Fight For Your Dream (6 page)

Close to the Wind

Too close on one occasion! ‘Ocean Breeze' was our second boat. At 35ft she was a capable go-anywhere boat; many smaller yachts than her have circumnavigated the globe. She'd been built to a high standard and a top spec; we knew this because we had built her. I myself had laid up every sheet of fibreglass, saturating the cloth with a pre-mixed quantity of resin and catalyst. You had to work quickly, because you only had around twenty minutes before the resin would ‘go off' and set rock hard. On the other hand you had to make sure your work was accurate and precise, because one day your life might depend upon it! Ironically, ours did!

If you've never stepped on, or inside, a sailing boat, then it's going to be difficult to explain, but I'll do my best. From a layman's point of view, nothing sounds logical on a boat. Externally, on deck, you have the bow, which is the front of the boat, with a safety rail around it known as the pulpit. The stern is at the back of the boat, with another safety rail, the pushpit, and the greatest width across the boat is known as the beam. Ropes which hoist sails are called sheets; other ropes are classed as lines, and others classed as warps. How are you doing? I know, it sounds crazy! I'll continue. ‘Ocean Breeze' had two sails, a mainsail and a foresail. Sometimes, when sailing downwind, generally in light breezes, we could set a spinnaker (a huge extra sail) to push the boat forwards more quickly. The boom is what the mainsail is hoisted on, and when you want to go straight ahead against the wind, you need to ‘tack', by taking a zig-zag path, first steering left (port) and then right (starboard), and to perform each turn you say ‘ready about'. The steering position is the helm, which is in an area known as the cockpit. Internally, it's still as confusing. The seating area is called the saloon, the kitchen is the galley and the bathroom is classed as the heads; honestly, it's true! Up forward, is sometimes termed the ‘fo'c'sle'. (This is from the yachting glossary, short for forecastle). Finally, the rear end of the boat is called ‘aft'. If you can make sense of all that you've done extremely well.

Thinking back to that nearly fatal trip still gives me the shivers. It is one which I will never forget, as the fear I felt was so vivid! It all started on a beautiful August morning. We were then berthed in Kingston-upon-Hull Marina. We had planned a trip to Brancaster, which was situated on the north Norfolk coast. Our estimated passage would take around twelve hours, so it would be no mean feat for our first trip. From our marina we first had a twenty mile sail down the river to Spurn Point. Spurn Point is quite a landmark for sailors in that area. It's where the lifeboat station is located, and it is also the last safe anchorage before entering the North Sea. We had decided that it would be sensible to sail down the Humber estuary the night before, and anchor overnight. That way we could get started at dawn the next morning in order to make landfall in daylight. Once we had anchored we set to preparing supper, which consisted of beans on toast, washed down with a glass of milk. The sunset that night was fantastic. We sat on deck until darkness fell, then retreated down into our comfy berth (bed), and fell asleep dreaming of our adventure.

The following morning dawned, and with it was a hazy mist. We had expected this though, as it's quite usual at that time of year after prolonged hot weather. We were grateful, however, that it soon cleared. It can be quite daunting starting a passage in those conditions, and the last thing you need to be worrying about is the weather. In actual fact the skies cleared sufficiently, and the sea was so calm, that we had to motor part of the trip because of lack of wind. It was like being in the doldrums. I baked fresh bread for lunch, and we were soon tucking into salmon and cucumber sandwiches, which went down a treat: scrummy. Sixty miles of open sea, and we were nearly there. As we approached the harbour there were people on jet-skis, water skiers, lots of boats, and people enjoying the warm evening sunshine. It was great! Whilst Nigel carefully navigated Ocean Breeze through the myriad of people, I radioed through to the harbour master to inform him of our imminent arrival. We soon spotted the harbour patrol boat with him on board. Once within shouting distance of Ocean Breeze, he directed us to the mooring buoy we had been allocated for our three-night stay. Or so we thought.

We kept a small dinghy on the back of the boat and, after showering and getting dressed for the evening, we rowed ashore, tying the dinghy to a small wooden jetty. We strolled into the village chattering about the day's events. We both felt a real sense of achievement, and promised ourselves a lovely evening as a reward. The village was small, but there were quite a few pubs to choose from. We decided on one that had a good restaurant; after all, we were going to spoil ourselves tonight! The pub seemed very popular with the locals; the only downside to this was that they said there would be at least an hour's wait for a table in the restaurant. In truth it ended up being more like two. However, at the time, we wanted to have an hour in the bar to relax and have a drink or two, or three or four as it turned out. In hindsight, our mistakes that evening were a catalogue of errors. In our euphoria of having a successful passage, we had neglected to remember all the basics that we had been taught. Firstly, what state of tide would it be when we wanted to return that night? In essence, would we have any water to row back in the dinghy? As we approached the little wooden jetty in the pitch-black darkness we could see our dinghy, but it was now sat on the sand. In those days we didn't have mobile phones, so we had no means of seeing in the dark. That was the second mistake, we had forgotten to take a torch.

Thirdly, we had to wait so long to be seated in the restaurant that we had drunk too much, even before we started on the wine! I don't suppose the liqueurs helped either! Anyway, it's for all these reasons that we found ourselves in this predicament.

‘Oh heck, bun, what shall we do now?' I gasped.

‘Well, we need to retrieve the dinghy,' he replied.

‘Off you go then,' I laughed, and ‘I'll wait here.'

