The Adventures of Sunboy the Sailboat

The Transition - from Landlubbers to Liveaboards!!

10:50 AM, May. 23, 2009

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The Transition - from landlubbers to liveaboards!!

Well my friends, it seems that finally I am able to get things back on track and get this blog up and running. There have been distant rumbles from down under (and from the old dart) about the lack of blog entries so finally, the time has come to allow me to correct the errors of my ways and get stuck right into it.

So much seems to have happened in such a short space of time and I will do my best to recollect where we have been, who we have met, and the things we have done. As can be seen from the title of this blog, it really feels like we are on our way to making the transition from landlubbers to liveaboards. It may seem like the term liveaboards carries with it thoughts of carefree days, sunshine, and not a worry in the world, the truth be known, there are a few other little intricacies of life that accompany us as we embark on our new path forward, I hope I can set about in this blog just what life is like for us now.

Well it was Good Friday when I last blogged and that was back on the 10^th of April. We were in Cowes which is a really great buzzy, yachty, boatie, have a good time kind of place. Our all time favourite place in Cowes still remains as the business known simply as ‘That Shop’ and it is the second hand book shop in the High Street. We have visited there very often and always left with a bag full of bargains and our boat is starting to look a bit like a floating library and our joy of reading is expanding day by day.

While we were in Cowes we met John, Bev and Daisy Ford. These guys pulled up next to us in their yacht and we did what just about everyone else does and that is take their lines as they were coming into berth and help them tie up. It wasn’t too long before they were over on our boat with a couple of bottles of wine and a very special friendship started.

We left Cowes, sailing in their company, heading for Portsmouth and kidnapping Daisy, their 10 year old daughter who had become great chums with Layni. Layni and Daisy on our way to Portsmouth

We stopped at a marina called Gunwharf Quays at Portsmouth and to cut a long story short, Daisy ended up having a couple of nights sleep over with us. Portsmouth, like all of the Solent area, is an area steeped in History, particularly history relating to Henry the VIII and his involvement in the commencement of the Royal Navy.

There is a huge historical complex at Portsmouth which covers the period from Henry the VIII and his beloved ship the Mary Rose, Nelson’s famous flagship the Victory and up to more modern vessels. The wreck of the Mary Rose was discovered just off Portsmouth Harbour in recent times and the museum features a film about the discovery of the wreck, which, at the time of discovery was just three pieces of timber sticking out of the mud up until they salvaged most of the starboard side of the hull by slow and tedious methods of vacuuming the mud away from the wreck and removing all of the artefacts that they could before raising the remains of the hull. From a diver’s perspective and a being a bit of an old fossicker at heart, the film was totally fascinating.

We then had the incredible pleasure of taking our time looking at examples of all of the artefacts that had been recovered and painstakingly restored. The remains of the hull, which are in fact quite substantial, are stored in this special type of building where liquid wax is pumped into the timber, literally by soaking it in a giant shower recess and that process has been going for some years and will continue for some years to come to ensure the preservation of the timberwork.

We spent the day on site and took in a tour of Nelson’s ship, the Victory which is open for public exhibition. It really was a walk back in time, with the ship still maintained as she was during her fighting years. The ship has never been decommissioned and to this day is still the most senior of all Royal Navy Vessels. As such, every time a Royal Navy Vessels goes past her, the ships company must man the decks and salute the Victory. Tradition and honour still play a big part in today’s Navy.

We enjoyed Portsmouth and Daisy’s company very much and from that time we have been able to catch up more often with the family and extended family including Bev’s Dad Mick and John’s Mum and Dad on a few more occasions.

We left Portsmouth and headed further up the river to Port Solent Marina and launched into a serious attack on the huge chandlery that is positioned there. More and more equipment is being taken on board to enhance our simple pleasures of life with such things as a BBQ to more serious requirements such as Navtex which gives us weather broadcasts via digital radio broadcasts from Germany, man over board equipment, charts, cruising guides, fog horns, blocks, ropes and a thousand and one other things that slowly but surely become necessary to make the boat safe and day to day life as normal as possible. So after saving the British economy once again, we left Port Solent via a very narrow and shallow passage making our way back down to the Solent.

The Solent became our cruising grounds for the next few weeks while we waited for various things to happen or arrive to allow us to cut our ties with England and start our long journey home.

Our package we had sent from home had not arrived and as we were not sure how long it had been since the liferaft on the boat had been serviced, we sent that away just to make sure. We also decided to have the liferaft packed into a hard case and that had to be sent over from France so that took a fair bit longer than expected.

