday so I stick around to get him orientated. The major concern for the week, at least from the owners’s point of view is to remedy the carpet situation. They went with a very expensive natural fiber in off white. Well when I pealed back all the protective covering on the carpet I found a huge stain and a few smaller ones too. So now we have to find a better carpet choice, but unfortunately there aren’t any “Stainmaster” dealers in Europe and of course the owner is stuck on the white color. Funny thing. The owner brought over a lady to take a look at the carpet samples and get her opinion. They opened a bottle of Port Wine. Well needless to say some of it is now dotted on the carpet. Not your traditional way of christening a boat. Maybe that will make him consider a different color carpet, perhaps Port?
So I work through the week and get Paul up to speed and the owners have offered a free stay at their hotel in the French Alps so on Saturday I’m set to hop on the train and go. Only I didn’t get any sleep Friday night because of the headaches caused by the stress in my back. And into the morning I felt horrible so I postponed the trip. But on Sunday I felt better I was making my way to the train.
So its off to Courchevel for some fun in the snow……
Monday, December 10, 2007
Das (Italian) Boot
Well we finally left Fano! The weeks leading up to our departure left me completely Knackered. Neil (owner) took off for two weeks and Rachael (Neil’s assistant) also left for about a week. That left Glenn (engineer) and I on the boat to take care of business and I certainly had my plate full!
Neil wants the boat to be idiot proof so it was my job to learn all the bridge equipment and write up “cheat sheets” for each piece so that in a pinch anyone could operate the helm’s electronics.
I also was in charge of putting together the passage plan for the trip which entailed charting electronically, making a list of ports we could duck into, determine the times we would need to fuel up and locate suitable fuel stations, updating the paper charts and double checking the computer charts against them as well as get all the necessary bits and pieces together that we would need for the trip. Fano doesn’t have much in the way of shopping choices so some things are impossible to get a hold of.
Additionally I had my “Mate” duties of working on the boat, but luckily Neil hasn’t been really concerned about the state of the exterior because there simply wasn’t enough time to keep up with that end of things.
Then there was the challenge of working with the contractors. Typically not the easiest group of people to work with, however I must say that this group of guys were all very pleasant. The problem of course is getting across explicit instructions in a foreign language. A great challenge, but somehow we managed.
I also was put in charge of determining the manning and certification requirements for our vessel. Neil has promised to get me some more certifications as well as himself since he also holds a Yachtmaster ticket, but the trick is sifting through all the information, sometimes conflicting and figuring out exactly what certifications we need and where to get them.
And then there is the MCA, Maritime Coast Guard Agency. It’s an international organization which regulates boating. It’s highly regulated and this is one of the first boats of its size to be MCA compliant. I’m still looking into whether or not we have to fill out forms when we go to the bathroom! It’s pretty bad. Up until recently yachts enjoyed complete freedom from regulations, but in the last few years that has changed. Now the bigger boats have to do everything by the book and it’s trickling down to boats our size now. Unfortunately, the regulations are still mostly geared to the bigger boats, cargo ships, cruise liners, yachts 500 gt and up (we are 194 gross tons) and there are encyclopedias of regulations to sift through. So I’m tackling that and hating every minute of it!! It is a good education though and will help me in the long run if I move up to bigger boats.
So add all that up plus a few runs back and forth to the airport and it equates to 12-14 hr days, 7 days a week. I can’t wait to get to Nice for some R and R! Monaco will have to wait for a while. We are on the list for a permanent berth there, but as of now there aren’t any available. It pretty amazing but even though it’s winter there just aren’t any berths available in the Med. We did however manage to get a hold of one in Nice, which isn’t far away at all. We will hunker down there until our Monaco berth opens up.
But the good news is we are ready to get out of Dodge. The boat’s snag list has been whittled down from around 600 items to about 20 and we can live with that. We will get the rest done in France or Monaco and the truth is that on these yachts the snag list never completely goes away.
So Neil has arranged for a Salty Dog of a Captain (John) to fly in from the UK to bring the boat around. He has his own sea school so you know everything will be by the book. It should be educational. Carlo (Captain) and Francesco (Engineer) are also on loan from Benetti for the trip. We’ve got Chef Brenda in the galley after we let Chef Gary go before we left. He was a talky drama queen who would have driven all of us mad. And finally, at the last minute we flew in Paul for a two day interview for the Skipper’s position while in route. With Glenn, Neil and myself the crew roster rounds out at 8 persons. That will come in handy though since if we get good weather we will be running 24hrs/day along the 1100nm route.
We were delayed for a day because of potentially bad whether and then delayed a few more hours because we had to have a MCA representative come check out the boat before we left. But at 9:30 am on Thursday we were loose and away while not quite sure how far we would get because of the sketchy weather reports.
It looked like we would have to put in to port in Brindisi (SE Italy), but the weather fooled the forecasters as it often does and we were able to continue cruising. We thought again as we passed the “heel” of Italy that we might need to find shelter because of bad weather coupled with the fact that there are no safe ports after the heel for a long way until you get to the “sole” of the Italy’s “boot”. But once again we pressed on. As we tickled the toes of the boot we ducked into Reggio for fuel and hot croissants. After bunkering 7000 liters of diesel we were off again.
