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.
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..
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.
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