Everyone is talking about ADHD – it’s in danger of becoming boring. Don’t worry, the ADHD people will get bored first (being easily bored is one of the most common traits). A friend sent me this piece from The Guardian because I “came out” as an ADHD freak in May last year.

Well, I didn’t so much “come out” as burst into the street proclaiming that my condition was in the 1% of the most severe (which must make me extra special).

More than that, I launched a book which had been seven years in the writing – ever since I was told I had this mental kink which affects 5% of the world’s population (or to put it another way, 1.5 billion people).

I make no excuses for plugging the book because I am intensely proud of it. It was the hardest thing I have ever written and people have been kind enough to say it is the best.

And then, on Christmas Day, an Amazon customer called Mark took the time out of his festivities to write this review:

Mark

5.0 out of 5 stars Understanding life’s journey with ADHD

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 December 2024

Verified Purchase

Can’t believe how well this book explains ADHD and the journey through a life well lived …. It’s autobiographical pre-knowing about why certain life adventures and behaviours occurred and later it is all making sense of the diagnosis later in life. Explains the ordinary life many people have but special people have a totally different life as they are wired in a way that means we all need to read this book …. Sad on a personal level but other aspects are rewarding … this book resonates with one.

Fair winds to those like John.

You can find it here:

https://amzn.eu/d/84V6JUb

In this episode we look at Trusting Your Anchor, getting a Rival 32 to do 15 knots and Death on the Foredeck, among other topics.

Please note that if you have subscribed to the podcast in the past, I have moved to the Acast platform, so if you wouldn’t mind subscribing again, you will continue to receive an email every time a new episode is uploaded

… and an apology, I should have made this clear: The Old Man Sailing podcast is a series of episodes of between 40 and 50 minutes reading through the Old Man Sailing blog from the beginning, along with selections from the books. It does not replace the blog – rather it is intended for people who want to listen rather than read. Episode 15 takes us up to 2020.
On new posts, you get the choice of reading or listening.

You met Arnold on the “Aruba to Santa Marta” post. Arnold is the mouse – and he’s still here.

Obviously, I knew from the beginning that he couldn’t stay – a mouse on a boat is a recipe for disaster – what with their habit of chewing through electric cables and (heaven forbid) inlet hoses. It’s amazing to think that something so small could sink the boat – but he can – and unless I can find a way to get rid of him, he may well do just that.

My first thought was that I would get one of those humane mouse traps. I looked them up online: clear plastic, so he won’t feel claustrophobic while waiting for me to release him into the marina rubbish dump.

The dump is not such a good idea, since it is teaming with cats – but it is better than the skips in town which have been stripped of anything edible by the street people who live around them (sometimes, I believe, in them.)

It didn’t make any difference because the man in the hardware store had never heard of a “humane mouse trap” – even when Google Translate explained that it was a trap that did not kill the mouse.

What was the point, the man in the hardware store wanted to know, of a mousetrap that does not kill the mouse?

This gathered quite a crowd around my phone: A mousetrap that did not kill the mouse? Surely the microchips were mistaken…

It’s just as well that I learned early on to say “I’m English”. It explains a lot over here.

Since I could hardly wait for Amazon to deliver a humane mousetrap to Colombia, in the end, I bought the lethal version. Actually, it’s more of a rat trap – about twice the size of the ones we have at home and with a spring that really needs both hands. I baited it with a piece of mushroom (Arnold has demonstrated that he’s partial to mushrooms).

The next morning the mushroom was gone. The trap was still set and there was no sign of Arnold.

So, I looked up advice on YouTube and tried the next night with peanut butter – peanut butter cannot be removed delicately by tiny hands. It has to be licked off which is more likely to lead to a sticky end.

Arnold licked what he could safely remove and left the rest. It reminded me of leaving mince pies for the reindeer.

So, it was back to the hardware store, this time to buy rat poison. I really didn’t care for this at all – a quick end is one thing. Condemning Arnold to a lingering death – and then having him decompose in the farthest recesses of the bilges seemed most distasteful.

But needs must. I topped the peanut butter feast with a dessert of sodium monofluoroacetate, strychnine, zinc phosphide, aluminium phosphide, elemental phosphorus, arsenic, and barium carbonate. It came in the form of a sort of blue cake.

The next morning I got really quite excited on discovering that although, once again, the trap had not been sprung, almost all the peanut butter had gone and – best of all – the blue cake was missing from the top of little spike which is supposed to set the thing off at the slightest touch.

Or not. It turned out that the cake had been removed most carefully – and disposed of at a discrete distance from the feast.

I’m getting fed up with this. Tonight, I shall make a crumble out of the blue cake and mix it with the peanut butter. Surely, even a mouse as cunning as Arnold could not separate the two – which means he will probably leave the whole serving and help himself to some electric cable with a side order of plumbing.

Meanwhile, any advice would be gratefully received.

It’s an awkward thing, this failing to learn from experience.

But it does give me something to write about.

Or it would if the consequences did not risk offending readers of a delicate disposition.

I forgot that you mustn’t put kitchen roll down the loo on a boat.

So, now the head is blocked and we are still 200 miles from Santa Marta. Moreover, this part of the Caribbean is notoriously rough (something to do with the trade winds pushing the water round the top of South America). Anyway, the boat is rolling through 60° every two seconds and the prospect of contorting myself in the back of the plumbing to clear the joker valve doesn’t bear thinking about.

So, I have made other arrangements – and no, you’re quite safe, I’m not going to describe them here.

But this has meant that I thought: “Now, if this was a long trip, it would make good copy for a “Voyage” book (if you don’t know about the voyage books, I’ll put a link to the latest at the end.)

Then, I thought: “Why does it have to be a book? It could be a blog post.”

Because, yes, this trip from Aruba to Colombia is a bit of a voyage.

It doesn’t need to be. Johannes and Ana on the next boat in the anchorage off Surfside Beach had planned to do it in less than 48 hours. Why didn’t I sail in company? It would be good to have a buddy boat… especially for this passage.

Ah yes, the passage around Punta Gallinas is famous in sailing circles – or at least in the circles which pay attention. Had I not read what Jimmy Cornell said?

“You need to stay well offshore. The effect of the mountains deflecting the wind means you have to multiply the forecast by three times. That means a forecast of 15kts is going to create winds of 45ks – a full gale!”

