Hello
– I’m Mary. A friend of Brian’s,
although things may have changed!
I was
lucky enough to be invited to join Brian on the delivery of Cat-Man-Do from
St Lucia to Antigua, where
he will prepare for the long trip back across the Atlantic. So
all eager, I packed a small bag (for a woman) and flew in on Friday, a day after
Brian.
When
I arrived, he told me that due to various problems, we were lucky to be going
anywhere. 3 days in, he is probably
wishing that we hadn’t gone anywhere with me on
board!
Preparing to cast off on Sunday morning I managed a
classic backward somersault down the starboard hatch. Brian thought I’d probably sustained a
broken leg at the least. But
loosened up by a touch of rum the night before, I managed to perfect the move
with very little injury.
Lunch
on Sunday was in a small cove in Martinique,
followed by a small swim. The small
swim was initiated by my good self, having managed to wrap a rope around the
propeller of the new engine (sorry Peter!). That sorted, much fun and frolics were
had.
A
quick motor up the west side of the Island and
we anchored for the night.
Monday – left Martinique and headed for
Dominica. Sailed through a pod of Sperm – whales,
that is! First saw a mother with
her calf and then up ahead saw another few, and wonderful to see one of them
dive under, with their tail going down through the crystal blue sea. Must confess to a few girly tears at the
sight (me, not Brian).
We
saw a number of yachts on route to Dominica, but there was once when we
could only see just one and it happened to be a friend of Brian’s! It was Jeremy, the Skipper of Maximus,
who also did the ARC. Having
contacted him on the radio, Jeremy asked our position. Brian pretty much said look out of your
window! So that culminated in a
guest for dinner, once we had anchored in the beautiful Prince Rupert Bay.
And
now to today (we think it’s Tuesday).
Anchor up. Hmmmmm…nearly
stayed up, never to go again (Peter, look away). I was a little heavy footed on the
anchor and managed to wedge it rather firmly in the pulley. A little swearing from Brian and a lot
of heaving and it was free again (Peter, you can look back now). So a nice pootle up to Guadeloupe, with some decent wind at last. Currently anchored in a marsh – not very
pretty. Waiting for a bridge to
open at the very unsociable time of 5am.
But it’s that or wait for 12 hours.
And having seen a twister on the West side of the island earlier, thank
goodness we didn’t anchor there!
So in
general, being a bit of a numpty crew for Brian. The only other crew is an inflatable
cactus, who I think may be more help at times, but at least I can fetch beer and
cook, so not all is lost for my Skipper!
Back
to normality on the blog next time, when Brian can regale you with the rest of
our stories. In the meantime, I
will try not to try and break any more
things.
It’s
been fun – apart from seeing far too much of Brian’s
bottom!
xxx
