Farewell from Graham
Wild Carol does Australia
John and Fiona Fraser
Sun 26 Jun 2011 09:54
|
38:41.45N 9:25.1W
Well folks, this is it .. the wrap up blog of GC in
the port of CASCAIS.
It is 23:30 on Saturday 25th and we have just
returned to Wild Carol after an evening ashore. ( though some might say it
is 02:00 hrs on Sunday the 26th - sceptics such as they are ... )
I cannot remember all the stuff that I forgot.. but
here is a brief summary of the things I should have mentioned ...
We sailed away for a year and a day to the land
where the bong tree grows....which roughly translated means that we left
Scotland and sailed to Portugal.
With pots of honey and lots of money, wrapped up in
a five pound note ... again this really means we had lots of great food and
plenty dosh to ensure a pleasant sojourn ..
Then something about a pea green boat ... but my
memory fails at this point so suffice to say that this refers to the white and
blue Wild Carol ...
It just goes to show that there is poetry in
everything and that life can be kind at times....
I was told that we had never mentioned our meal in
Falmouth .. I thought I had ... but perhaps not .... anyway - we had a meal in
Falmouth......
It was in a wee restaurant and all I can say is
that on the 8th Day Big G invented Seafood. It was quite probably the best
seafood meal I have ever eaten ... phenomenally fine would not be an
overstatement. The Grilled Lobster with crab claw was out of this world and the
wine was excellent ... nothing in Aberdeen could have compared... which is the
rather sad part ...
Alex came on board in Falmouth ... very much as
expected .. except that his luggage - comprising of a single bag the size of
Hampshire ( for he hails from South of the Border ) - was
sufficiently large that it could have housed a herd of zebras, or kudu, or
Aberdeen Angus, or ... well I am sure you get the picture.....Alex also arrived
with some unspecified lurgy ... which laid him pretty low for much of the voyage
... but he had brief spells of lucidity and also managed to prepare some pretty
fine puddings ... Apple crumble and a fancy rice pudding to name them
....amongst other delicacies...
Actually - Alex and I were on watch together
and made great improvements on all the errors made by
the "B" Watch .... a point which will no doubt be wildly disputed
by Max and Iain ... but you folks will know I speak with a straight tongue .
Hey ho - anyway, as you know we dumped Alex and his
extremely large bag in La Coruna - and we departed with at least 3 feet more
freeboard...and sailed 2 days to Cascais in Portugal ... what a lovely place ...
great marina and all the facilities near hand .. and a short walk into town . If
you don't know the place ... Google it and you will see. The sun shone all day -
hitting 29Deg in the cabin ... and so the best thing was to head for town and
have a beer .. and so to town .... Then back to
the boat for a short time to change attire for returning to town for dinner (
evening meal !! ) .. we found a great square ... it was near the middle of
town and could therefore be described ( by some at least ) as the town square
....and after some delays we succeeded in securing a table at one of the
many restaurants - however, this entailed our having to consume several
unscheduled beers in passing the time.
The meal was excellent - seafood or steak ... and
of course the mandatory beers and red wine ... An accident occurred during the
early phase of the meal ... shortly after Max- "The Teller of
(mis)Fortunes" predicted such an event - in this case a glass of beer was
tipped over accidently ( or not ?? ) onto Iain ... I cannot tell a lie - it was
Max's fault... and again he will no doubt try to weasel his way out of it ...
but you know who to believe.
Somehow, en route back to the boat we shipmates
managed to get separated in the extremely busy crowds on the foreshore... and we
lost our fine Captain from our line of site ... We charted a reciprocal course,
undertook a finely tuned grid search of the area, and appealed to McMurdo via
Goonhilly for satellite tracking ... but to no avail ... we were distraught and
required some resolve to continue in our duty.. and headed for a bar. Only a
short time later we mustered sufficient resolve to soldier on ... back to a
silent ship ... but Hurrah !!! ... Our trusty Captain had navigated true and
reached the sanctuary of the vessel before us .. and obviously equally
distraught ... he had gone to bed to mourn his apparent loss of a most trusty
and loyal crew .....
Well, now I am alone in the saloon and all I can
now hear is Max snoring like a buzz saw in the forepeak, and the lads aft in the
vast Owners Suite are rather silent ... I am packed up and ready for a taxi at 6
a.m. to take me to Lisbon Airport and the Flight home... must say it grieves me
to leave, as all this shipboard malarkey was working out rather well...
but I have chores to do - logs to cut and stuff to potter at ... and then
it is back to work.. I had a great voyage .. managed to teach lads a few
tricks along the way ... and thoroughly enjoyed the company and the passage...
So until the next voyage .....Adios, Hasta Luego,
.....and something about a runcible spoon ....GC.
Thanks John for inviting me ... Max, Iain and Alex
... I really enjoyed it all ....See you back home on Scottish soil...or perhaps
on the Spanish Main ...( or perhaps that should be the Spanish Med....
)
    |