Also, you need to stay well away from the coast of Venezuela to keep clear of the pirates. It used to be Colombian drug gangs who didn’t like witnesses that were the problem but now, with the collapse of the Venezuelan economy, the fisherman have turned to holding up boats and stripping them of valuables.

Johannes said that if we left on Saturday we would have a forecast of 5kts round the Cape (which would mean 15kts) and if we stuck to the 2000 metre line, that would keep us out of the way of the worst of the swell as well as the pirates.  Anyway, he was planning to turn off his AIS and just carry a forward-facing steaming light at night.

A lot of cruising boats “buddy up”. There’s the safety factor, obviously – and the social aspect of a schedule for radio checks.

But it’s not something I’ve ever done. Indeed, back aboard Samsara with a loose arrangement to leave in company after breakfast on Saturday, I began to feeling anxious.

Honestly, there was nothing to feel anxious about: This was a perfectly charming couple who had graciously invited me to sail with them round a particularly challenging part of the coast. I should accept, and be glad to do so.

So why was I getting in a state about it.

I had never experienced anything quite like it before. I found myself climbing out into the cockpit and then turning round and coming back, suddenly getting up and sitting down again, performing that trademark gesture which other people call “running your fingers through your hair” – something I gave up doing a long time ago.

I swore I was having palpitations. I was certainly sweating – but with the air temperature of 35°C and humidity at 68%, that’s no surprise. All the same, anybody might think I was having a panic attack.

I looked up panic attacks: “Most people experience panic attacks once or twice during their lifetimes”.

On the Friday, Johannes came round to make the final arrangements and to invite me ashore for a kebab. I’m afraid I was full of excuses. I didn’t think there would be enough wind on Saturday – the 2000 metre line was only 50 miles off the Cape. I always leave 100 miles just to be sure. I had a few last minute things to do…

It sounded lame – like the flurry of embarrassment and excuses when the owner of the large catamaran in Falmouth asked me to take his son to Jersey because he felt the lad needed some experience of small boats.

The fact is, as I told Johannes: “I just like being on my own. I’m used to it. I get all flustered if I have to think about other people. It’s odd, I know but…”

Johannes understood completely. He had been a singlehander before Ana and recalled a couple of embarrassing incidents himself when it came to other people.

And so, it wasn’t until the Sunday morning that I spent two hours readying the boat for sea – stowing the table, screwing down the cabin sole, securing the lockers against a capsize – and, at the same time, rigging the Super Zero because the windy app showed plenty of blue for “light winds”.

Waypoint One was 100 miles off the Cape – and also, coincidentally, 100 miles from Aruba. For the first time with Samsara, I sailed with the AIS switched off – one concession to the Venezuelan pirates. It did feel a bit peculiar at first, seeing the screen with just me on it, but then I thought back to the old days when we didn’t have identification beacons – when we set off and got lost for a bit until we found ourselves surprisingly close to our destination and the next thing anyone would hear from us would be that we’d arrived.

The feeling of isolation was the thing I liked best about it. If you’ve read Old Man Sailing, you’ll know my views on Health & Safety as it relates to Old People. If I’m overdue my family are under strict instructions not to raise the alarm – either I’ll turn up or I won’t.

But now I’ve got Starlink because I got fed up with SIM cards not working and the WhatsApp calls from waterfront bars being drowned out by full-volume reggae. However, clearly there’s more I need to know about it because when I tried to connect to find out whether the lightning I could see on the horizon was forecast to get in my way, the screen informed that my service was “restricted”.

This might be because I don’t really understand it yet and have confused “roaming” with “priority”. However, I suspect it might also have something to do with some of the rude things I’ve written about Elon Musk.

So, it turns out that this is a proper voyage after all – albeit one in miniature.

For a hundred miles until Waypoint One – and for another hundred to Waypoint Two – and so on as I skirted the Cape at a respectful distance, the boat rolled and swooped on her way and I eased back into the rhythm of the sea.

I am aware of having spent an entire afternoon just sitting in the cockpit watching the waves. I read two books in quick succession, stopped worrying about the news I was missing because, since the American election result, I have been avoiding all sources of news anyway.

Instead I have just some downloads from the Desert Island Discs archive. I think that if ever I’m invited (and I keep my list of eight records up to date just in case) I will take as my one luxury, the Desert Island Discs archive – or would that be considered just too sycophantic?

I have a passenger. I thought I saw a tail disappearing under the galley a couple of days ago. I even went as far as emptying out all the saucepans and taking up the floor but there was no evidence. Believe me, the last thing you want on a boat is an unwanted guest.

People talk a lot about cockroaches and the need to avoid bringing cardboard packaging onto the boat – you can see people unpacking all their supplies on the dock. But I’m sure this is a mouse.

To begin with I was worried it might be a rat – the rats in New York grow as big as cats. But now I’ve met him face to face and christened him Arnold. I call all my pets Arnold. It saves confusion.

Arnold appeared again tonight. It was three in the morning and I had just passed Waypoint Three and changed course for a point just ten miles from Santa Marta with an ETA of breakfast time tomorrow.

I was sitting on what is ostensibly the leeward berth (although, with the wind behind and the boat rolling, it doesn’t make much difference) when I caught a movement on the mast support where the clarinet is stowed. At first, I thought it was a moth because it seemed to flit to the bookcase. But then, there it was again. This time I got up and went to investigate and there – as large as life and right under my nose, clinging to the ligature was the bold-as-brass rodent staring straight back at me with an expression that seemed to say: “Oh yeah, so you’ve found me. Bully for you. What are you going to do about it?”

It was a good question – particularly since, before I had any chance of answering, the visitor was down the mast support faster than the eye could follow, hopped into the head and disappeared under the plumbing. I know how inaccessible that is because that’s where I’m going to have to go sometime soon to clear the joker valve.

Of course, I know what you’re going to say: Why didn’t I grab him while I had the chance?

Well, my first thought was that, despite Arnold being a pet and all that, mice can carry rabies can’t they? The one thing I know about rabies is that the only way to confirm a case of rabies is from the symptoms when it’s too late or by a post-mortem, (when it’s definitely too late). This means that if you go to a doctor with even a suspicion you might have been bitten by a rabid creature, they wheel you off straight away for a full course of very unpleasant injections with very long needles into the stomach.

