32;38;6000N16;54;4000W
Silver Bear
Ray Lawry
Thu 15 Oct 2009 12:10
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I thought I would do a girly blog (this is Ali ,not
Ray!)
We have been on the boat now for nearly 3
months.Most of the time it has been good, some times if I'd been able to swim
far enough I would probably have jumped ship!
The weather is generally ideal,with fairly cool
mornings that have an autumnal feeling,hot days,sometimes too hot and balmy
evenings.
When it's rained ,which it did for nearly a week in
Madeira it was foul.Wet but also hot and sticky ,so that everything felt damp
,including the bedding,not nice at all.
It's been great having a enough time to explore
places and really get a feel for how the locals live,both Lisbon and Madeira
have had a good friendly feel and lots of Custard tarts!
So actually when we're ashore I'm pretty happy,it's
being on the boat with a grotty little loo,that can be rather smelly and a bit
tricky to balance on when the seas rough,that is the problem.Also everything
tastes of seawater as we rinse the dishes in seawater when we're sailing to
conserve the fresh water.We have had to spend alot of money on really boring,but
Ray says essential things like getting sails fixed,replacing stachions and
batteries,oh and getting a leak fixed(even I thought that was pretty important).
So whilst these repairs were carried out we slept suspended 2 metres in the air
in a boat hoist.It was actually very comfortable, no creaking warps or squeaky
fenders to keep me awake.The bed is pretty
comfortable, better than I thought it would be.Laundry can be very simple, just
hand the launderette your bag of washing and collect it at the end of the day
washed ,dried and ironed,or very difficult.Find the machine,scrape around to
find the change to but in the machine,find someone got there before you,return
to boat,try again later,get the washing done,scrape together more change for the
drier,the drier doesn't fully dry the clothes so sit with wet clothing around
you for two days,thats when I wanted to jump ship.
What elso do I miss? My fridge we do have a
fridge but it doesn't dispence ice for a really good G&T.Having said that
the Spanish and Portugese do a pretty mean G&T,80% gin and 20% tonic, one
lasts all evening,honestly.
We do miss our friends, though it's amazing the
people you meet on the way,most of them seem to be from Devon, (well quite a
few)also people with young children sailing around the world!
Ray misses a good pint of beer and also I know this
is not at all girly but I've missed not watching the rugby,especially as Exeter
are doing so well.
We haven't missed the TV at all,but I do miss
not reading the newspapers. An English paper costs about 5 euros,is a day
old and half of it is usually missing.
We have had plenty of time to read and think
whilst sailing and basically,you can't avoid
daily stresses completely but generally it's not such a bad way to spend
time.
I'm still not to sure how I will cope with 3 weeks
at sea,but I still have hats and socks to knit,who knows what they will
look like!.
Hope life is treating you well.
Love Ali
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