By now, our eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness but, although I could just make out Nigel's outline, it was becoming increasingly difficult. The night air was still warm, but the breeze had taken on the familiar chill of the sea. Suddenly I heard Nigel's voice, ‘Oh, bloody hell, no.' ‘Nigel, Nigel, are you okay?' I shouted, slightly panicked by the tone of his voice. I could hear sloshing sounds, followed by spurious swear words, coming from the vicinity of where I guessed Nigel was. I was peering into the gloomy darkness trying to catch a glimpse of Nigel, when something caught my eye.

‘Nigel, Nigel, is that you? Are you okay? Have you got the dinghy?' Sure enough, albeit a little dishevelled, Nigel finally appeared, staggering out of the darkness. ‘Oh my god, bun, what's happened to you?' I said, trying not to laugh. ‘What's happened to me? What's happened to me?' he replied. ‘What's it look like? I'm up to my knees in bloody quicksand!'

The dinghy was nowhere to be seen! Nevertheless, I was relieved to see Nigel in one piece. Whether it was the relief of knowing he was safe I don't know, but I started laughing uncontrollably. There he stood, his cream chinos now looked more like two-tone trousers, and his pale blue shirt looked like a tie-dye design of mud, sea and sand. Fortunately, Nigel did see the funny side, and together we dropped to our knees laughing until our sides ached.

The initial frivolity over, reality hit home; we were then faced with the dilemma of how to get back on board Ocean Breeze. After thinking through various options, we decided there was only one sensible solution, and that was to head back to the restaurant. ‘When all else fails, head back to the pub,' so that's what we did. By the time we returned to the pub it was quite late, and most of the customers were making their way home; only our home was high and dry, literally! Fortunately, the manageress was really helpful and, after we explained our predicament, she told me about a bed and breakfast that was about half a mile down the road. Our second lucky break was that she knew the proprietor, and offered to put a call through to see if there were any vacancies for a bed for the night. Hurrah! Maybe our luck was beginning to change - a room was available.

Now then, for some reason I've always had problems with left and right. So much so that, on my final driving lesson, an hour before my test, my driving instructor told me to take a right turn. I was confused. The only right turn imminently to my right was a petrol station. I glanced down at the fuel indicator, to see that we still had just over half a tank left. Surprised at the amount of fuel we still had left I continued to make the turn. Obviously, the instructor didn't like dropping below half a tank, I thought. Surely this was a trick question though? The instructor wanted to see that I was well aware of what my instrument dials were telling me? Smugly I pulled in at the side of the petrol filler and turned off the engine. Hmm, she wasn't going to catch me out! Wrong, wrong, wrong! When she glared across at me with a blank expression on her face, I realised my stupid mistake; I'd turned left instead of right - how embarrassing! Anyway, moving on swiftly, we'll get back to sailing!

Nigel had flatly refused to re-enter the pub with me because of the state of his attire, so it was down to me to organise a B&B for the night. Success! After securing a room, I listened to the directions of how we could find the B&B. It seemed fairly straightforward, even for me to understand. So, off we went. It wasn't until the alcohol started to wear off that I started to think we'd been walking a long time. Surely by now we'd covered the half a mile to our destination? The August night air had definitely taken on a chill. We were both getting tired. I was beginning to feel cold, and we both just wanted to climb into a comfortable bed. No such luck! The stinking mud on Nigel's legs had now dried to a hard crust. The only consolation to this was that the smell had disappeared, but the crustiness of the mud had started to cause blisters on his feet. He wasn't a happy bunny, but neither was I, and the evening's escapades no longer seemed amusing. It was Nigel who decided enough was enough. It was also pretty obvious that the colour of my hair had once again earned itself the well known saying ‘dizzy blonde'. Yes, I'd messed up again. I was so cross with myself; could I ever get anything right? Eventually, we retraced our steps. Once again, I was in the pub for the third time that night; but this time Nigel was adamant he would be right behind me. Hallelujah!

After explaining what had happened, we were taken pity on. A member of staff was heading our way and offered to take us to the elusive B&B. On arrival the house was in darkness. Mind you, that wasn't surprising, because we were about two hours later than expected. What now? We had two options. We either spent the night outdoors, or somehow tried to wake up the occupants of the house. In this instance, discretion being the better part of valour, we plumped for the latter. We decided that we had to be discreet, so it seemed to me that we should go round to the back of the house, where we would at least be hidden from the other houses on the cul-de-sac. Aided and abetted by Julie (the staff member), we made our way around to the back garden. A dim light was still shining in one of the rooms: thank goodness! We presumed from this, that at least somebody was still awake. The three of us stood in the garden, like three naughty school children, looking up at the window. Nigel picked up a small pebble and tossed it upwards towards the window, swiftly followed with a whisper of ‘Hello, hello.' After several attempts, we stood looking longingly towards the window, when noises were heard. The clinking of keys and locks were heard, and then a door opened.

‘I'd given up on you,' said a voice from the door.

Nigel replied, ‘I'm so sorry about this, but we've had a few problems trying to find you.' Then Julie spoke, ‘Hello, Mary, this is the young couple from the pub.'

It was a starry night. The sky was full of stars that twinkled like diamonds. The garden was illuminated with a warm, yellow glow which, in a strange way, made the whole scenario seem more plausible. A brief explanation took place, and then Mary turned to Nigel, looked at his legs and asked, ‘So, what happened to you?' Rather embarrassed, Nigel explained. I added the odd comment or two in-between, trying not to laugh. It was impossible though, and then a warm bucket of water, soap and a towel was handed to Nigel to clean himself up! And all whilst in the garden!

Relieved finally to crawl into a bed, we snuggled up together to take a well earned rest. Not surprisingly, sleep came easily that night.