The companionway washboard in cockpit table mode

There were three of us sitting in Samsara’s cockpit as the sun went down over Spanish Water in Curacao . That was when the conversation turned to the size of the cockpit.

Well, it would do, given the size of said cockpit and the fact that there were three of us in it with the table up (actually the companionway washboard balanced on the tiller in its alternative role as a repository for coffee cups, beer bottles, breakfast, and – as I sit under the awning writing this – the laptop and a cup of tea).

It does mean there was even less room for the three of us because, in order to stop the rudder moving as yet another giant RIB roared past with 20hp on the back and the remote throttle all the way forward, the tiller had to be immobilised by means of a wooden strut and its opposing shock cord made off on the headsail cleat.

It works rather well. I always did want a cockpit table.

But it does mean there is only room for three.

The other two were Caroline and Fred, a Dutch couple in a 42footer who had adopted me when I arrived and drove me into Willemstad for Immigration, Customs and the Harbour Authority (to tell me where to anchor). The least I could do was invite them aboard for a beer.

“Did you ever think you would like a bigger boat?” Caroline asked, by way of making conversation (she was jammed on the far side of the table. It could have been worse, she could have been on the side with strut and the shock cord.

“No, never,” I told her. “There are a lot of advantages to a small boat. I can lift the anchor in one hand to bring it on deck (and most people would still consider it over-sized).

“I can turn round in marinas without giving everyone heart attacks.

“I can climb the mast without chickening out before I get to the top.”

“Everything is cheaper – including the boat herself…”

And all of this has become a talking point in the beach bars of the Caribbean – and the Tuamotus, for all I know, and the marina terraces all the way up the Hamble…and certainly Uncle J’s hamburger joint in Spanish Water where last night I sat drinking Heineken with a Englishman, a Dutchman and a German – and no, this is not the beginning of a joke.

Instead, we discussed big boats – very big boats. In particular, the tragedy of the Bayesian, the superyacht that capsized in a totally unexpected waterspout off the coast of Italy, drowning 12 people including her owner, tech mogul Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, who was just about to start at Oxford.

Yes, it is a tragedy. But no, it would never have happened to our boats – smaller boats, sensible boats.

The facts will emerge eventually of course – in a court somewhere where reputations will weigh in the balance and a price will be put on life of young Hannah, so full of promise, whose body was the last to be brought up from the bottom.

But that’s what you get, we decided, when you want to have the second tallest mast in the world (well, obviously you don’t. You want the tallest – but the case isn’t difficult to argue).

And a mast that tall with however many sails all hoisted and ready to go would weigh as much as any one of our boats – certainly mine. I’m only about eight tonnes all up.

Then, there’s the other side – the retractable keel (which was, apparently, retracted). The keel is for stability – to make the boat pop back up if she gets knocked down. I got knocked down last autumn running into Storm Babet on the way to the Canaries.

So, the boat was full of water. So, the 10mm bolt holding the gooseneck together snapped like a twig, four metres of teak toe-rail popped off with nothing but the sheer force of water. Sails torn, fridge inverted (in contravention of the instructions) big spanner in the sink, a single kernel of sweetcorn lodged on the top of a picture frame…

But the boat popped back up. She carried on sailing – all the way to Las Palmas.

Nobody died. Nobody got sued.

Small boat, you see…

Small boats are the answer.

I never knew that saving my own life would be so complicated. Believe me, it is much easier to drown.

If you have read Old Man Sailing – or even Faster, Louder, Riskier, Sexier – you will be familiar with my attitude to drowning. I have devoted several pages to the alternative, which is to grow so old and decrepit that I end up in some care home with a jolly girl in a plastic apron saying: “Never mind, let’s get you cleaned up…”

Believe me, I could not bear it. Far better, I reasoned, to fall over the side and watch my boat sailing away on her course into the sunset. How long would I be able to tread water? Until night falls? And then I would float on my back and look at the stars and contemplate my life and whether or not I had lived it as best I could – and all the other things people think about when they know it will be coming to an end soon.

That was why, when I fitted out Samsara in 2017, I did not install an EPIRB. I told Tamsin and the children that, if I should be long overdue arriving at my destination, they were not to instigate a search and rescue operation. Either I would turn up or I wouldn’t.

