Exams, fog, a shark and more exams

Hi all. Well I've got loads of news and so it's a bit difficult to know where to start - I guess I should update this a bit more often. I'll start with a run down of what we got up to when we went to sea a few weeks ago.

The last time I updated this we were bound for Dartmouth late that night, however, the visibility deteriorated (this wasn't to be the last time that would happen in this trip as we'll see later), so we moored up outside Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight for night. Before that we practiced some night pilotage into Lymington (New Forest) on the other side of the Solent. It was fairly uneventful until we decided to stop for dinner which one of my crewmates had been preparing down below - spaghetti bolognese. We decided to pick up a mooring buoy whilst we all ate, we could see Isle of Wight car ferries passing extremely close to the yacht but knowing we were moored in the correct place we weren't worried - it's only a small channel so it's quite tight for room. We happily piled into dinner and then after about 10 minutes there was some commotion up top and what turned out to be fishermen shouting down something like "Oi, hello, anyone there" - it turned out we'd come free of the mooring, and drifted across the channel on the tide ending up probably no more than 10 yards from being aground. The guy that had tied us onto the mooring, no names, had been a tad "distracted" and we think the wake from the IOW ferries had caused us to come loose.

So the next morning we set off, passing The Needles at about 7:00am, which was picturesque, heading towards Dartmouth. The weather was great but what wind we had, was on our nose. Note to non sailors, it's impossible to sail directly into wind, you have to sort of zig zag your way towards it. This means, less progress and more work. It was a fairly uneventful passage, we had a very good skipper who would help us to understand theory work when there wasn't a great deal happening on deck. So we did some meteorology, navigation and collision regulations with him. Here's an arty picture of one of my crewmates (Chester) making a phone call on the bow as the sun went down.

We got to Dartmouth at about midnight but before getting there experienced some more fog, so the skipper did what's known as "blind pilotage". This is done by using very accurate chartwork and electronic navigational aids. I, however, was in bed having finished my watch at about 11pm. We only stayed in Dartmouth until about 5:30am the next morning, partially because our skipper was Scottish and, therefore, trying to avoid paying for berthing fees and partly because we needed to crack on with the journey. So we left what looked like a very charming place just as the light was coming up.

We then headed South towards a headland called Start Point. It was a very still morning, a bit misty and the sea was like glass. I was helming when we spotted a school of dolphins, they were playing in our wake and up ahead of our bow - as is their want. There is definitely something about seeing dolphins, sharks or whales that is first of all, capable of making us all children (no one can be all ambivalent when the shout of "dolphins" or "shark" comes from up on deck) and secondly, quite peaceful. The mist then became very dense fog with visibility down to about 30 metres - time for some more blind pilotage, except this time the fog was much worse and there was more chance of other traffic.

The first thing we did was get out our hand held fog horn as lovingly modeled by yours truly above. Our skipper, Gregor, then decided it would be a good time to instil confidence in his crew and get the yacht ready for "abandon ship" !! In the photo below the big bags on the left are called "grab bags" containing extra food, water and medical supplies. They are called grab bags because they are generally the last thing you can get your hands on before making a graceful departure from one's yacht and a crashing entry into one's liferaft. The yellow containers on the right with the red tops are the emergency flares for attracting the attention of other mariners and / or Search & Rescue. The guy helming, Alex, always seems to do so with one hand on his hip, more camp than a row of tents. Suffice to say we didn't need to cosy up in a liferaft but one of the things I did learn in the this sea phase was, things happen extremely quickly at sea. So it was good practice and if I ever get stuck in that kind of fog again I'll be much more relaxed and less paranoid about getting ready for the worst. Whilst we were feeling our way through the fog we did happen across two other boats heading towards us and with visibility down to less than 30 metres there really is very little time to react. Had they have been ships it's easy to see how collisions happen.

Anyway, by a process of heading towards land, watching the depth sounder (like a hawk) and following depth contour lines we eventually arrived at a place called Salcombe. The strange thing about sea fog is that no more than 1/4 mile inland, it was completely sunny and that would probably have been the same had we been 5 miles out to sea. Salcombe looks like a lovely place, photos below. I'd like to go back at some point and spend some time there.

We only stayed until the fog lifted and took the opportunity to get some pasties in the oven. Anyone reading this from Contessa Carolina will know that I am no stranger to the odd pasty. We sadly left Salcombe at about 3pm without even a sniff of lunch time beer at what looked like very quaint quayside pubs. We were heading west now towards Falmouth, past Plymouth and Fowey and Mevagissy. This was when we saw a shark, at first we thought Chester had just seen a floating bin bag but sure enough a big old basking shark it was. He was very docile and seemed completely at ease with us just a few yards away - the shark was quite chilled out as well.

As we went across Plymouth Bay we saw lots of warships playing war games in what I remember from my Navy days was called "The Wednesday War". I didn't take any photos having been on the inside fighting fires that didn't exist, stopping leaks that hadn't sprung, pretending to shoot down missiles that hadn't been fired at us and winning a war that never was. The rest of the lads enjoyed it and I was able to do my Uncle Albert, "during the war" impression.

