So,

I know, I'm rubbish I've done soo much and haven't stopped by to tell you the good bits.

I think its best we finish the trip....

3 weeks back we sighted land, it was St Martin (St Maarten to be precise, island has 2 sides, a dutch side and a french side. Dutch side is very US influenced and is full of casinos, French side is french (( for example one of the reasons this blog is so late is that one day in an internet cafe in Gran Case French St Martin at roughly 11.30 am, whilst updating my blog for you guys, at a very advanced state of affairs, the propriorter walked over to my machine and pulled out the plug: "English, LUNCH....." he said and walked off to lock up the shop----you have to love them!!))

We docked for 25 mins and filled the diesel up. Mike and I ran and bought a bottle of Patrone Tequila for $7!!!! (its important to note at this point that this was the first time I had tread dry land in 21 days, I was knackered)

Then we all had a celebratory drink and it was off to the Virgin Islands (90 miles away West across the caribbean, a very pleasant sail and it wasn't due to the sneaky drinks)

This took the best part of a day. We arrived and sailed in to Tortola in the dark. Mike and I spent alot of our days pouring over the charts, we're probably genius's at navigation by now so we were very excited so see names on the Tortola navigation chart like Mount Healthy, Skull Bay, and Shark Cove. My favourite was a stretch of cliff called "Pull and be damned" ( i think this is Pull as in row, meaning row and hopefully we can get around this bit of land before we smash into the rocks). It occurred to me that the entire world should adopt this method of name making, I'm a bit sick of all our Historic names. I'd like to have an address like this:

Prof. Jo Luke Giles

Apt #1: Tower of Death

Bone Alley

Howling Wolf Woods

Cannon Smoke Town

Teesside

TS BloodTooth & Nail 21

http://www.caribbean-on-line.com/bv/ttmap.shtml

Now here is an interesting insight...

My sense of smell changed somewhat out at sea. Before I could see Tortola I could smell it. A moist sweet smell with some kinda Cedar Tree in there. So watch out if you plan to make a surprise attack on me----I will smell you coming and counter attack...

Tortola is beautiful. At night it was pretty calm and the little lights were twinkling all up the hills. We sailed into Nanny Cay on the south coast, it is marked out in fairy lights on the trees and is very nice inside. We could hear the tree frogs in the night, something I really got to like when I was in Bermuda.

We tied up to the Cay, I couldn't help shouting "Make fast the boat you scurvy dogs", but I was excited.

This video is good for 2 reasons. 1) you can see what it looks like sailing at night, those 2 white lights are our nav. data. and the green light up front is the nav. lights...sometimes these are the only things we can see. 2) its funny to watch me sailing after a few drinks

We hit the sack and woke up to find we were in big trouble with the Harbour Master for not registering in customs on arrival. The British Virgin Islands is english speaking and the main point of call for yachts is Virgin Gourda (next island along). We weren't about to sail over there to register and come back so we nipped around the corner into Road Town to register.

Then because our Skipper Matt was a wimp and because he didn't want to go back to the marina to make repairs (the people we were delivering to would've seen that we were fixing stuff)it was up the mast for me to fix the topping lift, just anchored up in the bay (this means lots of wake from craft and lots of rocking and rolling) which took 1.5 hrs and cut my bottom in half on the harness, but I managed to fix it because i'm a bit of a genius....

Rest of the day spent cleaning up which was dull so I lightened the mood by fooling about.

Next day we were off the boat and fending for ourselves. Mat had legged it to Antigua and the UK. Mike and I found a hotel in Road Town and decided to do some exploring...

Tortola is beautiful, and the people are nice, but things take a while to happen...

Lets talk about my IPOD. I went to the DHL office because my Mum had sorted me a new Ipod and with the help of my brother Rom-Tom and my good friend Mike Rawlinson (Cheers Mike, you are a certified dude) stocked it full of lovely songs. But my Ipod was in the US. Next day it was in Puerto Rico. I went into the DHL office with the idea of kicking up a stink but they told me to "relax, I'm sure that your package will be here in the morning".....

I still haven't got it.