Leaving Reggio we were smack dab in the Straits of Messina. This is a very short and narrow strait separating Italy and Sicily and it can be downright scary as hell! It can be swarming with cruise ships, cargo ships, yachts, fishing boats and ferries zig zagging all over the place. The ferries are all high speed and ignore the traffic separation scheme (water highway) and fly through it perpendicularly. And then there are the legally insane and suicidal individuals fishing in 14 ft. boats just ripe for getting squeezed. I think you really have to be a masochist to attempt to go through the strait at night. Lucky for us things were fairly tame when we went through. It is interesting to note that the delivery Captain, master of the vessel, was down in the crew mess eating while he left Neil and I to drive through the high traffic area. What the F**K! The reality is Carlo did most of the technical driving and Neil and I did more than the Salty Dog! I don’t really know why we hired him? Se la Vie.
Well at this point we were getting consistent reports of severe weather for the last leg of our route. We had been really lucky so far and although we were all hoping for the best we all knew that it was doubtful that we would get around this storm. As we approached Corsica in French waters we checked the weather once again and with no good news in the report we decided to put in to port in Cap Corse (Cape Corsica). In the dark we approached the marina channel and crept through the channel with less than 3 feet under our props. We were unable to make contact with the dock master so it was up to us to find a suitable berth and tie up.
There was a nice long open key so we spun the boat around and tied up our lines just as the wind started to kick up. A local Italian offered some advice. He suggested we get off the key and move to another across the marina due to the wind. We thanked him and decided to follow his advice. Removing the lines we started to pull away, but didn’t get very far. We caught a line in the prop and were going no where in a hurry. A mistake, but it happens and I could easily see it happening to me since I’m not from ‘dees here parts. However, I was a little surprised these local Mediterranean guys didn’t see it coming. We tied up parallel to the key when it’s actually set up for, not surprisingly, Mediterranean style docking. That is, you drop your anchor and then back the stern up the key and just tie off the stern so you are perpendicular to the dock. Whether or not they realized this I don’t know, maybe they did, but didn’t expect there to be lines under water running perpendicular to the key to assist the Med. style docking.
In any case the starboard prop had seized up. It’s really is amazing how a relatively thin line in the water can seize up an 1100 hp shaft like kryptonite stopping superman. It happened to us before on Gloria’s Sun and Pierre and I free dove each about a dozen times to cut the line away. That was in daylight in warm Bahamian water. Now I would happily have dove in and saved the day here, but not in these conditions without any of the necessary implements of destruction at my disposal. The water is cold, it’s pitch black out and we don’t have wetsuits, an under water light, scuba gear, fins or even a snorkel. Weeks ago I did recommended getting this gear for just this occasion, but it didn’t happen. Not because they didn’t want to spend the money, but because they just didn’t think something like this would happen before getting back to the Med. where we could get some really good gear. I’ve learned to trust my intuitions and maybe I should have been more forceful regarding this one. In the future I’m not getting on a yacht if it doesn’t have this gear. These type of things happen, they actually happen quite often and it’s not worth the risk or the inconvenience.
Well Carlo was a little upset with himself, but Neil didn’t blame him and everyone seemed to be happy and in good spirits. For myself I was apprehensive and couldn’t help but make it known. The key was very low and we were forecasted to get really heavy winds and they were going to be right on our beam pushing us into the key. I saw trouble a brewing, especially if the tide rose in tune with a wind generated tidal surge, but no one else seemed to worry about it. It was decided to leave one person on watch and the rest would go to bed.
I went ashore with Brenda and had a couple of beers at Les Isles. I got back around midnight and relieved Captain John of the watch. By now the wind had picked up considerably and I would go out every 15-20 minutes or so to check on things. Well since the key was so low the movement of the boat was slowly working the fenders out from between the boat and the key. By timing it right, waiting for the boat to bounce away and placing all my weight to bear upon the fender I was able to get them back into place.
As the wind picked up so did the speed with which the fenders would pop out, but it was still manageable around 2am when Glenn appeared to relieve me. So I went down to my bunk and around 3am he came down to rouse me. He was losing the battle which was fast becoming a very large scale “Whack a Mole” game and needed help. We have 8 hotdog shaped fenders and 2 large ball fenders. The balls were taking the brunt of the force, but as the hotdogs popped up with greater frequency we were in danger of the balls popping up also and that would have spelled disaster. I didn’t see that we had any choice and decided to loosen up the stern line so that the next time the boat bounced away from the key we could stomp the ball fenders back in to place. I did just that and Glenn got the ball fender back in to place followed by me using the windlass to tighten the stern line back taut. It was a success!
However, the success didn’t last long. I went back down to bed and an hour later Glenn was rousing me again. The “moles” were popping up faster now and he was losing the battle. We repeated the aforementioned process, but it was clear that the winds were getting stronger and I decided to bring in reinforcements. I went down and woke Neil, Carlo and Francesco. With there help we adjusted the fenders and lines and set out an additional line. Then Glenn and I tagged out and left the relief team in place to man the situation. Through all this we were battling 45-55 knot winds.
When I awoke a few hours later a found all three guys wearing their immersion suits and sitting with there weight on the fenders to keep them in place. Francesco signaled to me to get a hacksaw since his words were lost in the howling winds. As I rounded the corner of the deck I was nearly knocked back over by the wind. It was one of the situations were you could literally put your weight at a 45 degree angle and not fall over. I retrieved the hacksaw from the engine room and Francesco hacked off a rusty piece of metal that was in danger of gouging the boat. Then we adjust the lines some more and although the winds were even stronger we had managed to get the fenders and lines set up to where things were more manageable.
