Author: maddieisoutoftheoffice

To Malta

Tuesday
My flight from Tenerife to Barcelona was rather amusing, somehow I was the only person in row 1 – the crew treated me as if I had my own private class – serving wine before trolley service commenced (I didn’t even ask) and at one point I had all four crew up with me chatting about sailing – sailing in general, their friends who sail, possibilies of pirates, etc….  Once left to my own devices I happened upon a margarita bar for the evening; we are potentially sailing from the point of my embarkment in Malta, who knows if yacht victualing included tequila.  Perhaps should have packed tequila.

Wednesday
Thunder and lightning saluted my arrival in Malta, grey skies reminiscent of the UK in September, and torrential rain such as Bristol friends will know well.  We are not sailing anywhere today, and the winds don’t seem to be favourable for the next 24hrs at least, so I may get to see a bit of Malta after all – perhaps should have packed wellies!

Thursday
Our first mission is locate the yacht we’re supposed to be sailing to Tenerife – oh yes, I’m on the wrong boat.  The yacht I’m on (albeit stationary at present) is also en route to Tenerife, but the one I should be on is 170 nautical miles away in Sicily; at an optimistic 5-6 knots that’s 30-36 hrs, and we still haven’t left Malta.  Today has been a bit more boat prep – I got to see a full and extensive engine service; two very experienced skippers in no particular rush meant there was time to explain the basics.  Definitely not in a hurry to do one on my own yet though.

To Sicily

Friday
We departed at first light and – victualing aside – all positive to report so far.  Skipper arranged a two hour on, six hour off, watch system which isn’t too taxing and the weather has been on our side; 10-18 knots of wind behind us, motor sailing in a general NNW direction.  My next watch is the 2-4am stint, and there’s a strict “no reading” policy; I may need to download some riddles.  On victuals, a miscommunication somewhere meant we left Malta with only partial provisions – this included water and lots of eggs, but no meat, fruit or veg, aside from three courgettes and three sad tomatoes, plus the fruit I’d brought myself….  The lack of a sea kettle (no tea!) did cause some very British mumblegrumbling, so is top of the list before the boat departs the next port.

Saturday
I awoke prepared to mutiny if my last apple had been purloined overnight; fortunately no mutiny required.  And since then we’ve arrived at our first port!  And I’ve had my first experience of walking a plank to embark/disembark, a little concerned of the precariousness at night and after a vino or two….  We are all now correctly affiliated with our yachts, and apparently my sailing knowledge, energy and organisational skills (bossiness?) are a win for my new crew, let’s see if these opinions remain the same over the next three weeks.

Sunday
Explored Trapani extensively and discovered it’s probably the only place in today’s world without an Irish pub, and it’s exceptionally difficult to locate somewhere serving eggs for breakfast; I realise most of my entries seem to be food related, but without the traditional working day and meetings to punctuate time, meals become important bastions.  We had intended to set off for Sardinia tomorrow at sunrise, however, in true European form (a birthday in the family of the man in charge) the fuel pontoon was closed today….  They’ve also swapped the yachts around on the pontoon, I almost just tried to board the wrong one, glad I popped back before dark!

To be continued……

Total sailed: 176 NM

Earlier this week I was enlightened of the fact that we each get on average 30,000 sunrises – 30,000 days – in a lifetime.  It doesn’t sound like much.  It definitely sounds like something I shall to call to mind whenever I am given an opportunity to extend beyond my comfort zone and wonder whether I should take the safe way out.  To that effect, I hope that you would all agree I’ve done just the opposite of that this year.

It has been three months since I left London and there have definitely been highs and lows.  I can’t say I have any explicit regrets, but I can certainly say I have a lot to feel really thankful for; foremostly I appreciate I am very lucky to have been able to embrace this experience to the full.

