First week on the job

    Maybe one day I'll tell the story on how we got there, but it is a long story and I have been to busy or lazy to keep track of all the adventures we had on the way. Right now we are being tossed around by a slope sea, a head wind and a head current. It is by no way what people would call a dangerous weather, or as a matter of fact a bad weather either. The seas are just sloppy and with very little wind we are struggling to get any momentum out of our 14 tons whale, aka KUJIRA. Kim feels a bit nauseous and I am reflecting about choices I made in the past couple years. If travelling by boat is like that, the next few years are going to be very uncomfortable...

It is Wednesday the 11th of May 2022 and we have finally left La Grande Motte / Grau du Roi and its flamingos after more or less 5 months of refitting an old Amel Maramu 198 which, fortunately, wasn't meant to be a project boat. We are under a self imposed time frame so we turned left as we left the port and started our journey towards Greece. We have 7 weeks to reach Athens before Mike and Jana arrives, it should be easy, or shouldn't it? Every time we tack, that is turning into the wind, we turn by nearly 180 degrees, pointing back in the direction we came from. But being our first day on the job we don't want to give up that easily and we spend most of the afternoon trying to round the cap. To make matter worst, the area is full of crab pots. After a very very long day we reach our first anchorage after night fall. We haven't tried the windlass yet, the motor that let you lower and raise the anchor, the anchor is new and slightly oversized for the front of our boat, and the wind is blowing at a steady 15 knots of the shore. Exhausted we go bed after a light late dinner. I sleep well, Kim doesn't do to the noise and the motion of the boat. 

    Next morning we discover our anchorage, a beautiful and wild deserted bay with not a building in sight. Without a functioning way of travelling to shore, we have to satisfy ourself with the view. The weather conditions are similar to the previous day and we are not eager to live. It isn't mentioned but we both fear a repeat of the previous day. After mid day we find the curage to raise the anchor despite Kim suggesting a couple times to stay put, do some boat work she usually hates so much and wait for tomorrow and a better weather window. We even rig the foc de route, aka "f_ck the route", a smaller headsail in preparation for the numerus tacks ahead. It would actually have been a bad call not to leave, the sea are good today and the wind not quite on our nose. After an hour we even replace f_ck the route with out main genoa. We manage to get over 5 knots of speed, which is a long way from foiling but a huge improvement compared to the previous day. The sail is pleasant, the crab pots disappear and we are enjoying outs;f so much that we even sail a bit further than originally planned. Because a ring never comes without a yang, I make poor jugement on the anchorage for the night: I believed that 0.2 meters of swell would have no effect on the 14 tons of the whale.. well it does! The boat is rolling back and forth like crazy. We try to anchor a little bit further away from the beach but this has of course no effects. I had read that being able to sleep width wise was the solution to a good night sleep in a roll anchorage. I call horse shit on that one and suspect that it was written buy people you have never tried it for themselves.Sleeping widthwise only means that instead of being rocked side to side you are being pushed up and down.

As the bay is relatively narrow, I turn on an anchor alarm on my phone. The concept is simple, I let the app know the location of where we dropped the anchor and if we move more than 50 meters away from that point the alarm goes off. I tried it out the previous night and it seemed to have worked. So you can image how scarred we got when my phone started ringing at 3am. I am neither a morning person nor quick to get out of bed but in less than 5 seconds I am on deck, fully naked, only to discover that Kujira is happy rolling back and forth in the middle of the bay. It only was a false alarm.

    With start the 3rd day with an early morning swim, the first of the season. I use the opportunity to brush Kujira which is already growing a pre puberty teenager's beard. The water is fresh but cristal clear, the sun is already shinning, life suddenly feel a little bit better. The sail is good and we start to have a better feeling for our new sails. We also have no shame in motoring for an hour or two when necessary and we manage to reach our beautiful anchorage in the calanque national park well before sunset for once. A calanque is like a mini fjord, an inlet surround by cliffs which dive into the sea. We go for another swim and I even treat myself to some deep water soloing. Life is great.