They all agreed that they could keep going for another hour so I went back down for another bit of sleep. The fact that I could sleep through all this is a gauge of how tired I was. Upon awakening I gulped down a cup of coffee and some breakfast quiche, donned my immersion suit and went to relieve one of the guys. Glenn joined me shortly and we took over. Before I went out I checked out the wind speed and saw that it was 50-60 knots and we had a max reading of 69 knots. Knots are faster than miles per hour. 63 knots is hurricane strength!!
Things weren’t pleasant, but at least we weren’t out at sea at this time. After a while the winds abated just a little and we had managed to fine tune things so that once again one man could keep things under control.
Well, I’m gonna break it off here and post this much. I’ve actually made it to Nice and I’ll pick up where I left off shortly…….
Neil wants the boat to be idiot proof so it was my job to learn all the bridge equipment and write up “cheat sheets” for each piece so that in a pinch anyone could operate the helm’s electronics.
I also was in charge of putting together the passage plan for the trip which entailed charting electronically, making a list of ports we could duck into, determine the times we would need to fuel up and locate suitable fuel stations, updating the paper charts and double checking the computer charts against them as well as get all the necessary bits and pieces together that we would need for the trip. Fano doesn’t have much in the way of shopping choices so some things are impossible to get a hold of.
Additionally I had my “Mate” duties of working on the boat, but luckily Neil hasn’t been really concerned about the state of the exterior because there simply wasn’t enough time to keep up with that end of things.
Then there was the challenge of working with the contractors. Typically not the easiest group of people to work with, however I must say that this group of guys were all very pleasant. The problem of course is getting across explicit instructions in a foreign language. A great challenge, but somehow we managed.
I also was put in charge of determining the manning and certification requirements for our vessel. Neil has promised to get me some more certifications as well as himself since he also holds a Yachtmaster ticket, but the trick is sifting through all the information, sometimes conflicting and figuring out exactly what certifications we need and where to get them.
And then there is the MCA, Maritime Coast Guard Agency. It’s an international organization which regulates boating. It’s highly regulated and this is one of the first boats of its size to be MCA compliant. I’m still looking into whether or not we have to fill out forms when we go to the bathroom! It’s pretty bad. Up until recently yachts enjoyed complete freedom from regulations, but in the last few years that has changed. Now the bigger boats have to do everything by the book and it’s trickling down to boats our size now. Unfortunately, the regulations are still mostly geared to the bigger boats, cargo ships, cruise liners, yachts 500 gt and up (we are 194 gross tons) and there are encyclopedias of regulations to sift through. So I’m tackling that and hating every minute of it!! It is a good education though and will help me in the long run if I move up to bigger boats.
So add all that up plus a few runs back and forth to the airport and it equates to 12-14 hr days, 7 days a week. I can’t wait to get to Nice for some R and R! Monaco will have to wait for a while. We are on the list for a permanent berth there, but as of now there aren’t any available. It pretty amazing but even though it’s winter there just aren’t any berths available in the Med. We did however manage to get a hold of one in Nice, which isn’t far away at all. We will hunker down there until our Monaco berth opens up.
But the good news is we are ready to get out of Dodge. The boat’s snag list has been whittled down from around 600 items to about 20 and we can live with that. We will get the rest done in France or Monaco and the truth is that on these yachts the snag list never completely goes away.
So Neil has arranged for a Salty Dog of a Captain (John) to fly in from the UK to bring the boat around. He has his own sea school so you know everything will be by the book. It should be educational. Carlo (Captain) and Francesco (Engineer) are also on loan from Benetti for the trip. We’ve got Chef Brenda in the galley after we let Chef Gary go before we left. He was a talky drama queen who would have driven all of us mad. And finally, at the last minute we flew in Paul for a two day interview for the Skipper’s position while in route. With Glenn, Neil and myself the crew roster rounds out at 8 persons. That will come in handy though since if we get good weather we will be running 24hrs/day along the 1100nm route.
We were delayed for a day because of potentially bad whether and then delayed a few more hours because we had to have a MCA representative come check out the boat before we left. But at 9:30 am on Thursday we were loose and away while not quite sure how far we would get because of the sketchy weather reports.
It looked like we would have to put in to port in Brindisi (SE Italy), but the weather fooled the forecasters as it often does and we were able to continue cruising. We thought again as we passed the “heel” of Italy that we might need to find shelter because of bad weather coupled with the fact that there are no safe ports after the heel for a long way until you get to the “sole” of the Italy’s “boot”. But once again we pressed on. As we tickled the toes of the boot we ducked into Reggio for fuel and hot croissants. After bunkering 7000 liters of diesel we were off again.
Leaving Reggio we were smack dab in the Straits of Messina. This is a very short and narrow strait separating Italy and Sicily and it can be downright scary as hell! It can be swarming with cruise ships, cargo ships, yachts, fishing boats and ferries zig zagging all over the place. The ferries are all high speed and ignore the traffic separation scheme (water highway) and fly through it perpendicularly. And then there are the legally insane and suicidal individuals fishing in 14 ft. boats just ripe for getting squeezed. I think you really have to be a masochist to attempt to go through the strait at night. Lucky for us things were fairly tame when we went through. It is interesting to note that the delivery Captain, master of the vessel, was down in the crew mess eating while he left Neil and I to drive through the high traffic area. What the F**K! The reality is Carlo did most of the technical driving and Neil and I did more than the Salty Dog! I don’t really know why we hired him? Se la Vie.