My City job gave me the backbone to deal with people who may be more contraversial and less considerate than I would otherwise be used to.  My philosophy degree gave me an open mind and the ability to take a step back and consider the bigger picture, before striking forth with my opinion, even if I still feel correct.  The friends I have made along the way and the experiences you have shared with me, the way we can laugh about mistakes made, lessons learned and desires for the future, realistic or idealistic, confirmed that we’re all in this together no matter the ground distance between us and gave me the confidence to do this perhaps slightly crazy thing.

What I am trying to say – albeit if I only see you every six months or so now – the support of loved ones, the knowledge that you are behind me and there for me, even if this doesn’t strategically work out, is such a comfort.

And then there is family; this is the message I received from my Mummy before I left the UK, in response to a comment as to how I was surprised by the unwavering support I had received, given what was perhaps a bit of a bold decision: “For you to be happy, healthy and content with your life is what I want for you – then I am happy too xxx”.  Thank you all for being a part of my world, I am a lucky girl.

Let’s take a moment a day to appreciate every sunrise.

Delighted to start this post by stating I haven’t encountered a cockroach for some weeks now, not to tempt sod too much, but a minor hurrah!  However, his friend, the mosquito, has recently surfaced in abundance.  I can only assume this is because the temperature has dropped slightly, or perhaps just because I am no longer on permanent cockroach location duty, this little beast is being very pesky.

We don’t usually have to endure them on the boats, which is a huge plus, and an unexpected one due to the amount of water around us!  There are a couple of marinas with very efficient wind protection – which they sell as a highlight, and certainly makes for a less interrupted sleep (squeaky boats and creaky ropes and water smacking is an acoustic which takes a little time to adjust to) – however, the wind is your friend in the matter of mosquitoes.  Without wind the mozzies delight, the water is still, and you have to either sleep with all hatches closed and stifling air (and the potential for your shoes to set off the smoke alarm) or fully expect to have at least one of these mongrels in your cabin.  Then there is no sleep.  I have tried to offer up a sacrificial leg, in the hope they will take their fill and leave, but no such luck; why do they insist on bothering your face?!  Why do they pester some people more than others?

And the biggest question of all; why do they exist?  Is there some bigger purpose to the mosquito in the animal kingdom?  And if not, why haven’t we worked out how to extinguish them by now?

In a particularly relaxed hour of downwind sailing the other day I sought to answer some of these questions, good old internet.

Caveat: Internet based information to follow, likely to be only partly fact.

– Jurassic Park was correct, these guys have been around since the dinosaurs.
– Over 3,500 different strains have been identified which is why it’s so difficult to get rid of them.
– Recent attempts to cull have included breeding and releasing swarms of sterile males.
– The males don’t bite, they simply hang around with their buddies, drinking nectar, listening out for a female to impregnate.  As I understand it there was a very accurate representation of this in A Bug’s Life.
– Females can live for up to a month, males five to seven days.
– The females make the noise, the males have ears (or the fly equivalent).
– In her lifetime a female can lay up to 200 eggs.
– The abdomen of a female mosquito can hold three times her own weight in blood: once she has consumed a “blood meal” the protein is used to produce eggs.
– Egg production takes about seven days, after which the female will seek out another host.
– They are attracted to CO2, hence the face bothering, and the more you exhale the more they are attracted – so darting round the room weilding a flyswat just makes you even more appealing.
– They are also attracted to type O blood, pregnancy hormones – and beer.

G&Ts or wine all round then!

We have all encountered terrible pub/bar loo facilities (Drunken Monkey in Shoreditch, Londoners?!) but a couple of drinks and you don’t really notice these things, especially when they dim the lights right down….  However, a certain standard of facilities is something us Westerners have grown to expect, and for the most part – festivals aside – you can visit a healthy one at least once a day.

Not so here.

A few weeks ago I was sailing with strangers, as I tend to do now, and was asked by a lady on her first day – whilst standing in the best marina facilities I’ve come across to date – in a stage whisper, if others were “better than these”.  Her face dropped when I said these were the best we would see that week.  Three days on, if there was a seat and loo roll she was happy – light, a lock, and a dry floor were an added bonus.   Such is the joy of many marina facilities in the Canaries, if they exist at all.