Now I am 75. I heard the other day that my old friend Kim Sengupta, foreign correspondent (war correspondent, mostly) of The Independent had died – in his sleep, in his own bed in London, from a heart attack at 68.

Clearly, I’m supposed to be dead by now – EPIRBs are for younger people.

I did begin to wonder whether I should have one in the middle of the Atlantic in 2020 when I was escaping from the first COVID Lockdown. World trade was non-existent. Pleasure boating was banned. I realised just how alone I was out there, and that if I should need to be rescued, there would be nobody passing by for me to call for help.

But there was nothing I could do about it, so I stopped worrying.

Yet now I have bought an EPIRB. I went into St George’s on the bus (one of those wonderful 18-seater Grenadian buses that come along every three minutes and take you wherever you want to go… and sometimes kick you off because the driver has spotted 18 people waiting on the other side of the road wanting to the other way…)

I had been thinking about an EPIRB ever since the crossing from the Cape Verdes. It was late in the season because I had been delayed by the knockdown repairs in the Canaries and then there were the phone calls from Mindelo about the house sale (which went through in the end, you’ll be glad to hear).

 So, there I was halfway through the 2,131-mile Atlantic crossing when it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen a ship for three days – hadn’t even picked one up within 30 miles on the AIS, come to that. I certainly hadn’t talked to any other yachts (they were all anchored in Prickly Bay, their crews heading for Happy Hour in the One Love Bar).

I began to think logically about what would happen if I did hit The Container.

The Container is something that tends to preoccupy the singlehanded sailor if he lets his guard down. The Container is out there – and with the speed Samsara was chasing down her Westing even with the rudder held together with string (see The Voyage #2 book), hitting The Container would put an end to the narrative with a bang. Literally.

I had it all worked out: I would take to the liferaft. I had two hand-held VHF radios. I would wait until a ship came past and then I would call up (all tentative and apologetic) and ask “Could you give me a lift?

Except there were no ships – no yachts. In fact, not even any sealife or birdlife.

Just me.

I began to feel just a tiny bit anxious.

I was not anxious about falling over the side and seeing the boat sail away – that would be my own fault and all part of the plan.

But to run into The Container out of sheer bad luck when I was actually doing everything right – well, that just wouldn’t be fair. I could imagine the sort of language that would emanate from the little liferaft in the middle of nowhere.

I could imagine how much I would regret not having an EPIRB.

And now I’ve got Mr Musk’s Starlink, I bet I would use that to call for help – and then someone would have all the inconvenience of finding me from my last known position. I felt a certain obligation to make it as easy as possible for them.

Hence the EPIRB – and it’s my own fault for leaving it so long.

Buying it in Grenada means it is registered in the USA. This makes a difference because Samsara is a British vessel and I will have to get it reprogrammed to summon help from Falmouth rather than the US Coast Guard Maritime Search & Rescue Center in Virginia – where the inference is that my plight would be less of a priority than if I’d paid my taxes to Uncle Sam.

The nearest place to get it reprogrammed is Curaçao, 400 miles away.

Also, I discover that in order to screw it onto the bulkhead, I have to take it to pieces, and I cannot for the life of me work out how to put it back together again. On top of everything else, there is a hidden spring that throws the device out of its casing without warning and hits me smack in the face.

It would be just my luck to run into The Container and go to the bottom while still reading the instructions.

If you open up the engine casing and lie flat on the cylinder head and turn your head sideways so that your right ear gets folded back on itself by the underside of the companionway and your left ear is jammed against the oil filler cap, you can just reach Samsara’s fuel tank outlet.

I blame Alfred Walter Maley

Alfred Walter Maley it was who bought the bare hull fresh out of the mould in 1973, loaded it onto a lorry and took it up to Wolverhampton where he spent the next three years fitting it out.

Clearly, the first thing he did was put in the fuel tank. I bet he was really proud of it – the way he shoe-horned it in under the cockpit seat and then put in the calorifier so you can’t get at the tank by crawling round the back of the engine (which he put in next, so that you can’t get at the calorifier either.)