So, I think it would be better if I don’t try and handle him until we’re better acquainted. Consequently, I have my very large and lightweight check shorts from Grenada to hand (they’ve been to hand the whole way, since I haven’t worn a stitch since leaving Aruba). The plan is to throw these over him and, before he knows what’s going on, bundle him into the big saucepan; which now sits ready on the stove – the lid close by so that the whole operation can be carried out in the blink of an eye.

Quite what I’m going to do with him then rather depends on when I catch him: If this was day three of a voyage to the other side of the world, obviously I would have to construct a suitable home for him (two plastic storage baskets came to mind, until I thought about how quickly he could chew his way out.)

The tales of mice chewing their way through boats are enough to put you off keeping one entirely. Apparently, they love electric cables (what about my brand new lithium batteries?) If they get their teeth into a seawater inlet hose, they can sink the boat.

For a moment there, I considered that Santa Marta is quite a big town. I’m sure they sell rat poison. But that idea soon went the way of a one-way trip to Davy Jones’s locker. Instead I’ve got this idea of releasing him into the wild – of taking him ashore in the big saucepan and releasing him into a pile of junk in the corner of the boatyard like Audrey Hepburn turning “Cat” out of the taxi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

In the meantime I keep thinking I see movement in the corner of my eye and reaching for the big shorts.

Here’s a law of nature: The bigger the project, the more something is likely to go wrong.

I had been a bit surprised that when I ran the engine to power the watermaker, it didn’t also boost the batteries – after all, the watermaker only draws 16amps – the alternator produces 70 or 80. Where was all that going? The starter battery voltage was up at 14V, the DC/DC charger should have been putting the excess into the lithium bank – I’m sure that’s what it did when we tested it in the marina.

Now – nothing.

Of course this isn’t really a problem – with only 70 miles to go, I should be in by tomorrow and although the wind has fallen light and the sky is slightly cloudy, the percentage charge has never dropped by more than 5% a day. I still have 48% and even if that did fall to zero, it would be no worse than your mobile phone going flat.

But a bit concerning all the same – especially since I can’t find the DC/DC charger. I remember seeing it – but that was before Rob installed it and, although he was most meticulous in keeping me up to speed with where he was putting everything, I’m afraid a lot of it went over my head. The only place I haven’t looked is in the locker under the liferaft and although I could get it out at sea, it’s a whole lot easier in the marina and, anyway, I’d need to have Rob on WhatsApp at the same time to tell me which warning light means what and I can’t do that with no Starlink.

It’ll just have to go on the list – underneath clearing the joker valve and – since yesterday – unwrapping the topping lift from where it’s got itself hooked around the radar reflector.

Meanwhile, I’m slipping along at two knots with the super zero and, with 60 miles to go, the plotter hasn’t even thought about an ETA, so I have plenty of time and have looking at the Grand Plan – which would have been more fruitful if I had a better knowledge of geography. I thought Guatemala was south of Honduras. Now it turns out to be north.

This is awkward because HMG (that’s His Majesty’s Government) has suddenly decided that citizens of Honduras must have a visa to enter the UK. Quite reasonably, the government of Honduras has reciprocated – and the only places I can get a Honduran visa are London or, apparently, the two neighbouring countries of Nicaragua (to the south) and Guatemala (north). I have been warned off Nicaragua as being distinctly dodgy and getting to Guatemala’s Rio Dulce and then taking a bus 200 miles to Guatemala City seems a bit of a trek – particularly since I would then have to sail back the way I’d come to get to where I was going in the first place: that jewel of the Honduran coast, the Bay Islands.

And if I’m not going there, then is Mexico a practical proposition?

Besides, who wants to go to Mexico now I’ve opened The Panama Cruising guide which was waiting for me in the giant Amazon parcel on arrival in Aruba. This 500-page full-colour doorstop is the Panama cruiser’s bible. The author, Eric Bauhaus has devoted his life to his subject (including no fewer than 50 transits of the Panama Canal) and it is quite clear that I could spend my whole three-month visa in the country and still not scratch the surface.

Come to that, I could spend three months in the San Blas Islands.

This enormous archipelago of the most delightful tropical anchorages and exquisite coral reefs is effectively a country in its own right – although the Guna people who live there don’t have much truck with such modern notions as borders or immigration forms – although visitors at each island are expected to introduce themselves to the local chief and behave with the utmost decorum.

For more than five hundred years, the Guna have preserved their culture and traditions in the face of progress. For instance, instead of TV and the Internet, the whole village gathers every evening to hear the wisdom of the elders – with selected members of the audience delegated to shriek if it gets too boring.

What did I say about all pets being called Arnold? Of course, there are exceptions – all swallows are called “Sammy”.

Sammy the swallow arrived for the last leg and has been flitting about the boat all day, first on the guardrails and graduating eventually to the companionway where I had to nudge him out of the way every time I wanted to get in or out. He ended up sitting on my shoulder like a pirate’s parrot. Should I call him Captain Flint instead?

Here’s something I never wondered before: It used to be said that everybody had a dream about meeting the Queen – and, of course, it would be in the most bizarre circumstances. Do they now have dreams of meeting the King?

Anyway, tonight it was the Queen – which is why I am sitting here at midnight with a cup of tea brewing and the laptop fired up because, as anyone familiar with the voyage books will know, one of the unexpected benefits of long distance singlehanded voyaging is the most wonderful and vivid dreams.

I didn’t recognise the Queen at first – not since she was made of glass – and so when I bumped into her (quite literally, was pushed into her in the crowd outside the Savoy) there could be no doubt because she was wearing a small golden crown. It was most noticeable against the wine-red glass of her face and her vivid blue glass dress.

She was just straightening up as if someone had punched her in the stomach (unlikely if she was made of glass) and although she looked at me, her face was expressionless and, I am horrified to say that I didn’t react either.

However, I was immediately buttonholed by a typically pompous palace aide who informed me (in tones which suggested there must be some mistake) that I had been appointed as advisor to Her Majesty.

I must have said I would think about it or some such because, practically choking on his indignation, he blustered something about it being a mystery why I had been offered the post in the first place. I rather enjoyed replying: “Ah, well now, it doesn’t really matter what you think, does it? Because I haven’t been appointed by you, have I? It’s rather more a matter of what Her Majesty thinks of me.”

