We're gonna do what??

If going back to land after cruising is called “swallowing the hook”, what is it called when you decide to leave the land to go cruising?

So goes our decision to become cruisers. And that’s that. The first order of business is learning how to sail and buying a sailboat. We have a motorboat. Her name is Pussy Galore (it’s a James Bond thing). She’s a 1989 Gibsea Jamaica 30. We bought her 2 years ago for cruising the Med. She has served us well, but she’s gotta go. Seeing as how we can’t afford the diesel to circumnavigate the world, and it appears to be dangerous to do so in a motorboat anyway, we have decided to make the switch to sailing.

But first, we have to make moves to sell Pussy Galore. And in this economy, that is no mean feat.

She was moored in St. Tropez until a couple of weeks ago. Our lease was up on our berthing and since it is extremely difficult to find mooring in southern France, we decided to move her to Barcelona.  So first, Miguel took her to La Grande Motte and put her on the hard for a thorough cleaning and bottom paint.

Afterwards, he continued on to Cap d’Agde, where I met up with him, and we continued on to Barcelona.

This was my first real passage, having only scooted around the Cote d’Azur on previous excursions. The winds were at 20-25 knots and we were riding swells of at least 4-6 feet. Typical weather for the Gulf of Lyon. So, of course, I was violently seasick. A bit disappointing, since I was anticipating a circumnavigation. However, I was determined to tough it out and get my sea legs. I eventually couldn’t vomit anymore, so I was getting a little better by the time we stopped in Port Palamos. We had actually planned on stopping in Port Roses, but before we arrived, our GPS took a shit and we missed the port completely. We were afraid of running out of fuel, so we headed inland, spotted a marina, and ducked in for a refill. When we pulled up, they offered us a spot for the night, and after discovering that we had passed Port Roses an hour before, we took them up on their offer.

Port Palamos is a new marina, really clean, and expensive. We paid 55 euros for the night. They did have internet, which was welcome, a small bar and grill, an even smaller chandler, and a snack shack. We went inside, gave them our paperwork, then went back to Pussy Galore to wash her down. Afterwards, we ate leftover spaghetti (I’m still not sure how I managed that), then discovered we had a leak coming from the shafts, which Miguel had already repaired on one occasion. To add to the list, the anchorage lights had went out and the windshield wipers had stopped working.

We had planned on leaving early the next morning, but first we had to fix our leak. So, we got up bright and early, had breakfast, then walked over to the dry docks to see if we could find a mechanic. The reason we needed a mechanic is because Miguel is too big to fit in the engine room, and we didn’t have the proper tools on board. After a little searching, we found a mechanic who said he would swing by in 20 minutes, which he did. He had us up and running in 30 minutes. He charged us 25 euros.

We pulled out, stopped by the fuel pumps, and took off. It was only 45 nm to Barcelona and this time we took care to use our charts and Miguel taught me how to DR plot. The seas were calm, so I guess the day before was just my initiation.

We felt that one of the reasons we had missed Port Roses the day before was because we were running too far off shore to recognize the landmarks, so this time we ran a little closer to the coast.

Just as Miguel had finished telling me how to recognize navigational hazards below the surface of the water, we saw breaking water just 200 meters ahead of us. We had been on autopilot and she was steering us directly towards a large group of rocks. This was a good example for me on how important it is to keep a good watch at all times. Miguel steered us around the rocks and we moved out a little further to avoid any other problems.  But about an hour later, Miguel asked me to check the depth on the chart. We should have been at 30 meters, but Miguel was reading 8 meters on the depth finder. We had plotted our course with the autopilot and it had slowly started to creep in closer to the coast. He had noticed the water was getting lighter and pointed this out to me as another lesson in keeping a constant watch. We again tweaked our course and kept it steady, straight for Port Forum. We left Port Palamos at noon and swung into Port Forum at 5:30pm. My first passage was complete. I now had 150 nm under my belt. Yay for me!

Tags: Amateur Sailors, Blue Water, Circumnavigation, Cruising, FerroCement, France, Mediterranean Cruising, Motor Boat, No Experience, Ocean Crossing, Sailboat, Sailing, Spain, Travel, Vagabonds, World Voyage

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 1st, 2009 at 9:20 am and is filed under In The Beginning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.