I came back the next day. The girl who served me in the DHL office was a very pretty black girl called Alice, with those amazingly long fingernails painted all glittery. When I walked in she started giggleing and called into the back in patois. Over the next 1 hr 45 mins, as I tried to get her to make my ipod come to me, 4 other girls came out of the back and had a good look at me, then made funny noises (like a tutting noise) and spoke in very fast Patois (to which Alice would say "Oh my gosh, you didn't hear that did you?"). I have a hunch, I think that I was hot stuff. But I have been wrong about such subject matter many many times in the past.

I tried my best to explain that I needed to leave Tortola because it was expensive, and that i'd really like my ipod to go to St Martin where I'd be (which involved calling my Mum Sue ((HI Sue)), when I rang off Alice shouted "Bye Mum" down my phone at my Mum????)

So I filled out the relevant forms. I gave my number in 17 combinations of Uk number + 00 44 + 0 44 0414+ + + ahhhhhhhhhhh!

She assured me that it would be okay. BOLLOCKS. Its been 15 days. This is the Caribbean...

Meantime in Tortola, Mike and I found some lovely spots...

Cane Garden Bay for example. Where we walked one night and enjoyed chicken and beer in an impromptu picnic

Okay, heres a funny story. For one reason or another we didn't hire a car for 3 days. We walked everywhere. Caribbean people don't walk anywhere, this is because its hot and mosquitos like a stoopid white fella who walks about half naked.

Mike got off lightly but I was eaten alive, I always forget that I am one of those people that get bitten. I am a medical phenomenon, when I get bitten I get a lump like a malteser under my skin which make me yelp everytime anything touches it, including air molecules.

One day we were on the north side of the island (best side=fact) and we found a little cool bar/ shack on the beach where people were surfing. It was called Bomba Shack. Its run by Bomba, its one of those places with sand for floor and is literally nailed to the cliff edge. Its great. Girls drink free if they're naked and you can write on the walls (pieces of driftwood and old crates painted luminous). All over are these strange poems written by Bomba about women and how much he likes them. Throw into the mix 900 pairs of knickers and bras hanging from the ceiling and a massive sound system playing very good Reggae. Oh I almost forgot, a Bomba Punch $4 is Dark Rum, fruit juice and magic mushrooms....they're very nice.

Anyway, at the bar the lady says to me "Oh you're one of the walking guys, right?"

I asked what she meant. "Oh, you guys are famous around here, people have seen you walking in the bush for 3 days. Two white guys in all the sun and Mozzies."

I hired a car the next day.

We left Tortola and headed for St Martin , which is cheaper. We have our good mates Russ et Carole to thank who we befriended all the way back in Gran C. We bumped into them one day and they explained that they had a new apartment out here and that they were sure thier friend Christof would sort us out. Which he duely did.

We were there 9 days and had a hire car and an apartment with a pool 2 mins from Orient Bay Beach for 450 Euros each!!!!!!

Its been lovely and I have some more funny stories to tell.

Russ et Carole, my heros.

Did I tell you about the time I got caught in a hurricane and spent an evening bricking myself in an apartment?

After we arrived in St Martin Mike was nearly arrested for not having proof of onward travel. Except that he did. He had already booked a flight out of Antigua in 9 days time. I didn't have any such plans---I was going to job hunt, but I was lucky, I think the girl from customs fancied me (there's a bit of a theme running here). So I strolled through customs to meet Russ et Carole and Christoph.At this time Mike was running around the airport having to buy an extra flight and prove where he was staying he had a stressful evening (but on this trip karma always came around).

The next day Russ came over and told us a hurricane was coming. We needed to buy supplies. We asked what to buy and he told me to imagine no power or water for 4 days. We legged it to the Supermarche. I had grand heroic ideas of windsurfing across the bay in the big stuff (Russ looked at me funny), well: to cut the story short it was a dumb idea since a) windsurfing is difficult in 100+ miles and hour winds, and 2) the police were on the beaches arresting all the idiots who were trying to be macho (they only do this during hurricanes, if you're macho you're free to Mach on the beaches anytime).
Mike and I settled in for the hurricane, we fell asleep. I woke up to lots of lightning and no wind. I fell asleep. I woke up as something hit our window ( i think it was a goat) and it was blowing its tits off (i'm allowed to say this as it is a certified Hurricane term for gauging how windy it is). It was pitch black and really windy, we had no storm shutters so we more or less had to watch.