Before going to sleep I make sure the anchor alarm is on as we are in fairly deep water, surrounded by huge cliffs and half a dozen other boats. I guess anyone ready has already guessed what happened next: the alarm wen to off at 2.30am Just like the previous night we jump out of bed in a second, this time I take the time to put some pants on and we rush on deck. The moon is shinning bright on the white cliff. It looks like we haven't moved but just to be certain I turn on the radar just to have a confirmation: Kujira hasn't gone anywhere. It turns out that it is the precision of the GPS signal on my phone which has drifted by 19 meters! The app is being removed from phone and we go back to sleep. A few hours later, in the early morning, I find myself in this state of semi-consciousness when you are asleep but strongly aware of your surrounding. Kujira is gently rocking us and with every rocking motion I can hear a little "clong", ticking like a clock:

clong

clong

clong

BANG

FUCK! We must heat a rock or something... back on deck in under 5 seconds, this time without bothering about the pants, my heart is racing. I ask Kim to lift floorboards, almost expecting to see water rushing in. We are now in the blue hours and I can clearly see that we are still a good 70 meters away from the cliffs. The radar confirms that we are clear of any surface obstacle and the charts doesn't have any underwater pinnacle. Could it have been an uncharted rock? Unlikely considering how busy and popular this calanque is. After reflexion we conclude that the rudder which wasn't locked in place, rookie mistake, had slowly drifted to one side, hence the "clong". A wave a bit bigger must have pushed it to it's extremity, and the rudder quadrant, a big piece of metal attached to the rudder, went smashing into its metal stopper which is conveniently located under our bed. Everything is fine and we take the opportunity to have an earlier start. Another beautiful day with very light wind on our nose means a mix bag of sailing, motoring, motor-sailing, drifting and everything in between. We do have an excellent sail towards the bay of Cassis where we thought we would anchor for a swim and a lunch break only to discover that anchoring is prohibited. So we turn around and have another excellent sail out of the bay. We both feel like we need a good night sleep plus having no way to go ashore we decide to book ourself in the marina of ile des Embiez. Parking the boat is a stressful exercise but the conditions are optimal and it goes without a scratch. For the 1st time in 4 days we set foot on land and we really enjoy stretching our legs. As we walked back to the marina we see boats anchored of the island and I do feel a little envious. However the night is excellent, nothing and no-one to wake us up. 

    Reality is never far and our ultimate battle with the French administration means that Kim needs to return to Perpignan for a day. The most logical option is to put the boat in Toulon around the corner and for her to jump on a train from there. Excepted that the port attendance isn't working on Sunday so we can not book a berth. Typical French. So we decide to keep traveling east and take a break in Antibes in a few days from now. The destination for the day is the famous island of Porquerolles. Another day of sunshine and light wind on the nose. It takes us 7h to do 31 Nm or 57 km. The anchorage is amazing, it feels like we are not in Kansas anymore. It's a long stretch of sand with cristal clear waters and inhabited green hills in the background. To one side, the remains of a castle on the top of a hill complet the picture. The conditions are perfect to try out our new paddle board. I thought the Bosh wet vacuum cleaner / pump would work like a charm to inflate it .. how foolish of me. Not only the feeting on the board is of course proprietary but also the pump is only producing a gently blow. Not to make any rude joke, the board doesn't seem to excited about the prospect of some action. I don't care and head off on a half deflated board. Kim is expecting, and maybe even hoping, to see me go for a dive but years of skipping lunch are finally paying of: I am slowly and carefully gliding across the day. From afar it must look like I'm standing on water but I don't care, life is good. On the way back I noticed a catamaran with a couple stand up paddle boards, fully inflated, on it's side. I slowly creep to the boat just on time to catch the owner in the middle of his BBQ. He is not really impressed by my performance but acceptes to let me borrow his pump. The board needs to be inflated to 15 PSI, I wasn't even at 2 ...