I was on watch at about 1am when we arrived at Falmouth and I'm glad I was. Trying to distinguish between fishing boats, lighthouses, buoys, pilot boats and oil tankers at night, against the background lights on land is a lot harder than it might sound. The guy that I was on watch with, Ben, had spotted an array of lights that we really couldn't work out. But after some head scratching and noticing another light about 100 metres ahead of the others, and moving at the same speed, we identified it as a dirty great tanker. The first thing we did was say "goodness gracious old chap that seems to be a tad close and rather large", the second thing was to work out that it was actually heading away from us. We relaxed and carried on navigating our way into Falmouth but then in a heart stopping moment I noticed the tanker had turned and was heading straight at us. Time to get the skipper out of bed and to take avoiding action, we apologised to him for getting him out of bed, luckily his response was "rather be awake, than dead". We eventually tied up in Falmouth at 3:00am and put the boat to bed. I was skipper for the next day and made the hugely popular decision that we needed to be out of bed again at 6:30am. I should explain at this point, we had a permanent, fully qualified skipper but we all have to take turns at being responsible for navigation, passage planning, food, watch keeping systems, engine checks etc etc. It's a requirement that we all skipper boats at night and day in order to qualify for yachtmaster.

We awoke to another magnificent day, although we're all fairly bleary eyed by now, and headed back east. This was the longest single leg of the journey without pulling into a harbour, about 120 miles which translates to about 27 hours. It was a laid back day with people catching up on sleep, except me, but more about that later. Alex and Chester decided they wanted to go up the mast whilst at sea and with boat "heeled over" (leaning over on it's side with the sails up) - I would have but I quickly found something more pressing that needed my attention. The rest of the day passed without anything noteworthy happening. As the sun began to set the wind increased as forecasted and Mike, who was duty "mother" for the day prepared pizzas. What he hadn't worked out was that the small oven could only take one pizza at a time so it took him near on two hours to feed 6 people. Here's a pic of me at the helm at sunset.

I went to bed at about 11:00pm by which time the wind was up to about a force 6. Now my cabin was right in the bow of the boat and what with the sea state getting worse and the boat heeled over, I couldn't get a wink of sleep. It was like trying to sleep in a tumble drier strapped to a high speed ferris wheel . So I eventually decided to get up and get back up top. By this stage the wind was up to a good force 7, I'm exhausted (because I had very little sleep in the last 3 days) and as it tuned out dehydrated - it had been quite a warm day. On top of that I was now feeling sea sick. I had planned the passage so that we arrived at Portland Bill, near Weymouth just as the tide was due to turn at about 7:00am on the following morning, however, we arrived early. This meant that we had to spend about 5 hours getting bashed around, seeing Portland Bill but not being able to get anywhere near it.

When the tide finally did turn we were able to make progress, but we now had a bigger problem. Some of you will know that there is a "tidal race" at Portland Bill, which is an area of sea where tides combine and the sea bed has "overfalls". These overfalls are deep crevices on the sea bed that make the sea above rough. Even on a perfectly calm day when the sea is glassy smooth, overfalls will produce good sized waves. We also had a phenomenon called "wind over tide" which, as the name suggests, is when the tide is going one way and the wind the other. This also produces a choppy and confused sea. So, I'm v tired, dehydrated, sea sick and we've got the Portland Race, a force 8 by this time and wind over tide - not a happy chappie. It's easy to exaggerate at this point but the skipper said the waves were about 25 - 30ft in height, so I'll take his word for it. I had gone back down below by this point in an attempt to sleep in a different cabin - but failed. I would have paid an awful lot of money to step off at this point. It was a "stop the world I'm getting off" moment, with sense of humour absent without leave.

We finally made it into Weymouth at 10:30am, tied the boat up alongside, found a public house, had 2 pints and promptly flaked out for a good 16 hours of magnificent sleep interrupted only by the lure of fish & chips in the evening.

The next couple of days were spent returning to the Solent and then doing more pilotage, night and day into Wootton Creek (IOW), Beaulieu (New Forest), Southampton Water and Portsmouth. Things seem to happen whilst having dinner for some reason, and so there we were at the entrance to Southampton Water having another Spag Bol as I remember, when we were passed by Cunard's Queen Mary 2 - the largest British owned luxury liner you know !!

The sea phase finished and then we were back in the classroom for 3 days of exam prep and then two days of exams. I am happy to report that I passed them all and even got 99.5% in one of them. The exams were on navigation chartwork, tidal heights & tidal streams, collision regulations and meteorology. I had a spare 1/2 day after the last exam so I went over to the Southampton Boat Show and saw some "proper luxury". Now this is the sort of seaborne cooking facilities that I am aspiring to....it's on an 60 foot yacht.

That was two days ago and since then I've been doing First Aid. I have to admit that I wasn't really forward to this particular element of the course but I've really enjoyed it. Amongst other things I am now able to deliver a baby, take blood pressure, insert a drip, administer the correct drugs for Angina and file down the sharp bits on broken finger nails - so you are safe with me. I've got the exam tomorrow after which I will be in the "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" club.

At the end of this week I've got Radar and something called Transas which involves sitting in a darkened room playing with.....simulators. We get to drive tankers, dredgers, warships etc etc in simulated weather conditions and frankly, I can't wait.

I'm back off to sea on Tuesday (26th Sept) for another 12 days. This time we've got 6 days on a 38ft Sigma yacht and then 6 days on a 40ft catamaran. After this sea phase we get to do some fun courses like power boating and keel boating (smaller racing boats).

So all in all, I am having an outstanding time with the odd, very brief, low moment but then I knew there would be times when it would be hard. I've learned so much in such a short period of time, I can't believe the course only started 4 weeks ago, it feels like at least 2 months already.

Hope everything is cool in the real world. Over and out.