Imagine getting your mate to drive at 100ish miles an hour, in the dark. Stick your head out of the window, but imagine the air is full of debris. Now imagine a thousand really evil and scary witches all screaming in unison. Thats what its like being in a hurricane. If anyone ever windsurfs in one I'll give them a mars bar...



I have been agressivley job hunting and been all over this part of the world been over to St Barts (ohmygoditsposh). But keep hitting the brick wall. "sure theres work come back in 3 weeks when the super yachts get here" I dont have the money for 3 extra weeeks!!!!

So...

The crunch point came on my day in St. Barts. It was 2 days till the cheap flight so it was my last chance to find further sailing work or cut my losses and come home. Same story everywhere I went. But in a last ditch attempt 1 hour before my ferry left back to St Martin I went and asked in the tourist information centre if she could think of anything....
"Sure try along at public beach, St. Barts sailing club are always looking for help teaching sailing"
I ran like the wind. I used to teach sailing and racing. The lady had said there'd just been a hurricane and they might be cleaning up.
So...whist you imagine me running along in the tropical heat wondering what to say when I got there--hoping my little french would work---a bit of back story...When I was a little kid I had a Canoe (it was really a Kayak so don't imagine a canoe) that was yellow. My Mum ((HI SUE)) let me draw on it so I wrote Jabberwocky on the side and drew a monster.

I turned the corner onto the beach (below) and guess what was sticking out of the bushes post hurricane????
A yellow Kayak called Jabberwocky, THIS IS IT, I'VE FOUND IT, there would definatley be a job there.
I ran up to the lady who was in the office. I explained my situation and she said it sounded great. I wanted to hug her....."Oh, wait, you need to have a police check to prove you can work with kids", "Crap, how long does that take?", "3 months, I'm sorry"

I walked back into town and called my Mum. I told her it was over time to give up, please could she book my flight out? She told me not to be sad.

But I was.

On our last night in St Martin we found a great little bar, we met Russ and Carole for some dinner to say goodbye. Anyone who knows me will understand why I liked this bar. Its in Gran Case if you're ever there..


So it was goodbye French West Indies...

And so to Antigua for one night and a day..



Antigua is a small English Village transplanted into a lovely Caribbean climate with a bunch of very happy Caribbean black people running things. I dont know what these guys are eating but its a funny place.
EVERYONE laughs, all day long. Everywhere.
Me: "Excuse me sir, where is the nearest ATM?"
HappyMAN: "Hehe he he ha hah, dont be stupid maaan, aint no ATM on this side of de Islaaand"
Its very refreshing.. (and was a fitting contrast when I got into London and heard my first grumpy Yorkshire accent).

We went into St. Johns and had a look around, everyone was so polite, all the girls said good afternoon (these ones didn't fancy us they were just being nice...or were they??)

We got to the hotel. And went to the nearest bar. Obviously the barmaid had to hold herself up laughing everytime I asked for a drink, but one thing happened that really made her laugh.

Hands up who knows what Hard Wine is?
Mike and I were sitting at the bar, we were enjoying our Wadwadli beers but fancied a change. We spied the Hard Wine on the back shelf. (little flask shaped bottle about 450ml) there was a picture on it but we couldn't make it out...



So I shouted the barmaid over. When she'd stopped laughing I asked for a Hard Wine, 2 glasses with ice. She started grinning and ran into the back. Came back with 2 glasses of ice giggleing. We poured the drink. She started to laugh...alot.
Barmaid: "You boys know Hard Wine right?"
Us: " No miss, what is it?"
Barmaid: laughing "It herbal maan, it make you bop de pole"
Us: begin blushing "Bop de what"
Barmaid : "De pole, maan it herbal make you feel seXUal. Bop de pole. I don't want you boys commin all seXUAl over here dem"
Us: " Ah I see" More blushing
Us: "Sod it, another Hard Wine please miss!"