All the same, I made a mental to bone up on who was who in the Palace hierarchy.

Buckingham Palace turned out to be a maze – not figuratively, but literally a maze: All the doors and walls were painted the same deep magenta and you could walk into any room and find yourself in a completely different (and unexpected) situation.

Mind you, that still didn’t explain how I was woken in the middle of the night by someone poking me in the ribs – and there was Her Majesty kneeling on the bed (in the flesh this time, and a very pretty young woman she was in her voluminous white nightgown leaning over the snoring Duke of Edinburgh and hissing: “I hope you realise that’s the King you’re lying next to!”

This time I was truly flustered. Babbling apologies, I shot out of bed – and then had to apologise all over again because I had called her “Your Majesty” which you’re not supposed to do after the first meeting. After that, it’s “Ma’am”.

I found my way back to my own room, telling myself that this was something I must never divulge to a living soul. It would be the ultimate brownie point. One thing I knew the Queen valued above all else was discretion, and if this got out, she would know about it in a flash.

Equally, if she did not get to hear about it, she would know I could be trusted – and that would protect me from any number of pompous flunkies.

It was just such an aide who looked down his nose at me later that morning and said: “Ah yes, Mr Passmore – an interesting CV… and I believe you have a quote-unquote ‘blog’. I shall have to read it.”

I had no doubt that the Queen had already read it – the question was, whether she had also read my one novel Trident, written in the 1980s but set 20 years into what was then the future, and featuring a monarch who the reader would assume was to be the then Prince Charles (with his young Queen – obviously Princess Diana). I was certain she would have read it, along with everything else.

I know this because at about that time, I really did cover a Royal Tour to Hungary. On the evening set aside on these occasions for the Royals to meet the press (effectively the foreign press – they are only too familiar with the British Rat Pack), I found myself suddenly presented to Her Majesty. Casting around for something to say, I seized on the little-known fact (little-known to me, at least) that the streets of Budapest had doubled for 1930’s Paris in the Maigret television series. I knew this because it was in the briefing notes prepared by the Palace Press Office.

“Yes,” said the Queen. “I know.”

Twenty miles short of Santa Marta the wind fell away and then settled as the gentlest headwind and I spent the rest of the time alternately motoring, castigating myself for motoring, attempting to sail but making hardly any progress, and then switching the engine on again.

As a deliberate distraction, I poked away at all the little green plus signs on the Navionics chart. These are comments left by users. Sometimes it’s just a depth sounding or a “good holding” comment but one of them turned out to be a veritable treasure trove. There must have been twenty or thirty extended reviews of the Santa Marta Marina and virtually all of them were wildly enthusiastic (if you ignore the coal dust from the commercial port or the williwaws blasting 35kt winds through the berths between November and April).

However, all of these people were visiting to explore the interior or leave their boats while they flew home. There was only one report of boatyard work, which was said to be ridiculously overpriced. The reviewer suggested people should push on to Cartagena.

Of course, this set me off down a rabbit hole, checking the distance to Cartagena, working out how I could send a text warning the family of the change of plan.

But then, what if the boatyard in Cartagena turned out to be no good? Heaven knows when I would find one in Panama, and I could hardly sail back against the wind to Santa Marta again.

No, better to check in, get a quotation and, if necessary, do some more research on facilities in Cartagena. Also, in Colombia, you don’t just go through the tedious and expensive check-in procedure once, but each time you enter a new province – and Santa Marta Marina takes care of all of that free of charge.

I could visit Cartagena by bus – stay a couple of nights. It would be an expedition. Also, I had vague notions of doing a month of intensive half-days at the Babbel language school there. But now I’ve discovered Michel Thomas’s audiobook course, maybe I won’t need to.

Meanwhile, somebody wrote and complained that The Voyage #1 ended too abruptly when I arrived – that they would have liked to know about the first beer in a waterfront bar etc…

I got into Santa Marta Marina at lunchtime full of plans for a very cold beer because I’d turned up the fridge to save electricity, only to have the marineros who took my lines tell me that I wouldn’t be able to get off the boat until the immigration departments had processed my visa.

And that wasn’t until eight o’clock at night.

Meanwhile, do you want to know the best thing about a cold beer in Colombia? It comes in a proper 330ml bottle and costs $2.30.

Aruba, delightful as it is, has a tourist economy, so they put a particular tax on alcohol (I paid $60 for a bottle of whiskey!) Even the the local Balashi beer which the bars serve in silly little 200ml bottles costs $7! An ice cream is $8!

So don’t you believe everything you hear about small boat cruisers in tropical climes “living the dream…”

Book links:

The Voyage #1 (4.5 stars): https://amzn.eu/d/4quFrCb

The Voyage #2 (4.8 stars): https://amzn.eu/d/cwDBADA

IMG_4125(Spoiler alert: This gets a bit technical.)

If you go to Renaissance Island, you are welcomed by the tallest flamingo. Honestly, it can look you straight in the eye as it makes peculiar Kraak-Kraak noises while hanging around outside the kiosk selling flip-flops and T-shirts with “Aruba: One Happy Island”.

But then Renaissance Island is not for just anyone. The first time I went there, rowing over in the dinghy from Surfside Beach, a uniformed security guard caught me before I got anywhere near the flamingo and explained that this was a private island and, when I asked whether I could pay to visit, added that it would cost me $120.

But now I’ve got a Renaissance Resort wristband and can go whenever I like on one of the Flamingo Pink launches that run a shuttle service from the Renaissance Marina next to the Renaissance Hotel. 

I am moored in the Renaissance Marina (right next to the Renaissance Casino) because at last I have found someone to instal my new Lithium batteries – and it has taken eleven days, so I thought I deserved a day on the beach and lunch at the the Papagayo Bar and Grill… and yes, I did have a Piňa Colada (I’ve discovered you can’t get a Bushwhacker anywhere outside the Virgin Islands).

But you’ll be wanting to know about the Lithium batteries.  Lithium batteries are a hot topic in cruising circles. I did consider them two years ago during the Big Refit – but had already spent so much on sails and the watermaker and the “cooker for life” that I felt I had to call a halt somewhere. Besides, Lithium batteries catch fire don’t they?

This is where it’s going to get boring. That’s why I put the spoiler at the top (but there’s a mesmerising video at the end, if you can make it that far.)