But Alfred Walter Maley was not totally without foresight. Clearly, he was capable of thinking ahead fifty years to the day I would find myself rolling through 40° in Prickly Bay on the South Coast of Grenada with my head in the engine – just able to reach the outlet and poke about with the long end of an Allen key.

The fuel tank was blocked again.

Readers who have been paying attention will know that this happened a month ago in Antigua. That time I spent £500 on a Nelson’s Dockyard engineer who I’m sure had promised he had a wonderful machine for sucking muck out of fuel tanks (in fact we just pumped out the fuel and then poured it back in again through a filter until it ran clear).

Well, obviously that didn’t get rid of all the muck because after a good deal of poking and jiggling with the Allen key, even more emerged – first in long disgusting strings and then in great glutinous globs.

Until finally it ran clear into the Tupperware I held underneath to catch the last few drops that were left after I had syphoned out all the fuel.

This, in itself, had been a bit of an operation because the original solution was to fill the tank to the brim in the hope that the sheer weight of fuel would clear any airlocks in the pipes.

My first thought was to buy extra fuel cans – it would still be cheaper than paying for another engineer.

Then I thought of borrowing them.

Then I thought of using water bottles. In the end, I had three of these stacked around the cockpit – as well as the 20-litre emergency water can. Surely they couldn’t be more than a dribble left in the tank…

But steadily, inexorably, the Tupperware was filling up to the brim. So, it was with some urgency that I hunted about for something to replace it. This was not as straightforward as it sounds (see “ears” above.)

While holding the very-nearly-full Tupperware with one hand, I flailed around with the other in the hope of connecting with something that might conceivably hold some diesel.

I found a coffee cup.

OK, so a coffee cup might not be the ideal receptacle for emptying a diesel tank but I was never a coffee purist – the slight tang of fuel oil might well complement Starbucks’ Pike Place roast.

Then all I had to do was change hands. Without removing ears.

The coffee cup filled remarkably quickly. So did the next one.

Quite clearly the tank was not as empty as I thought it was. I now had three coffee cups full of diesel, the Tupperware, of course, and also a pickle jar which I had emptied (complete with the last couple of pickles) into the bilge. Maybe the vinegar would cut the oil…

Meanwhile, I seemed to be out of receptacles and had my finger over the spigot rather in the manner of a little Dutch boy with a Saturday job in a garage. Thinking about it logically, you might assume I would be stuck there – that I might be stuck there forever, or at least until a wandering engineer with a hose and a bucket might happen by one his merry round.

But no. Feeling around with the spare hand, I chanced upon a piece of kitchen roll abandoned on the chart table. Scrunched up one-handed, this might be pushed into the spigot and block the flow long enough for me to get the wooden plug out of the bottom of the washing bucket (which used to be the rain-collection bucket in pre-watermaker days).

It worked. Retrieving my ears from their resting places, I dashed to the fo’c’sle, yanked out the wooden plug (with my teeth) dashed back and jammed it in place of the kitchen roll.

Now I had all the time in the world to empty the Tupperware, three coffee cups, pickle jar etc.

I am pleased to report that the engine now runs without a hiccup and the boat smells only mildly of diesel.

I wouldn’t come for coffee though.

I’m beginning to get the hang of Hurricane Season in Grenada. Nobody tells you about this, but it can all go downhill fairly quickly.

For one thing, nobody wants to go anywhere in case a hurricane comes along, so everybody has time on their hands.

This is why I spent so much time sitting in the cockpit with the man from the next boat drinking beer.

Well, not all the time, obviously. This afternoon I helped him put his mainsail back on – well, we tried to put it back on, made a total hash of it and then sat in the cockpit drinking beer.

This was not a particularly good look because it meant me tying my dinghy to his boat and leaving the crate of Carib lager I’d just collected on public display.

Yes, a crate – 24 bottles. When I presented 18 bottles at the Marina Mini Market checkout, the man behind the till asked why I wasn’t buying 24.

Well, the answer was that I had 18 empties for the recycling (except they don’t have recycling here).