And so we woke up on Friday. We went south to check out Falmouth Harbour and Nelsons Locker, sailing MEGA MECCA. If you're reading this and you're a sailor and you're wondering where all your wasted good moves, your good gybes, smart port end flyers, go to die; its here!!


This was my last day. I had kind of given up on a further sailing job, the sailing season hadn't started yet. But I had good contacts in Russ et Carole and I could come back. Low and behold I found an agency in Falmouth Harbour that finds positions for crews on racing yachts in racing season, on my final day.!!!

So enough was enough. Off to Pigeon Bay Beach to relax...



Do you remember the karma I spoke of?
After a nice final afternoon on Pigeon Beach in Antigua we went to the airport. I had been scraping my car for 2 days so I was terrified that I was going to be stung from the hire car people. But I got off scott free.

BUT, the nice people at the First Choice desk had no details of me for thier flight. Karma. It was my turn. Karma. They told me in a very un-caribbean way, that I was here to stay a while longer. So I decided, instead of waiting for the Caribbean to catch up and print out a more up-to-date list of customers, I would call my Mum in the UK ((HI SUE--she doesn't worry enough)), get her out of bed and make her email my reciept to the nice people from First Choice. After a hairy 45mins they let us through....we were going home.

Which is where I am now....

But never fear, I have another trip in mind..but more about that later

Peace

Some worthwhile text....everyone likes a bit of text

So..

I'm in St Martin now, looking for a yachty type job but there's been a hurricane. Jobs are a bit thin on the ground. Also whist I've been away all the banks in the world have been going loco, which means less gringos are holidaying. Add to this the fact that our US cousins do not vacation until after the new president is elected then we're looking at a scant few weeks.

For the record St Martin is generic Caribbean. I was in Tortola before this and its too posh, here is nice and scruffy in the way only a Carib island can be.

So...
Hello.
I think the best way to start this tale is to finish my last one.

Back to Gran Canaria everyone....

The last night we were there we headed back to the Cuban bar. Alas the nice barmaid n't wasn't working but we weren't about to let that spoil our fun. This night was a very odd one...The main point that i'd like to express to you is that this evening we met 4 of the oddest people to walk planet earth.

First up is a lady we're going to call The Fat Prostitute, mainly because she was fat and a prostitute.
When we got to the bar Mat wanted a cuban cigar...when we asked the owner he instantly gestured to a lady in the corner. She shouted to a skinny dude and 10 minutes later he was back with a tinfoil package of 5 cigars. After this she was our designated translator for the evening.
Mike was telling me that whenever he is travelling and people learn he's from England the instantly talk about the Beatles. With this fact in mind I asked the Fat Prostitute if she liked the Beatles. She replied, and I quote " I dont like the Beatles, they're homosexual. They have faggot floppy hair. I prefer David Bowie" (i couldn't fault her logic....

Next crazy hombre introduced himself pretty early on. At the start of the evening we had a toast to good weather. When we raised our glasses there were 4 hands involved. The 4th hand belonged to a guy were going to call Mick Jagger, as soon as he realised we were Ingles he insisted on singing Rolling Stones tunes to us. Except he liked to call them "Rollings Tones", for the rest of the evening all you needed to do was lift a glass and he was there toasting along. The best part is that he wasn't too clever on the exact lyrics, I wish I'd noted more but a highlight was " A can gecko, Salis Fashion". He explained that he was an ex-navy man and he'd fought in the the first Gulf war, and some of his best friends were americans like us...After a while he asked me to sing him some english music...he actually sat down and crossed his legs ready for a recital. So I did my best impression of Mick Jagger (those that have seen my mick impression know how good it is), but he wasn't happy about it at all...perhaps I was signing the words correctly...