Well at this point we were getting consistent reports of severe weather for the last leg of our route. We had been really lucky so far and although we were all hoping for the best we all knew that it was doubtful that we would get around this storm. As we approached Corsica in French waters we checked the weather once again and with no good news in the report we decided to put in to port in Cap Corse (Cape Corsica). In the dark we approached the marina channel and crept through the channel with less than 3 feet under our props. We were unable to make contact with the dock master so it was up to us to find a suitable berth and tie up.
There was a nice long open key so we spun the boat around and tied up our lines just as the wind started to kick up. A local Italian offered some advice. He suggested we get off the key and move to another across the marina due to the wind. We thanked him and decided to follow his advice. Removing the lines we started to pull away, but didn’t get very far. We caught a line in the prop and were going no where in a hurry. A mistake, but it happens and I could easily see it happening to me since I’m not from ‘dees here parts. However, I was a little surprised these local Mediterranean guys didn’t see it coming. We tied up parallel to the key when it’s actually set up for, not surprisingly, Mediterranean style docking. That is, you drop your anchor and then back the stern up the key and just tie off the stern so you are perpendicular to the dock. Whether or not they realized this I don’t know, maybe they did, but didn’t expect there to be lines under water running perpendicular to the key to assist the Med. style docking.
In any case the starboard prop had seized up. It’s really is amazing how a relatively thin line in the water can seize up an 1100 hp shaft like kryptonite stopping superman. It happened to us before on Gloria’s Sun and Pierre and I free dove each about a dozen times to cut the line away. That was in daylight in warm Bahamian water. Now I would happily have dove in and saved the day here, but not in these conditions without any of the necessary implements of destruction at my disposal. The water is cold, it’s pitch black out and we don’t have wetsuits, an under water light, scuba gear, fins or even a snorkel. Weeks ago I did recommended getting this gear for just this occasion, but it didn’t happen. Not because they didn’t want to spend the money, but because they just didn’t think something like this would happen before getting back to the Med. where we could get some really good gear. I’ve learned to trust my intuitions and maybe I should have been more forceful regarding this one. In the future I’m not getting on a yacht if it doesn’t have this gear. These type of things happen, they actually happen quite often and it’s not worth the risk or the inconvenience.
Well Carlo was a little upset with himself, but Neil didn’t blame him and everyone seemed to be happy and in good spirits. For myself I was apprehensive and couldn’t help but make it known. The key was very low and we were forecasted to get really heavy winds and they were going to be right on our beam pushing us into the key. I saw trouble a brewing, especially if the tide rose in tune with a wind generated tidal surge, but no one else seemed to worry about it. It was decided to leave one person on watch and the rest would go to bed.
I went ashore with Brenda and had a couple of beers at Les Isles. I got back around midnight and relieved Captain John of the watch. By now the wind had picked up considerably and I would go out every 15-20 minutes or so to check on things. Well since the key was so low the movement of the boat was slowly working the fenders out from between the boat and the key. By timing it right, waiting for the boat to bounce away and placing all my weight to bear upon the fender I was able to get them back into place.
As the wind picked up so did the speed with which the fenders would pop out, but it was still manageable around 2am when Glenn appeared to relieve me. So I went down to my bunk and around 3am he came down to rouse me. He was losing the battle which was fast becoming a very large scale “Whack a Mole” game and needed help. We have 8 hotdog shaped fenders and 2 large ball fenders. The balls were taking the brunt of the force, but as the hotdogs popped up with greater frequency we were in danger of the balls popping up also and that would have spelled disaster. I didn’t see that we had any choice and decided to loosen up the stern line so that the next time the boat bounced away from the key we could stomp the ball fenders back in to place. I did just that and Glenn got the ball fender back in to place followed by me using the windlass to tighten the stern line back taut. It was a success!
However, the success didn’t last long. I went back down to bed and an hour later Glenn was rousing me again. The “moles” were popping up faster now and he was losing the battle. We repeated the aforementioned process, but it was clear that the winds were getting stronger and I decided to bring in reinforcements. I went down and woke Neil, Carlo and Francesco. With there help we adjusted the fenders and lines and set out an additional line. Then Glenn and I tagged out and left the relief team in place to man the situation. Through all this we were battling 45-55 knot winds.
When I awoke a few hours later a found all three guys wearing their immersion suits and sitting with there weight on the fenders to keep them in place. Francesco signaled to me to get a hacksaw since his words were lost in the howling winds. As I rounded the corner of the deck I was nearly knocked back over by the wind. It was one of the situations were you could literally put your weight at a 45 degree angle and not fall over. I retrieved the hacksaw from the engine room and Francesco hacked off a rusty piece of metal that was in danger of gouging the boat. Then we adjust the lines some more and although the winds were even stronger we had managed to get the fenders and lines set up to where things were more manageable.
They all agreed that they could keep going for another hour so I went back down for another bit of sleep. The fact that I could sleep through all this is a gauge of how tired I was. Upon awakening I gulped down a cup of coffee and some breakfast quiche, donned my immersion suit and went to relieve one of the guys. Glenn joined me shortly and we took over. Before I went out I checked out the wind speed and saw that it was 50-60 knots and we had a max reading of 69 knots. Knots are faster than miles per hour. 63 knots is hurricane strength!!