The difference between the boat blowing up and being able to have all the lights on at once is the difference between Lithium-ion batteries, like you have in your mobile phone and Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries which just cooked my dinner and still have enough juice to run all the lights and both fans since it’s still 30° in the cabin with 74% humidity.

And all without blowing up, apparently.

I first tried getting Lithium batteries in Trinidad and then Sint Maarten but there were difficulties over deliveries and hurricanes. Eventually a firm in Curacao said: “Just turn up, we install them all the time. We’ll fit you in, no problem. 

Four hundred miles later, it turned out they put solar panels on roofs (who told you we did boats?) There was a firm in Bonaire – but Bonaire meant going backwards … into the teeth of the tradewind.

That’s how I ended up in Aruba with Rob Fijn. Rob is a Dutchman (it’s a Dutch island) and he has a one-man electronics business called Solar4Me.

Normally, he works on big catamarans and 45footers with generators and dive compressors and space for this sort of thing. Nobody with a 32footer says they want 600amp hours of capacity (not counting the lead/acid for engine starting and the windlass).

They certainly don’t get a dreamy look in their eyes at the prospect of an induction hob.

It never ocurred to me that I could have an induction hob but you can have anything you like with a big enough inverter (2000W and its own fan).

Just think of it: No more trailing around gas depots with a 14kg Calor cylinder on your shoulder and then finding no one can fill it (they didn’t have a British connector on Aruba either.)

Admittedly, I am going to need 400W of solar panels to make the electricity in the first place and the welder who was going to build the frame for them cried off because of “personal problems”, so now I have to cover the 300 miles to Santa Marta in Colombia before I run out. The marina there says: “Yes, we can do that for you; do it all the time; got lots of people.”

Where have I heard that before?

Anyway, I threw out the extendable ladder that hasn’t extended since North Wales to make room in the cockpit locker for the trawler-sized master switch. The starter battery is in the tools locker – the big spanner now in the secret compartment of the forepeak where I always thought I might put the cocaine if I wasn’t so sure I’d get rumbled (I seem to have one of those faces which automatically assumes a guilty expression when confronted by figures of authority.)

All of which might have something to do with poor Rob having to sweat away in the cabin for eleven days while I sat in the air-conditioned Starbucks going through the frappachino menu and doing online Spanish lessons. 

Rob admitted afterwards that he’d never installed a Lithium system on such a small boat (well, he did keep egging me on).

Meanwhile, you must excuse me, I have to go and check the “Time Since Last Full Charge” (121,711 seconds, apparently).

And here’s the video (who needs Netflix?): https://youtu.be/gdaVrJq3h4Q?si=tWpu7FXNcf9SBCiR

With Rob (shortly before he tried to explain how it all works)

600 amp hours of Lithium batteries

…and another 105ah of AGM for the engine starter and the windlass (with a DC-DC charger to top up the Lithium when it’s full. If it ever goes flat, I can charge it from the inverter…

You can do anything with a 2kw inverter…

Like cook enough rice for three days.

The master switch is big enough for a trawler. It ended up in the cockpit locker.

Charlotteville is different. Nobody in Charlotteville has any money.

Don’t get me wrong. They’re not poor – Joe the fisherman whose boat has “Joe” written down the side in big red letters only bothers to go out three days a week (he offered to take me on Monday but that’s when I’m leaving for Trinidad). The other days he spends sitting in the shade with his friends, fist-bumping anyone who comes by and asking how they’re doing.

He doesn’t sit under the coconut trees, of course. Only strangers like me would think of sitting under a coconut tree – which is why there’s a sign reminding people not to (a coconut falling from 70ft is an official cause of death around here).

No, the reason nobody has any money in Charlotteville is because the ATM machine hasn’t worked for two months and the only place that takes cards is the bright red Shopping Mart where the till is empty after two months’ of paying everyone Cashback.

I wouldn’t have come if I’d known. But Tom on Bonny said it was delightful. He could afford to. He sailed on a reach from Barbados. I was hard on the wind all the way from Grenada – and then had to put in two tacks to make it into Pirate’s Bay two hours after sunset.

Actually, I was aiming for Man o’ War Bay because the app said that was where I would find the Customs Office. However there wasn’t a single light in the whole bay, and so I picked a spot sort of midway between the two. A lot of rowing the next morning found me tying the dinghy to a tree just as the immigration officer strolled by.

Charlotteville is an official Port of Entry for Tobago, so it is reasonable to assume it would have a uniformed Immigration Officer and a proper brick-built Immigration Office – and a Port Authority Office and a Customs Office. Going round the three of them, I had to fill in a total of nine forms (everything from what contagious diseases I had to how many firearms and stowaways).

Also, I had to come up with 315 Trinidad and Tobago dollars. All I had were East Caribbean dollars – and no, they didn’t take cards.

Which is how I ended up in debt.

Here were my debts by the end of that Wednesday morning:

$315 to the Immigration Officer for clearance.

$210 to Donna the Digicel rep on her balcony opposite the football pitch for a SIM card.

$32 to Gray at the bright yellow Royal Harbour Restaurant and Bar on the beach (two bottles of Carib and a $10 loan for the bus to Roxborough and the nearest working ATM machine).

No, the bus doesn’t take cards. In fact, the bus doesn’t even take cash. You have to buy a ticket from the Licenced Ticket Trader next to the bus stop – it’s $4 each way.

And maybe this is the time to explain the exchange rate. One Trinidad and Tobago dollar is 12p Sterling. So, the bus ticket was 48p (and the bottles of Carib, £1.32 each), so maybe that’s why Charlotteville has been getting along so well without too much money.

It took the rest of the day to get mine – the bus went at walking pace for much of the way (and if you saw some of the inclines and the tortuous bends, you’d be glad it did). Then, when we got to the ATM machine in Roxburgh, that one didn’t work either.

Never mind, there was another at the gas station at the other end of town.

I missed the bus back.

When was it due?

• It leaves Scarborough at 4.30.

So, when does it get here?

• When it arrives.

Never mind. The only people who use the bus are schoolchildren and anyone with a bus pass. Everybody else stands at the side of the road and holds up their hand. Here is the scale of charges for ad hoc private hire vehicles in Tobago:

If they’re going your way: $12.

Part of the way: $6.

The rest of the way: $8.

How does the driver know you’re going the rest of the way, not all the way?

• I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.

