On the last lap to St George’s, Bermuda (c 80 miles off) and looking forward to stopping! We have had it all (or most of it) on this passage, but not quite enough of the good stuff (sailing) to make up for the bad (thunder storms, and calms). You need the latter to help you appreciate the former, but it would be nice to adjust the proportions! The good news is that we are reaching again, though on the other tack….

We should be on the approach by mid morning, and we need to contact the officials when we are in 30 mile range of the island. We realised yesterday that we had omitted to complete their e-form prior to leaving the BVI’s which they do not like. Having begged a favour from Sister June, she has completed the form on our behalf and sent it to them today. With any luck, this should keep us out of the immigration cell and away from the interrogation!

The customs and immigration people in some of the islands are a bit huffed if you look shambolic, so we had better do a bit of grooming in the morning before going ashore. Even if we shower and primp tonight, we will still be a bit bedraggled in the morning after the night watches: our niece Gabby talks about “lady bald hair” when it gets plastered to the side of your head, and it describes the post-pillow look perfectly! Can’t have that, can we?

Grooming, Growing Old and Sailing

There are complications about ageing and living on a boat when it comes to appearance. These complications are accentuated geometrically when offshore passage making! If you are not careful, you end up looking like one of the ZZ Top band.

Every now and then when Ali is wearing her glasses, she will take a hard look at me and say in a not unpleasant way, something like “not done much of a job this morning!” and tease me about my incomplete shave.  Alternatively, her point is that I have cut myself again (about a 1:3 chance) and left blood on the hand towel, and look a right chookie with a bit of kitchen roll stuck to my chin. Not wearing one’s spectacles does not help, I grant you, but in my defence it is not easy to do a good job with the razor at 0600, never mind 0300, especially when having to hold on to the sink whilst the boat lurches around. The really surprising thing is that I do so little damage, really!  

Once she has her appraising eye on me, things can go downhill rapidly…”and what is that growing out of our nose?” It is disconcerting, once your attention has been drawn to the profusion of hairs that dangle from the nostrils, to see just how lackadaisical you have become about personal appearances. Suitably mortified, the offer is usually made to do a “bit of trimming” for me. Now this is a difficult one: say yes, and she is happy to use tweezers to pluck a swath through the forest, but I am never sure whether the excruciating experience (pain, sneezing, sinus twitch) is really worth the satisfaction she clearly gets from the process; say no, and she is sad to have her help refused, but at least scything the shrubbery oneself with a small sharp pair of scissors is a fraction less painful, controlled so  you can stop and whimper, though it is always awkward to get into the crevices and chop without suffering some lacerations – cue more bleeding, etc.

Whilst on the subject of facial hair, it is necessary to mention the ones that sprout out of your ears. What on earth are these for? Since you do not have eyes on the side of your head, you are blissfully unaware that anything is adrift until you stand in a bit of a breeze on the deck. The whistle of the wind through the undergrowth is quite disconcerting! Now this is a task I do leave to Ali (a poor substitute for the nose torture, I suspect), since I fear that my scissor technique would leave me like Van Gogh!

…and then there is the hair. When you spend months at a time on the boat, you either have to find a hairdresser or barber or adopt the aged pony tail look (not for me). It is relatively easy for a bloke of a certain age to locate a professional who can look at the crop and do a job. Even if it is a bit severe, a week later the damage has grown out. In Scandinavia, I learned to ask for a “summer short”, in Iberia I needed a “corte corte”. I have never really felt that I have been the subject of any additional hilarity in company after a haircut, and have had some happy discoveries – for example, when the Ibiza lady was washing my hair in the usual recumbent (and helpless) position, she made a quick movement of her foot and I leapt out of the chair when it began to vibrate under me – she had a great laugh, and once I realised that it was supposed to be pleasant, I thoroughly enjoyed it (I should say here that Ali usually accompanies me on these jaunts, in case I get into trouble or ask for a tattoo by mistake). 

For a woman, things are somewhat more traumatic! At home, Ali’s friend Janet keeps her in trim, and she is very happy with this. Abroad for more than a month, tensions mount. I understand the problem when trying to maintain a familiar hair style in a foreign language with an unfamiliar hairdresser, but when the wind-blown hair begins to take on gorgon-like proportions, something must be done. After a few postponements, Ali eventually begins to look for a salon that might just meet her exacting standards. This can take a few days! Having selected the said establishment, she takes a cautious approach. This has usually worked out fine, but occasionally there have been complications. In Cascais, she had concluded that it was time to take the plunge and we found a decent hairdressing salon in the town. The patron was the archetypal male hairdresser with exaggerated hand movements and facial expressions, but seemed a nice guy. I was taken into the next room where a lady took no time at all to give me a short back and sides, whilst Ali’s stylist was still talking through the options and possibilities. I left them to it, handing Ali 120 euro to cover the cost, and agreed to meet her back at the boat.

About an hour and a half later, she arrived back. She had a slightly puzzled look on her face as she came down the companionway, and asked what I thought about the hair cut. Now I have learned from hard experience that the only answer to this question from a lady is to say it looks wonderful, so I did. It was true: it suited her brunette mop well, and was not dissimilar to her preferred style. She drew a face at me, and asked whether I liked her “surprise”, then turned round to show me a cheeky little blonde tail of hair that her risqué hairdresser had done behind her back! She was not very amused, but reconciled to having to wait till it grew out or she dyed it. Perhaps the thing she disliked most was that it had cost her the full 120 Euros I had left her, which is a bit exorbitant for a look she did not want or appreciate. This experience may explain her additional care about selecting hairdressers since….

Chop chop,

Watergaw