But 18 bottles cost $81, he explained as if speaking to a five-year-old with their first pocket money, while a case of 24 is only $82 – and since these are East Caribbean dollars – a bottle of Carib “Premium lager from the heart of the Caribbean” works out at just 98p (and if you have a crate and bring it back full of empties, they’ll give you $10 as if this was England in the 1950s – which means your next bottle costs only 86p!)

Yes, thank you, I don’t mind if I do (and really, I couldn’t care less if we should have adjusted the grub screws on the mainsail batten tension before installing the luff plates.)

By the time I had rowed the leaky dinghy back to Samsara, there were all sorts of things, I really didn’t care about.

One of them was leaving the crate on the cockpit seat.

The boat rolled.

Gravity came into play.

… and, as I say, everything went downhill.

I think I’d better lie down.

I have always believed that every cloud has a silver lining – but only if you look for it. It has taken me two weeks to find the best thing about hitting the rock.

You may have read about the rock. I am pleased to say the damage is all fixed now and Samsara is back in the water. However, I did end up with a bill for $2,525 (£1,955) even if it does mean I now have a nice smooth bottom to the keel as well.

This has meant an adjustment to this month’s budget and definitely no tailor-made awning – here’s the one I made for $15. It does the job just as well.

And then I thought: How can I make up that money really quickly? Well, of course, there’s always a way. If you have read the “Desperation” chapter in my new book Faster, Louder, Riskier, Sexier (link at the end) or, more particularly the next chapter, “Luck”, you will know all about this.

So, I have given myself a month to make up that deficit. I have posted the following on Facebook:

“Who wants to make a quick £1,000? You will need a smartphone and a UK bank account in your name to receive the money on August 21st. Apply now with your name, occupation and UK phone number to john@oldmansailing.com. Enter £1,000 in the subject field. It worked for me. What have you got to lose?”

Of course, if any followers of the blog would like to apply, you would be most welcome. That way, we can both earn £1,000 in double quick time.

Meanwhile, if you would like to buy a book, it wouldn’t do any harm.

… and please leave it some stars. Stars are so important.

 https://amzn.eu/d/a7j8Re8

It’s raining in North Wales.

I know this because I just spoke to Dave Jones about my battery installation (I’m biting the bullet and getting Lithium). Dave was happy to talk. It meant he could stay in his van in the dry. Also, It was 14°C outside (feels like 12 says the BBC).

I mention all this because I’ve been moaning about it being 39°C in the cabin here in Trinidad – and coupled with 68% humidity, it’s been pretty unpleasant.

 Of course, this wouldn’t matter if I was anchored out in the bay with a breeze blowing down the hatch – or even on my way back to Grenada with 15kts on the beam. But, as you may be aware, I hit a rock last week and I’ve been on the hard while “Cow” (that’s his name) fixes the damage.

Also, they’ve parked me right next to the pilot boats’ shed where somebody leaves the lights on all night and as soon as it gets dark, every mosquito in Trinidad & Tobago comes to party on my doorstep.

I arrived on Tuesday. By Thursday I had learned that shutting both the companionway and the forehatch and fitting my one fly-screen to the skylight was not the answer. With sleep impossible, I took to getting up at 3.00 a.m. and making tea – until I discovered that that just made it hotter still. Since it would cost £102 to buy a special plug to fit the boatyard’s 220V socket, the batteries were precariously low and I’d turned off both fridges – so the beer was in the high twenties too.

But there’s always rum…

I do realise that drinking rum at 3.00 a.m. while watching old romcoms on Netflix is not really “living the dream”.

So, it was a significant moment on Saturday afternoon when Rob came by. I didn’t know Rob but I had met Anne in the laundry when I was depositing the last copy of Trident* and they have a Rival 38.

Rob climbed up the ladder for a cup of tea in the cockpit – the rest of the family were at the water park. He was astonished to discover I didn’t have air conditioning.

Air conditioning in a Rival 32…

“Not built-in air-conditioning. You can rent a mobile unit for $5 a day: A guy comes round and plumbs it into your hatch and bingo…”

Just my luck to discover this on a Saturday night.

I endured the Saturday night (John Thaw in “Bomber Harris” with Antigua Gold – a refined and mellow rum). Then on Sunday night, I moved into the West Palm Hotel. This was an extravagance I know, but it was only for one night and the air conditioner over the door was set to 17°C.