Things weren’t pleasant, but at least we weren’t out at sea at this time. After a while the winds abated just a little and we had managed to fine tune things so that once again one man could keep things under control.
Well, I’m gonna break it off here and post this much. I’ve actually made it to Nice and I’ll pick up where I left off shortly…….
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
A Ship Without a Captain
A ship without a captain
Ok. So Pierre has left the boat and that leaves Glen the engineer and myself. So the question in everyone’s mind is “will DJ get the skipper position now??” The answer is maybe, kinda, sorta!! Allow me to explain.
In the short term the answer is more or less, minus driving the boat. In the long term the answer is, maybe in the not too distant future. You see it all comes down to the driving experience. I’m the first to admit that I don’t have a ton of wheel time. However, I do have wheel time and the time I have had behind the wheel of Gloria’s Sun is significant because it was some of the most technical and challenging driving you will ever really get. And I mean anywhere in the world. Sure I haven’t had the unpleasant experience of motoring through the perfect storm, but the reality is from a technical side that anytime you are in open water the biggest challenge is keeping your eyes and ears open for other vessels and rogue waves. You might also get caught in a situation where you have to dock during really bad wind and current conditions. That in my opinion is the biggest concern and challenge, but of course if you keep yourself appraised of the weather you can for the most part avoid that all together.
I was lucky. I was First Mate for Pierre and he wanted me to take over Gloria’s Sun so he let me drive as much as possible. I was also lucky in that the boat was based in Ft. Lauderdale and cruised the Bahamas quite a bit. Now if you compare cruising in the Bahamas and cruising in the Mediterranean it’s like comparing Calculus to Algebra. Algebra is moderately difficult for a lot of people, but Calculus leaves most people with smoke billowing from their ears. In the Bahamas you have significant tidal swings, currents and super shallow depths with reefs everywhere. This necessitates using all your captaining skills and using them well. In the Mediterranean you have negligible tides and currents, nothing in the way of reefs and until you get within a mile of shore Aquaman would have a hard time finding the bottom.
But it’s the experience I received driving in Ft. Lauderdale’s canals, ICW (Intercoastal Waterway) and most importantly the New River which I think was worth its weight in gold. The New River is a winding river which rarely has less than a 2 knot current and sometimes it can be 4-5 knots. Now you normally would travel the river at a tick above idle, 6-8 knots. So if your facing a 5 knot current you are barely moving and if that kind of current is on your stern and your not tied up to the dock you’ve made a huge mistake. Normally you would navigate it during slack tide when there isn’t any current. Unfortunately for Gloria’s Sun it was docked down a shallow canal and we had no choice but to enter and exit the canal at mid tide when the current is fastest. So after backing out of the long and narrow canal, yes backing out, we would reach the New River at about the worst possible time with regards to current.
The New River is also a very narrow river,’ we ain’t talkin’ no Mississippi!’ There are only 3 places along it that are wide enough to turn a 90-100 foot boat around. At those points it’s about 200 ft. wide. The rest of it of course varies but for the most part it’s about 60-100 ft. wide with boats docked all along either side. It also has a lot of traffic on it including the World Famous “Jungle Queen” site-seeing paddle boat which takes up quite a lot of room and is constantly cruising up and down the river. I can’t forget to mention the hordes of small boaters many of whom have never heard of the rules of the road. And then you have the occasional tugs tied up to the bow and stern of superyachts. That’s because 110 ft. is about the limit for negotiating the New River under your own power and control. If you’re larger than that and decide to go for it and get into trouble no one is going to be surprised and I bet the insurance company would just laugh at the claim. Lastly I should mention the 3 draw bridges which sometimes require you to hold your position at zero speed, sometimes with other boats ahead and behind you, until they are raised. And as some cruel joke there happens to be at one of these bridge holding areas a water pipe which shoots out 1000’s of gallons of water sporadically without warning and can easily push the unaware into the far bulk heading.
Then there is Port Everglades. Ft. Lauderdale’s main inlet which is also busy with all kinds of vessels including Cruise ships, cargo ships and during the air and sea show even huge Navy ships which of course you can’t get anywhere near without a warning shot across your bow. The whole point of this is that like New York if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. That’s the point I intend to make with Jazz’s owner, Neil, as soon as I can have a sit down with him when next he returns. From the start, for the trip to Monaco, Carlo a Benetti captain was slated to come along. Neil is also planning on finding a delivery captain to make the trip. There is the possibility of an MCA teacher coming along to give us a course on GMDSS (Global Maritime Distress Signal System). So with himself and I that would make 5 captains for the trip. That’s a lot of stripes!
So where does that leave me? Well I hope to have a better idea of that after my sit down with Neil. We haven’t yet discussed my drive time and experience so I think maybe he thinks I have none. That will be rectified. Whether or not he will give me the skipper position this winter I don’t know. He has said that he wants to get me drive time and a skipper’s position whether it’s on this boat or another. He is also giving me the opportunity to become “indispensable” as he put it. Essentially being the captain for the time being on all accounts except actually driving the boat. However he has put out the help wanted sign for another captain, but maybe I can convince him to give me the whole enchilada. We will see. For now I’m buried under an avalanche of work between learning all the systems, preparing for the trip to Monaco, interacting with contractors who don’t speak English and schooling myself on all the MCA regulations for the boat. But I’ll bore you with those details in my next blog. For now we are planning on making the trip to Monaco in less than two weeks so I better get back to work on the passage plan…….
