Reflections on weather and the mystery yacht
'Sarf & West mate, Sarf & West'
Pete Bernfeld
Sun 10 Jan 2010 12:02
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Settled down into life in a big anchorage again.
The harbour is fairly grimy, so no chance of using the watermaker and the much
advertised yacht club is a building site. Apparently they knocked the
clubhouse/bar down then there was 'una problemo' with the planning permission to
rebuild. Still, with no expensive marina bar in which to emulate a lounge
lizard life is fairly cheap here, considering we're in 'the big city'. The
supermarket was quite reasonable (at least by Caribbean standards) provided
you brought local produce and the price of beer has dropped to about £12 a case,
which is excellent news. A group of us when for beer, pizzas and ice cream last
night and the bill (or at least mine) came to about £2.65....my sort of night
out.
Right, draw closer my dears and I'll tell 'ee the
strange tale of 'Cocquie', the mystery yacht and it's equally mysterious owner.
The first time I came across 'Cocquie' (lurve the name!) was in Grenada, where
she was apparently owned by an English bloke called Steve (if memory serves me
correctly, which it frequently doesn't these days). The boat had been badly
damaged in Hurricane Ivan, which hit Grenada about five years or so ago, and was
basically a write off due to damage. So the story went, she was brought by a
local Grenadan chap who started to repair her, but he basically ran out of money
so decided to sell her on. Enter 'Steve', who had flown to Grenada to buy a boat
he saw on Ebay (yes, apparently it's true). That boat was unsuitable for one
reason or another, but he saw 'Cocquie', a Hans Christian 34, quite a pretty,
very traditional looking boat. The outside looked OK, but the inside was a mess,
in particular the electrical wiring. I met Steve in 'De Big Fish' one
night when he was looking for a good electrician to check over the work he was
doing. I recommended Mike from White Bird (who was doing some work for me).
Speaking to Mike later (whilst he was upside-down in the engine bay, refitting
my starter motor) he said that basically the guy had just wanted some advice and
he (Mike) hadn't done any work). We then left Grenada on the 17th of
December.
Fast forward to Rodadero on, I believe, Boxing Day.
Delicado & Moonshiner (so they've recounted the tale) were anchored in
Rodadero, close by a boat called 'Cocquie', a pretty Hans Christian 34, owned by
a chap from Puerto Rico (?) who had come direct from Grenada, in company with
some other boats. Cocquie had remained in Rodadero as he had discovered that
(apparently) all four of his engine mounts had failed. In the evening, the owner
was ashore with his generator left running (I did that once on 'Ocean Freedom'-
my last boat- and really annoyed other people, but I digress - well, at my age
you do occasionally, don't you?). Delicado noticed smoke coming from the cockpit
and grabbed a fire extinguisher. They went over and fired it off into the
cockpit but were unable to make much impression on the fire. Locals arrived in a
variety of water craft and proceded to empty about 15 fire extinguishers into
the boat and put out the fire. Apparently the 'owner' wasn't too worried by
this, saying the boat was insured. He seemed (allegedly) to be more worried that
boat hadn't actually burned to the water-line. There are a couple of boats here
in Cartegena who were travelling with him until his engine-mount problems, so I
may learn more about this. Intriguing, isn't it?
Ah yes, the weather on the Colombian coast. Well, I
should have been here about six weeks ago (the original plan) but was
delayed for one well documented reason or another! Then the weather would have
been more benign and I could have taken my time coming down the coast, stopping
off at a few more anchorages than I eventually did, and staying longer in them
having a nose around.The worst weather that has been encountered has been Force
8 winds (for about half an hour on one occasion and a few gusts of that
magnitude on other occasions) with what I estimate to be 3 metre seas. Other
boats have experienced more or less the same (I seem to have been lucky with the
wind, others have had gusts to 43/44 kts). One boat which came directly from
Curacao is claiming 35ft seas (11 metres!!!!) and surfing at 13 kts. Other boats
on the same routing at a similar time experienced more or less the conditions I
did further inshore, so perhaps adrenalin has added a few metres/knots here and
there, who knows? All in all, I reckon I've got off quite lightly.
The plan now is to inspect a sail which may or may
not be showing signs of wear and tear, mantle the outboard which remains
resolutely stuck in forward gear and have a go at fixing the fridge temperature
control (don't you just love it? Never-bloody-ending, but I'm not alone).
Apparently the artisans here are more reliable, cheaper and generally better
than those in the Eastern Caribbean, but the only little fly in the ointment
(there's always one, eh?) is that Monday-tomorrow- is a public holiday, so my
plan of taking the poo-pump diaphragm to a 'fettler of rubber goods' has been
fatally holed below the water line. Ah well, the beer and pizzas are
cheap. Must finish now, I have to start a heavy mornings relaxing and chilling
before lunch and a siesta, my word it's a tough life. Hope my UK-based
reader is enjoying the snow and ice.Sounds like a re-run of the 1963
winter, for those who can remember back that far!
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