Now I’m back aboard and the cabin temperature is a pleasant 27°C (it’s 41°C in the shade outside). Another benefit of air conditioning is that the pressure of the cold air being pumped into the boat gets forced out of the cracks around the companion, so the bugs just get blown back where they came from.

If there’s any justice, it will have stopped raining in North Wales too…

*Trident in the laundry: This is the novel I wrote in 1983 and finally published on Amazon when its theme of Russia meddling in other countries’ elections, an “America First” President in the White House and a Corbyn-like figure installed in Downing Street suddenly seemed more credible.

I formatted it myself and very amateurish it looked. I’ve since had this done professionally and the book sells steadily to people who want to test Tamsin’s theory that I can’t write fiction because I’m not interested in other people (but you’re good when you’re writing about yourself).

Then, a few months ago, I found five copies of the original edition mouldering under one of the forward berths and decided on this idea of leaving them in marina laundries. I write a message on the fly-leaf asking people to leave the book in another laundry when they’d finished with it – and would they like to contact me and tell me where it’s got to? It’s like sending out messages in bottles.

By Sunday, Anne’s bookworm son, Sampson, had snaffled it and read it cover to cover – and, moreover, declared that he liked it.

Since I never waste an opportunity to plug a book, here it is: https://a.co/d/079DQuMq

 Hurricane Beryl had just crashed through Carriacou and taken a side-swipe at the Grenadines as she passed. I was in Trinidad’s Scotland Bay a hundred miles to the south watching it all on YouTube.

I had joined the exodus and was feeling exceptionally pleased with myself.

Here’s a tip: Never feel too pleased with yourself.

The next morning, I puttered back to Chaguaramas to complete Trinidad and Tobago’s byzantine customs and immigration process (How many people have died on the voyage other than as the result of an accident?)

I knew the way – just round the corner, round Delgado Point where the buoy’s missing, and someone has helpfully posted the fact on the Navionics Chart. Two miles round the corner was no trouble. I had just dodged a hurricane…

That was when I hit the rock. The rock that is clearly marked on the chart. The chart that I was not looking at because I’ve just got Starlink and had flicked over to Facebook to look at pictures of all the boats piled up like spilikins on the hard at Tyrrell Bay.

In other words, I wasn’t paying attention to the job in hand. It’s something I do a lot – have done all my life. People called me a dreamer (one of the kinder explanations).

What I say to myself when I knock a chunk out of a boat has not always been so forgiving. Hitting a rock at four knots is just the sort of thing I would beat myself up about for days. Samsara certainly didn’t deserve to lose a great scrape of gelcoat from the leading edge of the keel. Now she’ll have to come out for repair – more expense.

More reason to berate myself for the fool that I am.

Except I don’t do that anymore.

Now I know there is a reason for it – this not paying attention, these temporary absences from real life. This is classic ADHD.

Get over it.

If you would like to read about the other absurdities (and hilarities) that I lay at the door of this ridiculous mental kink. I have written my life story – now that I understand it. You can find it on Amazon. It’s called Faster, Louder, Riskier Sexier – Learning to love ADHD.

And if I do say so myself, it’s a cracking read.

But then I would say that, wouldn’t I? So, don’t take it from me. Take it from the first couple of reviewers.

One says: “I’ve read a few of John’s books and I read his blog, this book is his best work yet – in my opinion! “

Another writes: “This is a wonderful memoir and a great read… John writes with the style of a top journalist and the honesty of a great memoirist.”

https://amzn.eu/d/00WelhNb

The Great Escape from Grenada to Trinidad

Three days ago I left Dominica because there was a tropical disturbance 1,500 miles away. Now I’m approaching Trinidad where the weather forecast for tomorrow is “a gentle breeze”.

For the Grenadines – just 100 miles to the north – it is: “Hurricane Beryl will develop into a Major Category 3 Hurricane with life-threatening winds of 150km/hr and higher gusts. Major storm surge likely…”

Oh look, in the time it’s taken me to write that, Beryl has graduated to “Extremely dangerous Category 4 Hurricane” with wind speeds of 209-251 km/hr.