Wanting to have a look around the island, and secretly hoping for some fresh pain au chocolat, we inflate the dinghy which we thought had a leak and we go on an adventure. At first I raw like a gentlemen, following the guidance of Kim. But after 5 minutes or so, we were anchored very conservatively away from other boats or the shore, I decide that it isn't working and that being 2022, women should work just as mush as men. So we take an oar each and we transform the dinghy into a waka. We each paddle on a side and make it to shore in good time while amusing the yachties who are already up. The island is really nice but the bakery in the village extremely disappointing. The castle is closed on Mondays but we still have access to some of the ramparts. From up there it look like a postcard from the Caribbean. Back on the boat on time for breakfast, lunch, brunch, 2nd breakfast, who knows, I lose track and have the feeling that Kim is eating all the time and a swim before setting off into a very light wind once more. Shortly after leaving Porquerolles we receive an "all station" call on the VHF:

"All station, all station, all station, this is the vessel XYZ from the French navy. We are going to detonate an unexploded underwater bomb on these coordinates in 30 minutes. Every boat is required to keep a minimum safe distance of 2000 meters"

Than at T-15min, T-5min and finally we got a countdown:

"9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1"

We hold our breath, the location of the bomb is relatively near us .. nothing .. Kim looks a me, desapointed .. 1sec, 2sec .. and then "BIM". Not a loud bang like you hear in movies, but a very short mid pitch "BIM". The whole of Kujira is shaking for a second as the shockwave goes literally across us. It's a very hard to describe experience and really makes you wonder about the horror of naval warfare but in this context, it was a pretty neat experience.

We drift at 2 knots most of the afternoon and even use the spinnaker pole push the Genoa out. At 7.30pm does the wind pick up to 15 knots. Suddenly Kujira is flying at 5.5 knots. Kim is a bit concerned that the anchorage might be folly and therefore decide to try her luck in the saloon so I decide to sleep outside in the cockpit. The Bimini roof is protecting me from the humidity and the sleeping bag is keeping me nice and toasty. Life is good.

Next morning I have the dum idea to go for a long swim without wetsuit. The days are warm but the sea is still fresh. By the time I come back on board I am shaking uncontrollably. It takes me over an hour to recover. 

    We are getting closer to our destination for our first week but it is another light day with head wind. We have already done Pete's trick of replacing the genoa sheets, the ropes going to the head sail, with light sheets and we are still only slowly drifting. I want to put the gennaker up, this colourful head sail which always look so good on photos, unless you have a sketchy sponsor. Kim doesn't. But I really do. But Kim really doesn't. But I really really do. So we argue for half an hour and finally Kim agrees while secretly hoping something will go wrong and I will be proven wrong. Fortunately nothing goes wrong. It takes a bit of time to rig it up, manoeuvre the gigantic spinnaker pole but once everything is up and running the argument is forgotten and we are both like kids on Christmas, taking photos and having a blast.

    On the 8th and final day of this first leg we motor for a couple hours at first as there is absolutely no wind. As we get closer to Cannes, the wind picks up a bit and we can sail for an hour. Once I take over the wheel, the wind dies and we drift for the next couple hours. The highlight is receiving a VHF call from the local authorities investigating an oil/blackwater spill from one of the local super yacht. We have indeed cross it's wake and noticed how dirty it was.

Finally, after 3 phone calls and 2 emails, our booking in the port of Antibes is being confirmed and we can move it for the next 3 nights. The port authorities won't win any awards for there performance and a local speed overtaking me in the port neither but our berth is huge with lots of space to manoeuvre around all the multi gazillion dollar yachts. 

    This first week on the job has been great, full of experience and "adventures". We have already learned so much more and I have the feeling that we are slowly getting more intimate with the big whale. I can't wait for the next leg which will include an overnight crossing to Corsica but before that, Kim needs to go back to Perpignan to face the administration and this is an adventure on it's own for next time...