We basically sailed in big circles around the area, going as far west as Poole to the south west and then taking in other Ports such as Lymington, which has great markets on Saturdays, Yarmouth, Cowes, and the Folly, all on the Isle of Wight.

We spent Debs birthday in Lymington, trying our best to make her day a bit special, Nikki and Layni prepared Debs a very special brekkie in bed and then we headed to the Markets where it is very easy to spend a few hours wandering the length of the High Street where stalls are set up on both sides of the road. We bought some herbs to see if we could make any improvement on our previous attempts at gardening, and so punnets of basil, mint, coriander, thyme and parsley were added to our boat acquisition list.

While we were in Lymington we also spied a piece of kit called a Creda Brand spin dryer. Now this little piece of magic is a stand alone spin dryer that doesn’t need to be wired in, you simply plug it into the 230v socket in the boat and you don’t need to plumb it in, it has a hose that leads from it and the water is pumped out. After spending far too much time and effort in Croatia hand washing and then trying to hand wring between washes and rinses, we had looked long and hard at other options to ease the pain of no washing machine on the boat. Our friends Steve and Maggie White who we met in Croatia told us about the Creda and Maggie advised us it was an essential piece of equipment in the cruising wardrobe.

By this stage we had also purchased a Honda portable generator as an alternative power source and it was proving to be an exceptionally good bit of gear. We looked at other alternatives such as wind generators, solar panels, additional alternators and the like but overall this looked to be a cost effective alternative to our plans for this year. So instead of having to run the engines twice a day, we start up the genny and it charges our battery bank, quietly and very efficiently. It also allows us to run the spin dryer when we don’t have shore power which is most of the time because it is so much cheaper. The spin dryer works so well and Debs has developed a really effective system of doing the never ever ending routine of washing. To add to our never ending list of gear we have bought to make life easier, we bought three big plastic tubs. Debs soaks clothes overnight and then they are agitated by hand, sometimes by big flat feet and we spin the soap out, rinse and spin a couple of times and then turn the boat into a massive clothes line. The things we used to take for granted at home!.

Hot water for showers necessitates the running of the engine as the hot water heater just draws too much power on the genny to allow us to use the dryer and other bits and pieces on the boat at the same time so if we aren’t staying near on shore showers, we have to run the engine for half and hour or so for nice steaming hot water.

We had a couple of drinks that afternoon of Deb’s birthday at the Royal Lymington Yacht Club which is a very, very pukka place overlooking the river. This Club has produced many Olympic Yachting Champs and we felt very chuffed to be there. John and Daisy and Bev’s Dad Mick had sailed down to join us for the weekend and that evening we christened our new BBQ with some special venison and red wine snags from the local gourmet butcher, have to say the little barbie worked a treat. John and Mick had been pondering on how to open the emergency tiller hatch that we, and many other technicians had not been able to budge. This had been causing me a fair bit of angst as I did not want to be undertaking any serious passages with being able to access the emergency tiller should the steering give way. John is the ultimate Mr Fix It and lo and be hold, half a bottle of nail varnish remover later, the hatch was open; the man is a true genius!!

At the end of April we made a trip up to Southampton where we left the boat for three nights while we went up to London to catch up with our friends Craig and Catherine and their children, Nathan and Keira. We first met Craig and Catherine in Australia when they were cycling their way around our country and we stayed with them when we were over here in 2003. They are such great people and their hospitality and kindness were so greatly appreciated.

We took the girls into London and because we didn’t have a great deal of time, we more or less had a quick squiz around town but did have a chance to spend an afternoon at the Natural History Museum which is just brilliant. We had been there before in 2003 but it is a place you could go back to again and again and never tire of it.

Craig and Catherine also took us to Heavers Castle which was the home of Anne Boleyn and whilst not a big Castle it was a brilliant place to spend the day, taking the tour through the Castle and spending time in the incredible gardens. We also bought a little chilli plant at the Castle gardens, hoping to take it back to the boat to add to our herb garden and to later be able to add it to the home cooked meals we do on board the boat.

We left the company of our friends and went back into London and spent Sunday afternoon with Deb’s nephew Andrew Casey. Andrew and his girlfriend Casey have been in London for about 4 years and we really enjoyed being able to spend time with Andrew and wandered about the Thames area before we had to catch the bus back to Southampton.