Jogging along against the Equatorial current so that I’m really only making two knots towards my destination, I know all this stuff because I have Starlink.

Starlink, if you’re not familiar with it, is the satellite communications system that is the practical by-product of Elon Musk firing off all those rockets.

When I wrote The Voyage books (#1 & #2), part of the charm was supposed to be “No contact with the shore, no high-frequency radio or satphone. No weather forecasts, no texts from loved ones. No news…”

I had books on my Kindle, films downloaded onto Amazon Prime. I told the family when to expect me (but not to raise the alarm if I was late). As for weather forecasts: My view was always to get a good forecast before you leave and once you’re out there, you get the weather you get…

And this was fine before weather apps and hurricane trackers and Mr Weatherman on YouTube. But an iPhone needs the internet. Until now, this meant a SIM card – and in the Caribbean, a different SIM card for every island… and even when you’ve got one, it’s not going to work in the remote anchorages, so you end up in a beach bar trying to make WhatsApp calls in competition with wall-to-wall reggae.

Yet, for the same price (cheaper in many cases) you can get Starlink’s unlimited high-speed internet – blisteringly high-speed, actually. We’re talking 172mbps – and all you need is a stylish white box full of clever electronics and a dish the size of an airline tray table.

The Starlink dish (top right), with the solar panel and wind charger.

Chiefy in his perch on top of the Starlink router.

Starlink has been a revelation: As long as I have battery power, I can leave it switched on and people can call me whenever they like – even my son Owen at six o’clock in the morning because he’s buying his first house and forgot about the time difference. I can decide, on a whim, that Hollywood on Netflix is brilliant and download the whole series.

Admittedly, once away from shore, I do have to opt for the pay-as-you-go tariff – but even that is worth it for my daily fix of The News Agents podcast (so I can sit with my face in my hands, not daring to peek between my fingers in case Joe Biden’s geriatric mumbling turns out to be real…)

And I can follow Beryl in real time – from her tiny beginnings as a “tropical disturbance” to her blossoming into a genuine life-threatening Category 4 force of nature. If I’d known she was going to end up like this, I’d have been a lot more frightened in the first place – but I’m a hurricane virgin. The one thing I did know was “Go South” and “Go Now”.

Admittedly, I had a long conversation with an old hurricane hand at last autumn’s Ocean Cruising Club party in Gran Canaria. “Hurricane preparation” he explained, is a last resort when you’ve left it too late. Even then: “Don’t just take off every scrap of canvas, everything on deck, the boom, anything you can unscrew. Take down your halyards. Do you know how much windage there is in a halyard? Now count how many you’ve got…”

Yet on Facebook, someone was asking whether he should leave the canvas doors of his cockpit enclosure open for the wind to blow through…

Someone else was saying she wanted to get clear but her partner wouldn’t leave because they’d paid for a month’s mooring…

If you flick back a few posts to ”Barbuda” you can see what Hurricane Irma did to a brand-new beach hotel. Imagine what it’s going to do to the guy in Grenada Yacht Club Marina who asked if he should put out an anchor or extra lines to the dock…

Meanwhile, the AIS screen shows a stream of yachts heading for Trinidad’s Boca de Manos. North Coast Radio checks us in – breaking into my reverie with crackling Channel 16 updates. I’ll wait until I’m ten miles off. Yes, I filed my Float Plan online but no, I’ll need to dig out the printer for the Maritime Declaration of Health (Has anyone died on board otherwise than as the result of an accident?)

I’ll keep you posted.

The Great Escape from Grenada to Trinidad

This started as a particularly pedestrian blog post.

Now I’m writing it sitting on the leeward berth, the laptop sliding off my knees as we race south – and it is a race: Me and Samsara against the “tropical disturbance” which may or may not develop into a tropical storm or even a hurricane. One way and another, it is not to be trifled with.

But it is stomping across the Atlantic at 20 knots – straight for me.

I am relieved to report that the map shows it is still 1,500 miles away. But there is no doubt that it is coming and since I am rather new to sailing the Caribbean during the hurricane season, I have convinced myself that it is coming for me!

