About half way there. Ish.
DecaDance's Web Diary
Chris White and Jeanna Coleman
Mon 27 Jun 2011 07:22
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Position: 37:15.88N 001:19.67W
- Somewhere on South Coast of Spain. Still.
Yesterday was the best day we've ever had in terms of
sailing although this two steps forward, one step back business is very
frustrating, I'll have grown a beard by the time we get there, never mind
Chris. The winds conspired against us trying to scoot along the coast at
Mojacar, the closest we got was 6nM. We waved anyway.
The winds dropped a little at night making for
gentle, peaceful sailing. There's no such thing as peace on the
VHF radio around here though. When Chris sailed from Tenerife to Gib he
told me that the Moroccan fishermen (they may not have been Moroccan or
fisherman but Chris, quite understandably, is harbouring a grudge against
them at the moment so they get the blame for everything) spend all night on
channel 16 chatting and playing music and generally blocking the airwaves.
It's not that I didn't believe him, I did, but it's not until you witness
it yourself that you realise how much their behaviour actually beggars
belief.
Since we've left Gib I've heard the banter and music
every night but last night the nutters were out in force. The music
included - no word of a lie - Old MacDonald, some rock 'n'roll and a cheesy love
song I'd never heard of. Bearing in mind that channel 16 is the
international distress channel, monitored by the coastguards and
the channel you would use to transmit a Mayday; if you started to sink at
the beginning of Old MacDonald you'd have to pray that the current recession has
reduced the Old Chap's going-concern to a smallholding.
The insults like "I can't see you, but I can smell
you," prompting "Monkey Monkey, no mama, no papa, Monkey, Monkey" and
bursts of music were infinitely preferable to
when whoever-they-are got bored at about five in the morning and
transmitted minutes and minutes of radio static time and time again
making me want to gouge my eyes out.
Anyway, earlier on, following the burst of cheesy music,
a very officious sounding American female (think female version of Jack
Nicholson in A Few Good Men) commanded, "This is an open frequency, do
NOT transmit music". Big mistake. One second later there was a very,
very long, very loud blast of what I can only decscribe as music you would
hear in a medina. This was immediately followed by a transmission in a
sing-song voice (Jack Nicholson again, "Heeeeere's Johnny!"). "Woooman,
War Woooman. She got guns." Pause. "And teee-teeees." I
nearly fell overboard.
So if there's something in the papers tomorrow about the
imminent start of World War III eminating from problems between the North coast
of Africa and the South coast of Spain, you heard it here first
folks.
This is Jeanna Coleman, DecaDance news, the South coast
of Spain. To follow our route in real time, track our AIS
signal on marinetraffic.com
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