We left Southampton and headed back to Hythe Marina with our hearts full of hope that the super sucker holding tank cleaner outerer would be able to work some kind of miracle and clear the blockage that had been driving us mad for so long. We had tried everything known to man to try and clear it, gallons of vinegar, lime scale cleaner and some other bottles of weird concoctions that Merlin the Magician would have been proud to claim, all to no avail.

Well the good news is that during this heart stopping process, liquid was finally able to be seen flowing from the inside of the holding tank to the outside of the hull. I thought Debs was going to burst into tears with relief – finally our crapper was cleared!!!.We ended up staying a night or two in the marina and found the little village of Hythe was a bit of a hidden gem, tucked away behind the marina and imposing lock system.

We left that area and were planning on sailing back down to Lymington to pick up some more cushions that we had bought at the markets. We try and dodge the Ned Kelly Homesteads a.k.a chandleries as much as we can and Deb’s eagle eyes had spotted these big cushions at the Lymington Markets being sold at a Pet stand as pet cushions – Simmy would absolutely love them. The cushions are made out of gortex and are waterproof and they fitted our cockpit seats perfectly. They cost a fraction of the price that anything similar in the chandleries would cost so we wanted to make sure we had enough to fill the cockpit and increase our comfort factor.

It started to blow dogs of chains when we left the Southampton River so instead of a few hours beating into it we decided to take the easy way out and head up the Medina River from Cowes on the Isle of Wight and head for the famed Folly Inn. Just about everyone we had met spoke of this pub and the Saturday night ritual of people having their dinner and then the tables being cleared for the patrons to stand up on and dance the night away. With the rather stringent licensing laws at home where if you even looked like you were thinking of getting up on the tables would have you tossed out, we thought place was a must see. We had arranged to meet John and Sue and the Ford family up there as well so we snuck up early to ensure we got a berth as we were told the place gets packed, both in the pub and in the river on the pontoons.

The place lived up to it’s reputation and sure enough, after about 9.00pm, the tables are cleared and just about everyone in the place gets up on the table and dances away to their hearts content. The place is an absolute hoot and everyone has the time of their lives, us included. To top it off, the food is great, it is excellent value and we had a brilliant time.

You park your boat next to pontoons which are secured in the river and as things get busier, other boats are rafted up next to you and other boats next to them until the whole river is a raft of yachts. The little water taxi’s do a roaring trade taking patrons to and from the pub. We opted for the water taxi rather than our little tender to make sure we all didn’t end up in the drink after a big night.

We loved being up the river, it was quite rural around the pub and in fact that was about the only thing on the river. There is a large town upstream called Newport and we did a few trips up there in our little tender as it was too shallow to take our yacht upstream any further than where we were berthed. We bought some planter boxes to increase the space for our little herbies which were starting to show signs of wanting to expand their soil space and we spent the afternoon doing some gardening, re-potting, fertilising and wishing our little garden the best of luck.

We ended up spending about 10 days in that area, taking day trips around the Island by local bus and also spending a day at Osborne House. I had no idea about this place before we left home and I have to say it was one of THE most incredible places I have ever been to. Osborne House was the summer house of Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert. The home has been essentially left the way it was in the days she and her husband and children lived there. I wish I had the ability to describe all of the features of the house, which is in fact the size of a Castle, the gardens and everything inside it but I can just say that it was worth the trip from Australia to see it. I am sure there is a web site for it that may give you some idea of what it is like and for anyone heading to the UK, please put it on your must see list.

Our little stay on the Medina River also allowed us to head over to Ryde where we were told was a pretty good music store that sold second hand guitars. So Miss Lizzy, you will be pleased to know that we now have a very nice second hand Yamaha guitar on board and we hope that you have been practicing long and hard so you can come jamming with us very soon!!!

The weather started to improve and the time came for the official unveiling of Debs hammock that had been gathering dust balls since we gave it to her for Christmas some years ago. Our package had finally arrived from Australia and that was one of the things that Deb’s had been very keen on getting out and on deck. We opened it up and the wind took hold of it and it looked like a new multi coloured mini spinnaker until we were able to get control of it. We attach it to the clew of the headsail and then back to the mast and it is the perfect spot to catch some gamma rays and reeeeelax big time.

One whole Saturday was spent walking about two miles up to Newport, then an hour on the bus to Yarmouth and then catching the ferry to Lymington and then another long walk just to get to the markets to buy the remainder of the cushions we had been waiting to get and then back again but I have to say, the comfort factor they have created was totally worth the hours of travel just to get them. No more ducking in the car and down to Homebase.