Facilities here are usually the equivalent of the dodgy one your gran used to have off the back of the kitchen.  Possibly actually partly outdoors.  Probably creepycrawly ridden.  Likely to have a light on a 10 second timer – just out of reach from the seat (if there is one and it’s still attached).  And if you have loo roll it’s because you brought it with you – on the walk down from your boat, clutching the facilities key, probably with a large bell attached as a keyring, just to let everyone you pass along the crew pontoon know exactly where you’re going….

They don’t tend to do portaloos, which is definitely a good thing, because a plastic cubicle in 35 degrees is not somewhere you want to be; this week we got to a marina which purported to have portacabins, only to discover – after seven hours of beating into wind round the coast – these were being renovated and in lieu (pun intended) there were portaloos.  And no showers.

Showers wise, we have fun: functioning shower heads are almost extinct here, again locks are very rare, ankle deep water is probably guaranteed; and if you are very lucky you may encounter a marina operating what we’ve christened “shower hour”, this means, for instance, woman can use the facilities in even hours and men can use them in odd hours.  Be prepared to be disappointed upon arrival in the marina two minutes after your hour concluded….  But you can shower on the boat!  I hear you cry, ah yes, of course, until your boat doesn’t have a functioning water pump…..  Then showers become a team effort; we hardwired the pump and installed a knocking communication system between the person in the shower and someone operating the electrical switches.

It is interesting how quickly one adjusts.  Also how handy that festival training is coming in, transitional skills etc.  Just need to find a use for all that credit derivatives knowledge rattling around now!  Credit Event banter with your skippered charter, anyone?

To pharaphrase the littlest hobo…  There’s a place that keeps on calling me; China Town, that’s where I’ll always be.

Make no mistake upon entrance, this place is like that last bit of Ikea where you can buy all the stuff to fill your nice until-now-uncluttered house, but with special powers.  There is no “pop” to China Town.  You try to leave and yet you are contained because you are accidentally in another part of China Town; the windows are internal, and unlike Ikea there is no map – no-one knows where anything is, you desperately trade information with other shoppers: “Have you seen pyjamas?” “Seventeen aisles that way; have you seen ironing board covers?”.  Nothing is where it should be, I accidentally happened upon garden chair cushions about a fifteen minute walk from garden chairs the other day; I think I was looking for a running backpack.  There is strategically room for them to add another floor – after this happens no-one will ever leave.

When you arrive your handbag is locked in a sack which you carry over your shoulder and helps blend you in with all the other muggles roaming the place, this is apparently to prevent you being pickpocketed and/or shoplifting, I can’t but wonder if it is also to track you through the store, Pacman style.  It would not surprise me if they also apply space shifting so you actually do find yourself back in the same aisle six times in a row.

Why does anyone go there?  The answer is in the eyes of anyone you mention the words “China Town” to.  When you find what you’re looking for it is glorious, and the tupperware aisle is a thing of beauty.

There is a huge but.  Of course.  And not a good one like Kim; this but is possibly slightly strategic, you don’t always come away with a successful purchase.  So you have to go back…..  Pyjamas, repeated fail, perhaps the Chinese don’t wear pyjamas?  Linen, also fail; nothing fits!  In John Lewis you locate a packet that says what size it is in terms you understand and that’s all you need, thanks to China Town I’ve ended up with fitted sheets which don’t fit and a pillowcase which I could probably use as a sleeping bag.

I’m heading back there tomorrow.  So if want to join me for a while, just grab your hat…..

On occassion since uni I’ve commented on how much of a relief it is/was that my, albeit unintentional, career path was one which didn’t require exams – given that there are so many of you still doing exams ten years on, with a couple of years to go in some cases!  The working life has been kind to me in that respect and, for the mostpart, my out of hours time was my own, there certainly wasn’t homework, there may have been the odd midnight summons to the office to save a situation, but that was all fun – when something comes out of the blue you either know it or you don’t – very different to knuckling down and studying when everyone else is out having a nice time.