So, it was after dark again when I got back to the boat – and it turns out that now I’ve been here three days and become rather assimilated (see Joe’s offer of a day’s fishing).

Much of my time is spent on the bench outside the Royal Harbour with a bottle of Gray’s Carib using his wifi because it turns out Donna’s mobile signal is rubbish (and you can’t sit inside Gray’s because he likes his reggae at full volume).

I could take my custom to Eastman’s Restaurant & Bar, but their wifi went the way of the ATM machine.

Still, the Shopping Mart had a grater to replace my rusty one and Priya’s shop was good for fresh vegetables.

When I say “fresh”, I mean they weren’t in a tin like the ones in the Shopping Mart. However, they had been cooking in 35° under the sheets of polythene which keep the rain out – Priya’s shop is charmingly basic even though she’s got everything from motor oil to Epsom Salts in the back.

Priya and her shop

I can’t wait to go ashore again, lunch today is Sharon & Phebe’s (they have tablecloths and are on Tripadvisor). I can’t leave until Monday – if I don’t get my clearance form, they won’t let me into Trinidad and I’m getting a Starlink system delivered there.

At least I hope I am – I gave the address of Peake’s Marina without bothering to ask them if that would be OK. But people on the Navily app keep saying how friendly and helpful everyone is at Peake’s – they even organise a bus to the supermarket and put on Friday night barbecues…

More pictures on my PolarSteps site at https://www.polarsteps.com/JohnPassmore/11140829-from-grenada?s=0A864A90-C234-4F13-A00C-24E41CCA7292.

Yes, I thought that would get your attention. Of all the things on a boat that can break, the rudder is particularly difficult to fix – being somewhat under water.

So, this was the rudder stock – just as important but you don’t get wet.

To clarify, by “rudder stock”, I mean the massive bronze casting which connects the rudder shaft to the tiller by means of a stout pair of jaws and a 10mm bolt. The whole thing is hugely over-engineered – but then there are times when there is so much strain on it that even the strongest helmsman tends to get dragged across the cockpit like a toddler being removed from Sainsbury’s in the middle of a tantrum.

So, I was a bit surprised when this happened.

Also, maybe not so surprised, since it has happened before – if you want to read about that, come back at the end and have a look at https://www.oldmansailing.com/getting-to-the-jester/

and, if the picture seems familiar, that is from the same occasion. I forgot to take a new one.

The man who brazed it back together that time, assured me it would be as strong as ever – but maybe not, since this time it broke in exactly the same place.

Last time, I didn’t consider it my fault. This time it was: I had met an old boy on an old gaffer in Falmouth (yes, one of the many) who assured me that if I set a double-reefed mainsail behind my twin headsails in the trade winds, and steered with the wind just a little on the quarter, the boat would not roll incessantly for three weeks and leave me craving to get off and sit under a palm tree at the other end.

It worked – but the strain on the steering was tremendous – especially when those 28kt squalls came blasting through at three o’clock in the morning.

Although, it must be said that it was during the after-lunch down-time that I began to wonder why the boat was heading for Antarctica.

The best thing about this was that I knew exactly what to do – after all, hadn’t I done it all before? Without missing a beat, I lashed the broken side together with a 17mm spanner (there’s a 17mm nut on that side), got the boat sailing again and carried on as if nothing had happened – apart from the tiller waggling a bit and the Aries working overtime to catch up.

Four days later, the other side broke – and this was most definitely my fault. Why hadn’t I lashed another spanner (18mm to starboard) on that side just in case?

For the next 12 days, I didn’t make any more mistakes. Indeed, I consider those 1,486 miles to be among the most significant in all the annals of seafaring. Day after day, as the great Trade Wind rollers swept Samsara ever westwards and, each midday, I wrote carefully in the log: Wind: E5-6 occ7”, I became the world’s greatest living expert on how to hold your steering together with string.

This is what it looked like by the end.

Key:

1. The Aries adjustment chain was lashed to the tiller as far forward as possible. This pulled the tiller back and helped it remain engaged with what was left of the rudder stock.
2. These two lines were made up of 8mm polyester and 8mm doubled shock cord. Made off at the stern cleats and lightly tensioned when the tiller was amidships, they proved to be worth their weight in gold. When the Aries pulled the tiller to starboard, the port shock cord exerted an increasing tension backwards on that side and helped keep the linkage straight.
3. Two lines from the autopilot pin to the aft ends of the two spanners bracing each side of the casting. Without these, the spanners tended to work backwards and disengage from the nuts.
4. Here, a single piece of line around the shafts of the two spanners and over the top of the tiller stopped it dropping down as it worked.
5. These are the four main lashings bracing the spanners against the broken casting and holding the whole thing together. You need to have two at each side of the break so that you can untie them one at a time for tightening. In the beginning, this needed to be done two or three times a day. Towards the end, they would last several days – presumably as the line stretched to its limit. Eventually, it would get chewed up and break (which is why every ship should carry miles and miles of 3mm line. If your rudder doesn’t break, you can always use it for messengers when removing the halyards ready for a hurricane).

Technical notes – Tying the lashing:

Although I earned my “Knots and Splices” badge in the Boy Scouts, I take issue with Lord Baden-Powell who advocated clove hitches to start and finish a square lashing. This does not allow for applying enough tension to something like a rudder stock.

Instead, I humbly propose the following:

Take 2m of 3mm line and tie a small bowline in one end, leaving a 100mm tail on the short end. Place the bight at the top of one side of the tiller and pass the long end underneath and back through the bight so that you can pull back in the opposite direction, using this purchase to increase the tension. Continue with this for as many turns as you deem necessary, maintaining the tension at every turn. Tie off to the end to the 100mm tail of the bowline using a reef knot (while playing hopscotch with your fingers to maintain the tension.)

Overall, it worked so well that I didn’t feel the need to rush into Spice Island Marine on Grenada to get it fixed immediately. Instead, I called in for a few days’ crawling the rum shops of Carriacou’s Tyrrel Bay. I felt I deserved it – after all, the bodged rudder stock steered us through the somewhat narrow and certainly lively pass north of Frigate Island and then kept a dead straight course between the anchored yachts while I stood on the foredeck yanking the chain out of its latest yoga position down in the locker.

Tyrrel Bay.

Of course, you do end up with this…

And now, some showing off: How about three headsails!