We left the Folly and had a couple of more days down at Cowes, restocking and recycling books from ‘That Shop’, and having some work done to fix our diesel heater. We also took the plunge and bought two fold up push bikes. We had seen these about a lot and most cruising yachties we spoke to who had them raved about them. We had considered them for some time and we found a couple that were well priced and we haven’t looked back since we got them. They are a hoot to ride and are actually really handy. They fold up, basically in two and they only have 20” wheels so I look a bit like bozo the circus clown when I get on them but hey, they work!

We headed back to Hamble Point Marina and picked up the last of our gear we had been waiting for and were finally at a point of being able to plan our trip across the English Channel to France.

We use a program on the internet called Passage Weather which gives very good weather forecasts for up to seven days for designated areas all around the world. We had used it extensively for the past couple of months, testing their forecasts against actual weather and it proved to be very accurate. The forecasts include wind strengths and direction, barometric pressure and wave height and directions. We analyse all this data together with tidal information we obtain from a software program we bought some time ago which gives us data regarding tide heights and the direction and time of tidal flow.

As the tides in this area are so strong, it is really important to be able to work out all the tidal and weather factors as this can mean the difference between getting somewhere easily or, at times, not getting there for hours later. It was also very important to be able to get used to doing these exercises as when we head across the Channel, the tides get much bigger and the tidal currents much, much stronger and in areas such as the Alderney race, can get quite dangerous.

It used to fascinate us when we were sitting in the marina at Yarmouth, watching yachts heading through the narrow channel in that area between the Isle of Wight and the mainland of the UK. The tide used to run so strongly through there. We used to watch yachts going with the wind, some of them with full spinnakers up, full mainsails up, trimmed to perfection, heeling slightly and going absolutely no where, being stuck in the current against the tide. Yachts going the other way would be absolutely screaming along, setting all time speed records with hardly any sail up at all.

We used the tide to our benefit on most occasions that we could, particularly on our sail across to Poole which was about 30 odd miles away. Both on the trip over and the trip back, we didn’t have much wind, just enough to fill the sails and we covered the distance in next to no time. On the way back, through the same channel I was just talking about, the water was literally boiling under the boat. Debs was at the helm and the boat was being moved about quite powerfully, we were doing over 8 knots over the ground with no sail and no motor!

So we checked passage weather and the forecast looked very good for the weekend of the 23^rd and 24^th of May, calm conditions for our maiden crossing of the famous English Channel.

We went back to Cowes to get the remainder of work finished on our webasto diesel heater and grab a few more bibs and bobs including having to fit a new shower pump as the one in our shower had packed it in. The new one works much better and sucks that shower water in no time at all.

The good part about going back to Cowes was we were fortunate to be able to catch up with the Ford family for lunch and say our goodbyes. We have become such good mates and it was pretty emotional saying goodbye, seems we have done quite a bit of that in the last few months.

We headed over to Lymington with a fully functional heater which works a treat, running off the same diesel tank that we run the engine from and it makes the boat sooooo warm and toasty. Our main aim of going to Lymington was to be able to catch up with John and Sue Alison and have dinner with them before we headed off and so off to the pub with them on the Friday night to say our goodbyes, hoping that we might be able to cruise with them for a while when they head off a bit later in the month, heading down our way.

After going to the markets and buying a tomato plant and a pot of ‘busy lizzy’ or as we know it back home, ‘impatience’ we spent the Saturday going over everything on the boat to make sure she was ready to cross the channel and see us on our way finally. We headed back over to Yarmouth on the Saturday, preparing for a very early departure Sunday morning.

The boat was checked and double checked, including my first trip up to the top of the mast to check the windvane that appeared to be a bit out of kilter, bloody hell it is a long way up there. Our passage plan was done, final weather checks were done and all looked good.

By now we felt as though we had just about everything on board that we both needed and wanted, especially our little herb garden that is absolutely powering, adding fresh flavours to so many meals we cook on board. Debs has added a red geranium to the busy lizzy and both are blooming brilliantly and drawing so many admiring comments and looks from other yachties.

The transition from landlubbers to liveaboards was a physical feeling that I think we were all experiencing and it was like the whirlwind fog that we had been enveloped in since we had decided to buy the boat was lifting. Our daily lives have changed so incredibly since we left home and of course there are routine and mundane things to do but the boat has become so much a part of our lives and we, so much a part of the boat. It is a very special time of our lives. We are living on board our boat and we are landlubbers no more

Tomorrow we set sail on our long trip back to Australia.

To be continued…….

The Transition - from Landlubbers to Liveaboards!!

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