Up next are the pool guys. At nobodys behest mid-evening some guy walked up out of the blue and plonked a small amount of what seemed to be dope on the bar in front of me. Grinning he turned to me and said "Now we play Pool Ingles", so Mike and I found ourselves playing the oddest game of pool against the 2 most drunk Spaniards in town...They didn't mind if you moved the ball to get a better shot and it also seemed asthough they didn't want to be tied down to a specific ball type. Sometimes they potted colours, sometimes stripes but always the white. In the meantime Mick Jagger kept coming up and shouting British Recording Artists at me "Queen, Freddy Mecury, Simplys Red"

At about 1am 2 guys turned up with surfboards...

All in all an odd evening.

We set sail early afternoon the next day, but it was about 6 hours till our last sight of Gran C. Here's a final view. Adios dry land for 21 days....having said that Tenerife hung about for a long time, that place is huge......

Early on the second day in I woke up for my shift and noticed the foredeck of the boat was covered in blood, during the night something had killed something right under our trampoline. It was to take us the beat part of 3 weeks to clean it all off!!

On day4 we had to re-organise our vegatable packaging system since the pathetic zukini's were rotting all over the joint...

For the first week there wasn't a breath of air, no wind at all. We were getting a bit nervous because no wind means no move which means use engines which means use diesel which means if it runs out were going to die out here. But every cloud...

How weird is this, at about 3pm one day we sail past a little buoy, floating along all on his own in the middle of the ocean (see pic). Mat called me up from below " Jo theres a buoy here with your name on it"

The buoy had Jo written on it!!

Now, we'd had our fishing lines over the back for days. We hadn't caught a sausage. But as we slowed to look at the buoy we saw hundreds of fish attracted by the shadow of the buoy. Within a minute we had a bite, I ran down and reeled in our Starbord line. There was a huge Dorado on the line. All I needed to do was haul him out!! He was very tasty

Next up is the dying birds. Every now and again a bird would stop by. Often it would land on our spreaders (the metal things that hold the mast in place). Sometimes on the deck. But they always died after about a day.

If you look in the corner of the spreader you can see a bird..

If you look carefully there is a little sparrow on top of the kitchen rolls in the corner of the galley

Now is the time to let you know that you need to forget everything you know about beautiful sunsets. There is nothing like a sunset at sea. Every night breaks your heart. My camera should be ashamed of itself and these pics are pathetic but its the best I could do...

Next up....

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am afraid of sea monsters. I'm not kidding I have a terrifying irrational fear of being eaten by a sea monster. Into the mix I'm a pretty scared of shipwrecks, anything rusty and in water gives me the willy's.

So imagine how much I was sweating when on day 15 in the middle of the Atlantic ocean at 3am the depth meter went from off the scale to 1.3meters for 20 mins!!!!! Cripes! I was happily sailing along minding my own business and then the depth alarm goes crazy, I turned it off but I didn't dare to look over the side, in fact I think I looked up for the rest of my shift. There was something under the boat, and it wasn't a fleeting debis this thing stayed with us at around 1.3meters for 20 odd minutes.... Just cripes

We had some pre mixed cakes in our fridge and a tin of peaches which we duly prepared for our 3000 mile party. At 3 grand we knew we were halfway across the ocean.

Check out the LOG 3001=cake time!!!

Now lets talk Thunderstorms...

But first let me explain fear...a few years ago my ex girlfriend drove me on a jet ski out to a shipwreck off the coast of Bermuda. I nearly turned inside out with fear. Imagine the most scared you've ever been, you know when your brain stops working and your ears are buzzing.

Okay with this thought in mind imagine being in front row seats when a giant clap of Thunder goes off..

Down here its hott and that means its prefect weather for thunderstorms to occur. One night I was doing the midnight 3 shift and there had been clouds forming all night. I had just loaded our Beach Boys CD when Thundercloud Winona came along.

Out at sea the sky is huge, if it isnt sea, its sky. Lots of sky. Now these Thunderclouds were black, the night sky was pretty black but these were even blacker, and all around.

About 30 miles off the clouds are flashing away as lightning hits the sea, then more flashes occur, but behind the boat this time-theres no noise since they're too far away. Then a cloud closeby flashes, it seems pretty close so I start to count to see how far away it is. "One One thousand, One One thousand, One One thousand" I was a wreck.