… actually, it didn’t make much difference.

And (not showing off), this was the biggest flying fish on deck in the morning:

Finally, that link to the last time I broke the rudder: https://www.oldmansailing.com/getting-to-the-jester/

Better now

Thanks to Kenrick

The Maritime Police arrived not in a coastguard cutter, nor even RIB with a pair of 90hp outboards and a blue light on the gantry.

Instead, they came chugging up in the little boat that takes the tourists to see the turtles.

But then, this was Bahia Sao Pedro at the south end of Sao Vicente in the Cape Verde Islands, where Thibaut and Cécile on Orion had written on Navily: “Pleasant anchorage. Frequent gusts but excellent holding in sand. Anchorage surrounded by green turtles. Keep your hands closed to avoid them mistaking your fingers for a piece of fish!”

They were right about the gusts. It took me as long to beat into the bay as it had to sail the six miles from Mindelo. By the time I had everything squared away, it was getting late. Never mind, I could swim in the morning.

However, the venue did not live up to its reputation.

First of all, the water wasn’t at all clear. I did see three turtles – all too deep to mistake my fingers for a piece of fish. Frankly, there were more interesting things growing on Samsara’s bottom.

Then the tour boat came by and informed me that I couldn’t anchor there. I told them I was leaving anyway.

They came back half an hour later. Instead of the tourists, this time with the Maritime Police.

Anchoring was forbidden, they informed me. The bay was not a designated port and they needed to see my ship’s papers along with the certificate of departure to my next port which I would have been given when I checked in.

Ah, slight problem, there. I hadn’t actually checked in. I was only here because a solicitor back in England wanted me to sign a document for the house sale. In the end, I did it with my finger on the pdf (which I could have done on mobile data without stopping at all – it still looked as though a spider with inky feet had crawled across the contract).

I tried to explain all this but I think a bit of it got lost in translation,

“You must go to Mindelo.”

But that’s into the wind…

“You must go. We will keep your papers.”

Now, here is an essential truth that holds good wherever you happen to be in the world. I have travelled far and wide and I know this to be true:

Never, ever argue with a policeman.

Especially if he has a gun.

So, instead I smiled. They told me their names were Alberto and George (they had them embroidered on their uniforms). They would see me in Mindelo. Everything would be fine.

Ah yes, but would it – once they realised I had been in the country illegally for two days?

As I watched the anchor chain crawling aboard, the blue 30metre marker disappearing into the chain locker, then the yellow-and-white 25metre, I began to worry in earnest.

Every cruiser knows the story of the sailor who put into a quiet bay in Samoa to fix his watermaker. It was the beginning of the global COVID lockdown and he was on his way to the Philippines with his Filipina girlfriend (it was the only country that would let them in). He called the Samoan coastguard and informed them that he would only be 24 hours and would not set foot on shore.

They didn’t reply.

Instead, they came and collected him and his girlfriend and threw them in jail – leaving the boat unguarded in the unprotected anchorage.

Pictures of their jail cell went viral – with half the comments pointing out that it was exactly the same sort of jail cell that Samoans had to put up with. What did they expect?

I wondered what a Cape Verde jail cell might be like. I used up a bit more mobile data emailing the OCC Port Officer for the islands, asking for advice. How much trouble did he think I was in? Maybe he knew Alberto and George – it was a small island. Should I suggest he might ask them to go easy on me?

At least it stopped me toying with the idea of doing a runner: I don’t know how many maritime authorities around the world are aware that the cash-strapped UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency has done away with their very grand cardboard-bound Part One Certificate for the Registry for Yachts. I’ve still got the original for Samsara issued in 1973 – you would think it belonged to the Queen Mary.

Now all you get is a sheet of paper. I keep a spare – just in case.

This meant that I didn’t really need to go back to Mindelo at all. I could just turn south west – next stop Grenada and show them the spare…

Except, for all that stuff about always complying with instructions from police officers – especially if they not only have guns but also a fast patrol boat that could catch me in a couple of hours and tow me back to that prison cell.

And even if not, was there some sort of international maritime black list? Would I arrive in the Caribbean to find myself instantly arrested and placed on a flight back to face Cape Verdean justice.

Better go back to Mindelo…

But the forecast had been for a northeasterly Force7. Then there was Anne Hammick in Atlantic Islands: “The Canal de Sao Vicente is notorious for its strong winds, the two islands combining to produce a classic venturi effect.”

Apparently 10-15kts over the open ocean increases to gusts of 35-40kts in the channel.

So, if the forecasters expected 25-30kts over the open ocean…

I reefed. I reefed again. These weren’t gusts. This was a solid 30-35kts on the nose with a sea to match.

I stopped worrying about my prison cell and began wondering how long it was going to take me to cover the six miles this time.

The answer, since I know you’re dying to know, is twelve-and-a-half hours!

All right, it would have been a bit less if I’d had a proper chart instead of Google Earth and hadn’t confused the next headland with the next island – but that’s not the point. The point is that nobody decides to beat into a Force7-8 if they have any choice.

I didn’t. I “must go to Mindelo.” In a strange way, this was the best way to look at it. If there was no choice, I didn’t have to wonder whether it was wise, what might get broken – if there might be some shelter to be found on the way. I just had to go – bash, bash, bash…

Of course, if you are going to bash into a gale, there are few better boats for the job than the Rival 32.

Admittedly, one of them is the Rival 34 – the deep keel version. It was clear early on that while the 32 with her 1.4m draft, was ideal for creeping into small coves and the like, she does make a lot of leeway when hard on the wind. I have never actually measured it – that would be too depressing. Suffice it to say that, beating up the Canal de Sao Vicente, was one time I really wished I had a 1.8m draft.

Still, there was nothing to be done about that – and besides, the sun was shining, the air temperature was 26°C and the spray, when it caught me on deck, was a not-unpleasant 23°.  It dried in five minutes. One way and another, I rather enjoyed myself.

Then the tide turned. This was a bit of a surprise. I had read in the book that in the Cape Verde Islands “Tidal ranges are small… tidal streams are also negligible…”

Had I been a bit more thorough and read on, I would have discovered “…but can run strongly in the passages between islands, particularly in the Canal de Sao Vicente where, combined with the ocean current, it may attain over four knots…”

After two tacks of three miles each, each taking an hour or so, I found myself precisely 0.86miles further up the channel.