Ciao,
Captain (sort of for Jazz) DJ
Ok. So Pierre has left the boat and that leaves Glen the engineer and myself. So the question in everyone’s mind is “will DJ get the skipper position now??” The answer is maybe, kinda, sorta!! Allow me to explain.
In the short term the answer is more or less, minus driving the boat. In the long term the answer is, maybe in the not too distant future. You see it all comes down to the driving experience. I’m the first to admit that I don’t have a ton of wheel time. However, I do have wheel time and the time I have had behind the wheel of Gloria’s Sun is significant because it was some of the most technical and challenging driving you will ever really get. And I mean anywhere in the world. Sure I haven’t had the unpleasant experience of motoring through the perfect storm, but the reality is from a technical side that anytime you are in open water the biggest challenge is keeping your eyes and ears open for other vessels and rogue waves. You might also get caught in a situation where you have to dock during really bad wind and current conditions. That in my opinion is the biggest concern and challenge, but of course if you keep yourself appraised of the weather you can for the most part avoid that all together.
I was lucky. I was First Mate for Pierre and he wanted me to take over Gloria’s Sun so he let me drive as much as possible. I was also lucky in that the boat was based in Ft. Lauderdale and cruised the Bahamas quite a bit. Now if you compare cruising in the Bahamas and cruising in the Mediterranean it’s like comparing Calculus to Algebra. Algebra is moderately difficult for a lot of people, but Calculus leaves most people with smoke billowing from their ears. In the Bahamas you have significant tidal swings, currents and super shallow depths with reefs everywhere. This necessitates using all your captaining skills and using them well. In the Mediterranean you have negligible tides and currents, nothing in the way of reefs and until you get within a mile of shore Aquaman would have a hard time finding the bottom.
But it’s the experience I received driving in Ft. Lauderdale’s canals, ICW (Intercoastal Waterway) and most importantly the New River which I think was worth its weight in gold. The New River is a winding river which rarely has less than a 2 knot current and sometimes it can be 4-5 knots. Now you normally would travel the river at a tick above idle, 6-8 knots. So if your facing a 5 knot current you are barely moving and if that kind of current is on your stern and your not tied up to the dock you’ve made a huge mistake. Normally you would navigate it during slack tide when there isn’t any current. Unfortunately for Gloria’s Sun it was docked down a shallow canal and we had no choice but to enter and exit the canal at mid tide when the current is fastest. So after backing out of the long and narrow canal, yes backing out, we would reach the New River at about the worst possible time with regards to current.
The New River is also a very narrow river,’ we ain’t talkin’ no Mississippi!’ There are only 3 places along it that are wide enough to turn a 90-100 foot boat around. At those points it’s about 200 ft. wide. The rest of it of course varies but for the most part it’s about 60-100 ft. wide with boats docked all along either side. It also has a lot of traffic on it including the World Famous “Jungle Queen” site-seeing paddle boat which takes up quite a lot of room and is constantly cruising up and down the river. I can’t forget to mention the hordes of small boaters many of whom have never heard of the rules of the road. And then you have the occasional tugs tied up to the bow and stern of superyachts. That’s because 110 ft. is about the limit for negotiating the New River under your own power and control. If you’re larger than that and decide to go for it and get into trouble no one is going to be surprised and I bet the insurance company would just laugh at the claim. Lastly I should mention the 3 draw bridges which sometimes require you to hold your position at zero speed, sometimes with other boats ahead and behind you, until they are raised. And as some cruel joke there happens to be at one of these bridge holding areas a water pipe which shoots out 1000’s of gallons of water sporadically without warning and can easily push the unaware into the far bulk heading.
Then there is Port Everglades. Ft. Lauderdale’s main inlet which is also busy with all kinds of vessels including Cruise ships, cargo ships and during the air and sea show even huge Navy ships which of course you can’t get anywhere near without a warning shot across your bow. The whole point of this is that like New York if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. That’s the point I intend to make with Jazz’s owner, Neil, as soon as I can have a sit down with him when next he returns. From the start, for the trip to Monaco, Carlo a Benetti captain was slated to come along. Neil is also planning on finding a delivery captain to make the trip. There is the possibility of an MCA teacher coming along to give us a course on GMDSS (Global Maritime Distress Signal System). So with himself and I that would make 5 captains for the trip. That’s a lot of stripes!
So where does that leave me? Well I hope to have a better idea of that after my sit down with Neil. We haven’t yet discussed my drive time and experience so I think maybe he thinks I have none. That will be rectified. Whether or not he will give me the skipper position this winter I don’t know. He has said that he wants to get me drive time and a skipper’s position whether it’s on this boat or another. He is also giving me the opportunity to become “indispensable” as he put it. Essentially being the captain for the time being on all accounts except actually driving the boat. However he has put out the help wanted sign for another captain, but maybe I can convince him to give me the whole enchilada. We will see. For now I’m buried under an avalanche of work between learning all the systems, preparing for the trip to Monaco, interacting with contractors who don’t speak English and schooling myself on all the MCA regulations for the boat. But I’ll bore you with those details in my next blog. For now we are planning on making the trip to Monaco in less than two weeks so I better get back to work on the passage plan…….
