A day in the life of Juno

Juno
Paul and Caroline Frew
Thu 8 Sep 2011 10:48
36:42.690N 002:21.345W

Not a breath of wind today so we are motoring from Almerimar towards Cabo de
Gato, the eastern tip of the Costa Blanca, before we turn north towards
Cartagena. Having had breakfast, Caroline and Saz are now sunning themselves
on the foredeck and i am in the cockpit, sitting in the shade of the bimini.


Nothing much else to say today so i thought i would tell you about a day in
the life of Juno. We wake, normally at around 8am, to the sound Fragile.
This is a throw back from chartering in Turkey 20 years ago when Mike used
to wake us, slightly hung over, to the sound of Sting rasping out Fragile on
the boats cassette player. Nowadays it comes polyphonic from my iPhone and
jolts my from a dreamy sleep. Juno is very well insulated, and with the
cabin fans humming, nothing penetrates the interior of the boat, other than
the sound of mice inside the satellite dome, making minute adjustments to
the angle of the dish so that it locks onto the signals from the Inmarsat
satellite, far up in space. The little motors inside the dome make short,
intermittent buzzing sounds that travel down the aluminium aerial pole and
make a beeline for a spot on the deck directly above Caroline's pillow - or
so she tells me. I can't hear a thing but when we leave the sat phone on
overnight she stomps out of bed and flicks the switch on the control panel,
dispatching the mice and silence descends.

Normally we are making an early start on our relentless journey to Palma,
with deadlines looming at every port. The next deadline is to get Saz to
Cartagena by tomorrow evening to catch a flight home from Murcia Airport, so
that she can pack a fresh suitcase and catch another flight the following
day to Itlay - for another holiday. Depending on where we are, the first
job is to stow the pasarelle, which is rather like folding a deck chair in a
strong wind while balancing on a beach ball. It has a topping lift to the
top of the mast to set the height, a fitting that locks into a socket on the
transom steps, brace lines from either side to hold it in position and then
carbon poles and a rope handrail to cling onto as you walk the gangplank
across the short space of grubby harbour water that separates you from the
dock. The pasarelle is stowed in the lazarette, a large locker in the aft
deck which acts as my garage. It is full of folding bikes, scuba diving
tanks, storm sails, spinnakers, kedge anchors, buckets bulging with an ever
increasing collection of cleaning chemicals and a huge array of ropes that
hang on a rail spanning the back of the locker. When i stand inside the
lazarette the deck comes up to chest height and runs the full width of the
boat, 5 metres according to Oyster.

Next, our tender is attached to the davits which overhang the stern and an
electric winch built into the davits whirrs away as the tender is lifted out
of the water and snugged up tight against the arms of the davits. OK,
everything seems to be attached to the boat, so next i go below and check
that all the hatches below deck level are shut tight and then i switch on
the instruments; autopilot, chart plotters (two, one under the spray hood
and one on the starboard steering pedestal), sailing instruments (echo
sounder for depth, wind instruments, boat speed), AIS (automatic
identification system, explanation to follow), Navtex (safety messages are
broadcast to this little screen at the chart table), hydraulics (to operate
mainsail furling), bow thrusters (more on this beast later), and VHF radio.
Then i turn off stuff we dont need; air conditioning, lights, dish washer,
washing machine, but i leave on the fans, fridge, freezer, satellite phone
and the boats PC (so that i can pick up emails and weather information en
route).

At last ready to go. In the med, because there are no tides to speak of,
boats dock at fixed concrete pontoons. This compared to northern European
waters where tidal ranges can be up to 20 feet and therefore boats attach to
floating pontoons. The benefit of this is that many more boats can be
crammed into the same space and this is achieved by means of lazy lines.
These are thick ropes, encrusted with razor sharp shells and attached to
heavy weights in the seabed in the harbour. Once your boat is secured to the
concrete dock at the stern, a marinero will hand you one end of the lazy
line and you then haul it in as hard as you can, lacerating your hands, and
attach it to the bow to hold you a safe distance off the unforgiving
concrete dock. The pasarelle then spans this gap allowing you to go ashore.
To avoid the lazy line getting fouled in the propeller we cast these off
first and let them sink, meanwhile we slip the stern lines and then motor
gently away from the dock, with a touch of bow thruster if necessary to keep
us away from our neighbouring yachts which are similarly moored either side
of us. The bow thruster is a powerful electric motor which drives two
propellers fitted in a tunnel in the bow of the boat under the water line.
These are operated with a switch at the steering pedestal and a short burst
in either direction thrusts the bow from side to side. The reason for this
invaluable device is that with one rudder and one propeller, the only way to
achieve steerage is to create a flow of water over the rudder - and this
requires speed. At slow speed, the bow thruster comes into its own and
allows you to manoeuvre at slow speed in port. Juno's bow thrusters are very
powerful and as we try and slip quietly away in the early morning, one short
burst of the thrusters blasts out from under our bows, startling nearby
seagulls and announcing our departure to the world.

So much for a day in the life of Juno. We have barely left the dock and i
have run out of space. Who was the Roman general who, having written a long
report of his latest campaign, apologised and said that he hadn't had time
to write a short one? Answers please by email to yachtjuno {CHANGE TO AT} mailasail {DOT} com.
Prizes will be awarded - even if only in appreciation of you ploughing
through my turgid prose. Today is Paul Windsors birthday so if you have
forgotten there is still time to buy that witty card and a gift in keeping
with his advancing years.

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