Sammy asked if I would write a guest blog for the time that I was on S/V Quartermoon so people can get a view point from a different perspective.  I eagerly agreed on the proviso that my words are published unedited so here goes....

This is my second time on the boat although the first time proper as my previous visit had been when she was tied up to Port Moselle marina in New Caledonia missing the rigging.  So I was greeted to the full glory of Quartermoon as she motored through the harbour entrance in Yepoon to pick me up for 5 days of sailing around the Keppel islands.

I’ll let Mike & Sammy talk about the islands and cover details of the trip and i’ll try and paint a picture about life on board.  This is the luxury edition as M&S graciously put aside all the day to day maintenance of the boat whilst I was onboard so I could enjoy the trip to the max.  They probably also did this on the basis that they know I have zero practical knowledge about how stuff works so would be pretty useless to help them as well! I have combined my observations into common themes as below:

The essentials to keeping alive – electricity & water

It’s fair to say that all land lubbers would take these for granted.  It’s certainly not the case on the boat and especially if your name is Mike!  Jez can also testify to the Nazi like approach Mike has to these ;-)

As far as electricity is concerned it is all about the amps.  I think if Mike had it his own way he wouldn’t bother with putting the anchor light on at night and would sit in pitch darkness.  I was allowed to charge my iphone although this was mostly when we were under the power of motor so the boats battery can charge.  The solar panel on the side of the boat is eagerly moved a few degrees at a time throughout the day for the best angle to capture the precious energy providing rays from the sun.  I did get into a good habit of putting the solar powered lamps on deck at first light but all this good was undone when I left the bathroom light on all night but in my defence I did drink 30 cans of VB so have no recollection of it.  To give a good analogy of Mike in this regard he reminds me of the astronaught in the film Apollo 13 who is tasked with working out a solution to turn the lunar module around using 6 amps that the crippled module had left in it’s batteries.  My money is on Mike achieving this using only 1.5 amps.  I reckon when they return to reality Mike should set up an energy consulting business.

H2O – the creator of life.  Both M&S are excellent at preserving this essential resource.  Washing of ones self , the boat and the dishes are all done over the side of the boat.  The WHO recommend an adult should use approx 20 litres of fresh water a day for washing, cooking and drinking.  Quartermoon comes in way below this level.  A few times I put the VB down to get a glass of water I found that the water pump was turned off (as this uses electricity) so I just picked up the VB again.

Language

Not the colourful use of the English language when something goes wrong, but a whole different set of language that has replaced The Queen’s English in normal conversations.  I know that all boats are female but the use of the word ’She’ in reference to the boat was a nice touch.  On a day sail I asked if I could ‘drive’ the boat and Sammy corrected my by saying I can take the helm of her.  Sammy then proceeded to tell me that ‘she was light at the helm’ which immediately had Mike repeating the statement in a pirate accent.  It’s still making me chuckle as I write the blog.  When we met up with other boats and sailors the talk was generally of where they had been, where they were going and what problems they had encountered.  All very interesting and again highlighting to me the complexities of sailing around the world.  Although I am probably biased I think that QM is a sexy looking boat and looks like how boats should look like.  When new boats were approaching an anchorage M&S could describe the boat type when it was just a dot on the horizon.  A few times Mike did resort back to Queens English by labelling some boats ‘a pile of shite’

There is a place for everything and everything has a place