Ciao,
Captain (sort of for Jazz) DJ
Saturday, November 03, 2007
The Jazz Weekly
The Jazz Weekly
Well we have made our maiden voyage! Originally we were going to go down to Dubrovnik, Croatia the “jewel of Croatia”. That would have been about 250 nautical miles. That was scrapped for a cruise to Split, Croatia and so we began our voyage with our sites set there, but it would not be our destiny. Since it was our maiden voyage, Benetti sent along for the ride Carlo, their company Captain and Frederico, a Benetti engineer. About an hour into the journey one of them suggested a different destination a little closer to home. As this journey was really just to try the boat out and not for pleasure it was agreed that a shorter trip would be perfectly acceptable. So we changed our heading for Losinj, Croatia a cool 80 nm from Fano, Italy.
The weather and sea conditions were fine that day so it was a pleasant trip. We got an early start rising out of bed at 4:45am and arrived in Losinj around 2:30 in the afternoon. I guess they aren’t frequented very often by pleasure yachts as evident by the lack of ease with which we were received. As we came into port we contacted the Port Authority and they informed us that we would have to anchor out in port and take a tender ashore to clear customs. A bit of a pain in the ass! Luckily the conditions were dead calm so it was not necessary to drop the anchor, we simply left Neil (owner with captain’s license) behind the wheel to keep her in postion.
The difficulty lay in the fact that the tender is kept in the Lazzerette (the rear of the yacht, akin to your car’s trunk). To remove it we have to put the transom (the very aft wall of the boat) down into the water. It was calm so that in itself isn’t a big deal although it does mean that I have to wash it down afterwards. The problem was that the owners decided that the tender which was to come with the yacht wasn’t big enough so they bought a bigger one to stuff into the “garage”. Of course the yacht wasn’t designed for this new bigger tender so it’s a very tight shoe horn fit which requires some modifications to the Lazzerette in order to take it in and out safely and easily. Modifications which are still being finalized. The short of it is, as I said, it was a pain in the ass. However, we wrestled it out, Pierre jumped in with our passports and I drove him to the customs office.
The customs officer spoke English so all went well and after handing over some “dosh” (English slang for cash) we followed Jazz to our berthing for the evening. With the Benetti guys on aboard lending a hand we had plenty of hands to help with the docking and in no time we were situated. We fit the tender back in its home, I washed down the transom and Pierre gave me a hand rinsing off some of the salt we acquired on our trip over. I had just enough time to snap a few pics of the town as the sun was setting. Unfortunately I missed the good light thus the dark photos. We had a nice dinner in town and a little walk around which didn’t take long.
The next morning we began our journey back to Fano. The conditions for the trip back weren’t as nice. It started out at 2-3’ and got progressively worse throughout the trip. It was about 5-7’ and rainy as we approached Fano and we contemplated heading farther south to Ancona to put in. Fano has a very small inlet and often the fishing fleet will make its way down to the much more protected entrance of Ancona in bad conditions rather than chance Fano. It would mean a long day, so it was decided to get closer to Fano and check it out. In the end it wasn’t nearly as bad as we expected and although we were prepared for the worst we had no trouble getting in. We did however take a transient slip instead of trying to squeeze into our tight assigned slip. So all in all the trip was a success.
The next day we did have a sad event as the owner decided to let Pierre go. It wasn’t really unexpected and for days Pierre was telling me that he really didn’t want to stay so in the end it’s all for the best. He told me that he was happy for me to stay and make the best I could out of the situation and that is what I’m going to do. So I’ve said goodbye to my captain and friend and in the next blog I’ll delve into what that means for me…….
Well we have made our maiden voyage! Originally we were going to go down to Dubrovnik, Croatia the “jewel of Croatia”. That would have been about 250 nautical miles. That was scrapped for a cruise to Split, Croatia and so we began our voyage with our sites set there, but it would not be our destiny. Since it was our maiden voyage, Benetti sent along for the ride Carlo, their company Captain and Frederico, a Benetti engineer. About an hour into the journey one of them suggested a different destination a little closer to home. As this journey was really just to try the boat out and not for pleasure it was agreed that a shorter trip would be perfectly acceptable. So we changed our heading for Losinj, Croatia a cool 80 nm from Fano, Italy.
The weather and sea conditions were fine that day so it was a pleasant trip. We got an early start rising out of bed at 4:45am and arrived in Losinj around 2:30 in the afternoon. I guess they aren’t frequented very often by pleasure yachts as evident by the lack of ease with which we were received. As we came into port we contacted the Port Authority and they informed us that we would have to anchor out in port and take a tender ashore to clear customs. A bit of a pain in the ass! Luckily the conditions were dead calm so it was not necessary to drop the anchor, we simply left Neil (owner with captain’s license) behind the wheel to keep her in postion.
The difficulty lay in the fact that the tender is kept in the Lazzerette (the rear of the yacht, akin to your car’s trunk). To remove it we have to put the transom (the very aft wall of the boat) down into the water. It was calm so that in itself isn’t a big deal although it does mean that I have to wash it down afterwards. The problem was that the owners decided that the tender which was to come with the yacht wasn’t big enough so they bought a bigger one to stuff into the “garage”. Of course the yacht wasn’t designed for this new bigger tender so it’s a very tight shoe horn fit which requires some modifications to the Lazzerette in order to take it in and out safely and easily. Modifications which are still being finalized. The short of it is, as I said, it was a pain in the ass. However, we wrestled it out, Pierre jumped in with our passports and I drove him to the customs office.