After the next two, I had made another 0.21miles!

Clearly, this was going to take some time. I settled myself in the companionway with a kapok cushion to soften the sharp edges, I opened the Kindle and reminded myself that, with one or two notable exceptions, tides do not run in the same direction for more than six hours. All I had to do was keep going for longer than that.

The good thing about it all was that I was very familiar with the layout of Mindelo harbour after dark (complete with its unlit wrecks).

The last question was answered after I set the anchor and was walking back down the deck saying that I was damned if I was getting the table out for dinner.

The last question? What was going to get broken?

Answer: Another section of teak toe rail.

The knockdown had already destroyed about four metres, now a jib sheet must have got itself hooked round the protruding end of what remained and popped that off, too.

It could have been worse.

Nine o’clock in the morning found me in the immigration office. The officer was not remotely interested in my excuses. Instead, he gave me a form to fill in, pointed out that I had put my own name in the space for the boat’s name, stamped me in and immediately out again of the Republic of Cape Verde, and sent me round to the Maritime Police. There, George greeted me like a long-lost friend, produced my ship’s papers, added the missing Certificate of Departure for Grenada and wished me Bon Voyage for the crossing.

I felt it best not to complain about the twelve-and-a-half-hours and the missing teak rail.

I’ve now had three people write and thank me for a single reference in Old Man Sailing.

I never thought it was anything special when I wrote it, sitting at anchor in St Helen’s Pool in the Scilly Isles. Certainly, there was no thunderclap as the words crawled across the screen. But it does seem to have struck a chord, so if you missed it, here it is from page 126:

“It is a great comfort to be stupid. Disasters about to happen do not trouble the minds of those too dim to imagine them.”

I have been thinking about this as I sit at anchor in the bay at Tazacorte on the Canary Island of La Palma waiting for the house sale to go through back in England so I can push off to the Caribbean.

Because, the other day, I did something that was incredibly stupid. Well, it seems like it to me. You be the judge, for here is the whole sorry story:

I had pulled into the marina at Santa Cruz on the other side of the island where there is a fabulous old Spanish colonial town but also incessant noise from the ferries and the cruise ships unloading the tourists who come to see it. But at least I could top up with diesel.

And then, being a conscientious engineer, I added the diesel bug treatment – 10ml for 20litres. Tucked in the cockpit locker next to it was a bottle of something called Diesel Blast (at least, I think that was what it was called, the label came off long ago). In fact, I hadn’t seen it for years. Apparently, when everything got turned upside down in the knockdown on the way from Falmouth, the Diesel Blast got thrown to the top of the heap – thus swapping places with the galley scissors which I haven’t seen since.

There wasn’t much left in the bottle. Did this sort of stuff go off? Might as well use it up. I squirted 15ml up into the measuring chamber at the top of the bottle.

And that’s when I saw the slug. Well, that’s what it looked like – a drowned slug. On the small size as slugs go but very large for a lump of diesel bug which was probably more likely. Anyway, you wouldn’t want either of them in your tank, would you?

I’m very particular about what goes into my tank. When I took on a deck cargo of 50litres of diesel from the dodgy-looking filling station in Banjul so that I could motor the 100 miles up the Gambia River to Baboon Island and back, I put every drop of it through a 5micron filter.

But not the slug.

The slug, I reasoned, would end up in the engine’s pre-filter anyway. I mean, something that size isn’t going to get through the pre-filter is it? Even if it did, what chance has it got with the main filter?

Well none, now I come to think about it. Because it’s going to get stuck in the pipe before it gets to the filter, isn’t it?

And what will happen then?

The engine will stop.

I’m not very happy about the idea of the engine stopping – haven’t been since last summer coming into Portland Harbour.

This was during one of my incessant trips up and down the English Channel. What with Amsterdam for the Aries, Beaulieu for the OCC rally, Newort IOW for the watermaker (twice), Cowes for the Royal Yacht Squadron book club, Liverpool for university graduation, Dublin for the weather and lunch with Jim Gallagher, the family in Jersey – and Falmouth, of course, at every opportunity because it is, well, Falmouth after all … I really can’t remember when it was that I went into Portland Harbour.

But I do remember there was a gale coming. I had it all worked out. I could get there just before the gale arrived.

I was on time. It was the gale that was early.

Of course, I could have sheltered in Weymouth Bay – anchored just off the beach. I’ve done that before. There’s good holding in sand – but, of course, Weymouth sand is famously fine (hence the annual sand sculpture festival) and while my new Spade anchor has glowing reviews from all the experts, it is physically smaller than the Rocna and might therefore, not be quite as secure in soft mud or fine sand.

Maybe I would sleep better in Portland Harbour. I’d never been to Portland Harbour. Why I thought this was a good reason for going there, I have no idea – especially as the wind had now climbed over 30kts and I couldn’t take in the second reef because there were a couple of navy ships at anchor to leeward. Instead, I started the engine to give the boat a bit of a lift for the last mile to the entrance.

In fact, what with too much sail up, too much heel and, consequently too much leeway, by the time we reached the entrance, the little 21hp Nanni was the only thing that was keeping us going.

And it continued to be the only thing keeping us going as we passed (agonisingly slowly) through the north entrance with the great granite boulders of the breakwater two boat’s lengths under our lee.

I remember thinking to myself that if the engine were to stop now, I wouldn’t be able to tack. We’d just sail sideways into the harbour wall. There’s many a ship that’s sailed sideways into a harbour wall.

We didn’t of course. We just spent 40 minutes burning diesel and punching at about half a knot into what was now a full 40kts across the deck. By the time I tipped the anchor over the bow on the western side, I was thinking that really, Weymouth Bay had a lot going for it – sand sculptures or not…

So, you will understand why the slug has got to come out of the tank.

The official routine for doing this is to empty the tank, open the inspection hatch and get in there when a good supply of clean rags.

If you don’t have an inspection hatch and you’ve just filled the tank to the brim, you have to wait a bit and when there’s hardly any left, pump out what there is, pass it through the 5micron filter you should have used in the first place, pour it back, stir it round, pump it out again – and keep on doing that until it runs clear.

And you still don’t know whether the slug has been hiding in a corner the whole time and is just waiting for the right moment to reappear – like Portland Harbour in a gale…

Like I said: Stupid.