Just then a huge flash happens right next to the boat, "Won" I shout.

Then a bigger flash directly behind, "Noh!" I yell.

Then a 3rd flash which encompasses the entire southern hemisphere to my left " Nah!" I scream (Won-Noh_Nah....Winona!!!)

I start to plan my next course of action, I'm halfway between running downstairs to grab my wellies for insulation (i realise this is useless when i'm standing in a fibreglass boat) and crawling under the cockpit to hide when the beach boys kick in with "Wouldn't it be nice...."

We were the only thing for 1000 miles in all directions that was metal and its a mast and I'm helming us through 4 or 5 of the biggest thunderstorms to occour in the history of the universe whist listening to the haunting sounds of the Beach Boys...definatley a life experience!!

With all this fear flying about I needed to play some practical jokes to cheer myself up. Hands up whos ever seen a flying fish. I have seen millions, no billions! All day long they jump up and fly away from the boat, litttle ones like butterflys all the way up to pretty hefty fellas.

On a moring there's often a few dead guys on the foredeck.

When its hot we often sleep with our hatches open to let some air in. So whats to stop me taking a flying fish and dropping it in Mat's head? (toilet). Which I did several times, and he still thinks that he just had a special jinxed toilet!!!

toilet plus fish

Anyway, lots more to tell but I'm off for a bite and a cold one. I can't leave you on a picture of a toilet so here's a picture of a beach Mike and I had to ourselves in Tortola, actually thats a lie, we shared it with 3 sharks.

i'm a tagger at heart

more text tommorow gang but couldn't leave cafe without showing off my latest graffitti

who else in the world has thier name atop a 70ft mast?

up the mast....again!!

the amazing effects of carib beer

racehorse you say....nay says i...

welcome to the caribbean

Update from French St Martin

Text message home,15.10.08
Boo Boo Jam Bar on Orient Beach, French St Martin. Have dented my 4x4 in rush to panic buy ahead of hurricane Omar. It is raining more than you can imagine. I have secured a 4.5m rig for a windsurfer. I intend to sail across Bay when wind hits 60mph. Will post video of attempt

Return of the dancing sailor: Whitestripes PT I

RAIN

RAIN!!

Aint no wind, gulp!

We were roughly 6 days out of the Canaries. Very much in the middle of nowhere. And the wind wasn't playing...

Deep Sea Dolphins

These guys swam with us for about 20mins. I have a bunch of videos but haven't the time to add them. There was a big guy with scars all over him, all of a sudden he dove straight down into the darkness and everyone followed pretty sharpish.. Wonder what he saw???

Mid atlantic bath time (Non-adult version)

Washing at sea, do not fall off!!!

I'm here dudes!!!!

So,
a serious amount of news/ stories and gossip to tell. Seriously there is some very funny stuff coming up.

I'm in Nanny Cay Tortola, British Virgin Islands. We managed to get across the Atlantic, but there were some hiccups.

You wont be surprised to know that its pretty damn hotttt out here. Milk was a bad choice......

Will get the info up here soon.

Peace.

Where is he now?

Satellite text messages home

19.9.08. Hello mum. This is Jo aboard Tulsi III. Guys tell Caribbean to put kettle on will text position when poss. Maybe you can put on my blog.

23.9.08. Could you look up a weather forecast for us? 23deg33N, 24deg25W heading 225 SW all night. Pressure and co-ord would be capital! High spirits just no wind 4 4 days – slow going. Tom I caught 1^st open ocean fish. Big bastard durado for tea. We’ll be within 200 miles of those co-ords 4 24 hours heading SW. Any forecast useful. Lots of stories to tell. PS we bang right but this aint Grafham!

28.9.09. Ahoy from 18deg49N, 34deg37W. Bit more wind. Pod 15 huge dolphins played in bow wave yday. Could’ve touched them, mesmerising!

30.9.08. 17deg30N,40deg1W

3.10.08. Ahoy 18deg20N, 48deg11W. Nice sailing.Terrifying thunderstorms.
Posted by Sue