The customs officer spoke English so all went well and after handing over some “dosh” (English slang for cash) we followed Jazz to our berthing for the evening. With the Benetti guys on aboard lending a hand we had plenty of hands to help with the docking and in no time we were situated. We fit the tender back in its home, I washed down the transom and Pierre gave me a hand rinsing off some of the salt we acquired on our trip over. I had just enough time to snap a few pics of the town as the sun was setting. Unfortunately I missed the good light thus the dark photos. We had a nice dinner in town and a little walk around which didn’t take long.
The next morning we began our journey back to Fano. The conditions for the trip back weren’t as nice. It started out at 2-3’ and got progressively worse throughout the trip. It was about 5-7’ and rainy as we approached Fano and we contemplated heading farther south to Ancona to put in. Fano has a very small inlet and often the fishing fleet will make its way down to the much more protected entrance of Ancona in bad conditions rather than chance Fano. It would mean a long day, so it was decided to get closer to Fano and check it out. In the end it wasn’t nearly as bad as we expected and although we were prepared for the worst we had no trouble getting in. We did however take a transient slip instead of trying to squeeze into our tight assigned slip. So all in all the trip was a success.
The next day we did have a sad event as the owner decided to let Pierre go. It wasn’t really unexpected and for days Pierre was telling me that he really didn’t want to stay so in the end it’s all for the best. He told me that he was happy for me to stay and make the best I could out of the situation and that is what I’m going to do. So I’ve said goodbye to my captain and friend and in the next blog I’ll delve into what that means for me…….
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
A Jazzy Week
A Jazzy Week
Well this week has pretty much been a blur. We have all been working long hours putting the finishing touches on the boat. I don’t want to bore anyone with all the details so I’ll just touch on the highlights. Fano is nice, but there really isn’t much going on here. At least, not at this time of the year. The weather seems to have definitely changed over. The first half of the week we had cool mornings, warm days and again cool evenings, but the second half of the week has gotten cold and windy. In fact the 50 knot winds the other night created a trying time. Earlier in the day we received the enclosure for the top deck (canvas with see thru vinyl) and the top rail to hold it in place was installed. The bottom, however, was not secured. So when the gale force winds kicked up we had 300 sq. meters of canvas whipping around. At first we tried to secure it with bunghi cords, but they were overpowered. So we had no other option than to remove them while enjoying nature’s light show with a thunder clapping soundtrack. No easy task in the wind, rain and hail. To complicate matters earlier in the day we had also received the chairs and cushions for the top deck. These had to be stowed and secured before removing the enclosure or else they would have been blown to Roma. The bright spot was that we got to try out our foul weather gear and it provided some insight into what was necessary to be prepared for the next storm.
So I worked a week straight and got this weekend off. Neil’s six year old son Alex is here for a visit since the kids in Europe are all on mid-term break. An English Engineer, Glen, has joined the boat for a three month stint to get everything labeled, organized and in ship shape. Yesterday, Chef Mike, another Brit came on board for a week to organize the galley. So slowly, but surely things are coming together. We were planning on going for a sea trial this Monday, but it doesn’t look like the weather is going to cooperate. We are keeping our fingers crossed that things will calm down because we are also planning on making our first trip at the end of the week. We will be crossing the Adriatic and making our way to Dubrovnik, Croatia. Or will we…..
Well this week has pretty much been a blur. We have all been working long hours putting the finishing touches on the boat. I don’t want to bore anyone with all the details so I’ll just touch on the highlights. Fano is nice, but there really isn’t much going on here. At least, not at this time of the year. The weather seems to have definitely changed over. The first half of the week we had cool mornings, warm days and again cool evenings, but the second half of the week has gotten cold and windy. In fact the 50 knot winds the other night created a trying time. Earlier in the day we received the enclosure for the top deck (canvas with see thru vinyl) and the top rail to hold it in place was installed. The bottom, however, was not secured. So when the gale force winds kicked up we had 300 sq. meters of canvas whipping around. At first we tried to secure it with bunghi cords, but they were overpowered. So we had no other option than to remove them while enjoying nature’s light show with a thunder clapping soundtrack. No easy task in the wind, rain and hail. To complicate matters earlier in the day we had also received the chairs and cushions for the top deck. These had to be stowed and secured before removing the enclosure or else they would have been blown to Roma. The bright spot was that we got to try out our foul weather gear and it provided some insight into what was necessary to be prepared for the next storm.
So I worked a week straight and got this weekend off. Neil’s six year old son Alex is here for a visit since the kids in Europe are all on mid-term break. An English Engineer, Glen, has joined the boat for a three month stint to get everything labeled, organized and in ship shape. Yesterday, Chef Mike, another Brit came on board for a week to organize the galley. So slowly, but surely things are coming together. We were planning on going for a sea trial this Monday, but it doesn’t look like the weather is going to cooperate. We are keeping our fingers crossed that things will calm down because we are also planning on making our first trip at the end of the week. We will be crossing the Adriatic and making our way to Dubrovnik, Croatia. Or will we…..
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