So, this is not going to be a post about how these delightful islands are becoming as familiar as my local high street. I was going to say that Instead of the Co-Op for Pringles and Timpson’s for more front door keys, it is St Lucia for the watermaker and Dominica for the Kindle repair. Actually, it was supposed to be Martinique for the watermaker repair but the company there was useless (never returned calls, didn’t acknowledge emails, had no idea when they might get round to it…)

So, as you might try the cycle shop if you can’t get what you want in the hardware store, I sailed over to St Lucia where Jon White of Regis Electronics fixed it in no time at all (and told me I was operating it all wrong).

I stayed just long enough to give it a quick test in the marina and drink several bottles of Piton aboard a big boat called Stargazer with some lovely people called Andy, Jo and Jo’s sister Vicky. Jo had given Andy Old Man Sailing and now Andy gave me all the electronic charts for the whole world!

After that, it was time for a proper sea trial of the watermaker.

Also, the Kindle needed to go back to the repair shop in Dominica. They said they’d fixed it a month ago – and it packed up the very next day on the way to Antigua.

So now – by this somewhat circuitous route – I was back in Dominica, anchored off the fishermen’s shacks in Roseau and Maria at Compusol said to come back tomorrow.

Then the Hurricane Tracker app opened with a big red X. A red X means “seven-day cyclone chance greater than 60%”.

I turned to Facebook (when you don’t know what to do, turn to Facebook.)

The advice was as universal as only Facebook advice can be:

Get into the mangroves in Martinique.

Get into the mangroves in Antigua.

Wait and see.

Go south now.

Watch YouTube videos about hurricane preparation.

Pray.

“Go South” is the standard advice. Even I know that – but the predicted track for this disturbance covered the coast of Venezuela. There wasn’t any gap to “go south” into. Maybe I should go north instead – there was plenty of room to the north.  Come back when it’s all over… The Facebook seers didn’t even dignify this with a comment.

Meanwhile, I had to change the freshwater pump or I wouldn’t be able to flush the watermaker even if it was working. The pump is under the sink. Changing it took the whole afternoon. With the cabin temperature at 38°C, tropical disturbances didn’t seem so urgent.

But by five o’clock, a new Windy prediction showed the storm passing north of Grenada. Suddenly Trinidad was shown in blue which means “light winds”. Now it made perfect sense to go south.

This was on Thursday evening. The disturbance/storm/hurricane wouldn’t hit until Monday afternoon. That gave me three and a half days to do 300 miles. With a trade wind on the beam, I could average 100 miles a day, no trouble.

I did spend some time working out that if I left in the morning, I’d still have three days and that way I could stock up with beer and buy a 7mm spanner which, I had discovered during the water pump replacement, I am lacking.

You can just see the headlines, can’t you: “Sailing pensioner drowned in hurricane. Beer and spanner blamed.”

So, I left. Waving to the Frenchman anchored next door, I pulled up the anchor and the sails all at the same time and hastened south.

The Frenchman raised his glass. The French don’t worry about hurricanes. Why do you think nobody bothers to translate sang froid?

And so, as I say, here we are on target, tramping along at five knots with the super zero flying in nine knots apparent – 122 miles to the turning point at the bottom of Grenada. ETA Trinidad midday Sunday.

I wonder if I can buy a new Kindle in Trinidad?

And a spanner?

A big thank-you to Tom Fisher and Marco Schaal who, between them, cleared up all the errors in my new book The Voyage #2: Falmouth to Grenada.

Tom managed much of this while sailing from Bermuda to Nova Scotia.

Neither has accepted the offer of a refund, insisting instead that I put it towards the boat maintenance kitty (or the booze locker).

What this means is that, if you buy the book now, you get the new edition which includes all the words – it’s strange how many managed to get lost on the way.

And thank you also to the 37 people who have bought it already – and this is where I have a favour to ask. If you enjoyed the book, would you mind awfully opening up the orders page of your Amazon account and awarding it some stars (perhaps even writing a review)? These things are so important in getting a new book launched.

I now have seven on Amazon. In particular, I would recommend my autobiography Faster, Louder, Riskier, Sexier: Learning to love ADHD. I really believe this is the best of the lot (it’s certainly fat enough). I’ll put a link below, just to be helpful…

 https://amzn.eu/d/a7j8Re8