How unexpected then to find myself in this boat (pun intended) now.  I hope it won’t be three years of exams before I can work again, there’s certainly a number I have to pass before I can apply for work – and thereafter re-evaluations on a routine basis.  As someone who was never very good at exams, I definitely didn’t think this part through when I made this life leap!

Since the world of sailing is one away from finance and engineering – where most of my friends seem to belong – I’ve had some questions about the path from here.  So I’ll try to explain a bit; with a huge upfront caveat, it’s a learning curve for me too, the below may well contain errors!  This is my understanding of what is required of me from here to hit the cusp of working in this world.

I got my Competent Crew and Day Skipper certificates back in 2009 and 2010 (anyone who came to Val Thorens with us in 2010 will remember my great dislike of tides, yes I did my coursework in Val Thorens.  Sailing and apres ski!).  I’m now attempting the Yachtmaster Offshore shorebased, which is completed ahead of a practical – there’s also a seperate practical in the middle, Coastal Skipper.  The coursework and exams are the same for both, however, the prerequisite for Yachtmaster is 2500 sea miles – of which I’m at about 800.  For this reason I’m being a bit bold and doing a ~four week passage in October.  This will get me the missing 1700 miles, but will be a huge step mentally too – having never spent more than eleven straight hours on a yacht before (I’ve never had to use yacht facilities, suffice to say it’ll probably be 36hrs before I eat or drink anything!).

If I achieve my Yachtmaster Offshore I can then look at getting my cruising instructor licence, after which I can try to get a job – if successful I’ll no longer be living off the sale of my City shares.  Fortunately, Tenerife is more affordable than London, so I have been able to give myself six months to get back into employment.  Whether I require – and how to get – more experience as well as school weeks and the passage before I am employable remains to be seen…..

In the meanwhile I’ve done a couple of other exams, one to get my short range radio licence and another pair so I can be commercially endorsed.  I’ve been trying to study 5hrs a day 5-6 days a week, and having got 96%+ in these exams I’m feeling happy that something is going right.  Obviously it would be very appealing to just sunbathe on my terrace every day – but that’s not why I’m here.  And the sun doesn’t set until 9pm at the moment, so there’s still plenty of daylight for a little terrace time after working my hours.

Next step, therefore: the Yachtmaster exams, and these things have a 90% pass mark….  I’ve completed the required coursework, but was temporarily scuppered when the tutor asked my invigilator to send an email to confirm my exam conditions; invigilator?  The cats aren’t very good at emails.  Where’s Kim when I need her?!

Whatever happens, I leave for the passage late September and I’m certainly in a small amount of denial, but what’s for sure is that if I manage – and dare I say, also enjoy – the passage, then I’m going to put my all and everything into passing that Yachtmaster Offshore practical.

Optimism + Fear + Determination = ?

A lot less fun than lock-ins.  On Thursday, for the second week in a row, I returned to find all was not as I’d left it in my apartment.

The first week my wallet was gone, not my everyday wallet, but the pre-setting-up-a-bank-account-because-I-need-to-wait-until-I-have-utility-bills wallet.  Suffice to say at the time I was more than slightly upset, mostly because the fear of losing money when not working, and strict budgeting is crucial, left me feeling desolate; but after a nights sleep and a lot of reassurance from friends that there are far worse things to lose, my health and my cats safety for instance, I picked myself up to continue on.  Money can be replaced.  It was money I’d planned to spend in due course after all.

The police were less than helpful, without evidence of a break-in they said there was nothing to pursue.

This week we had a far more brazen invasion.  Whether they used a key or broke in through a terrace door remains to be seen.  There was a lot of glass on the terrace, and our inner Miss Marples nodded appreciatively when the police suggested it looked like the glass had been smashed from the inside and pushed out.  Given the brittle glass pieces across the lounge, I still don’t know how the cats paws are unharmed, thanks for small mercies.

The police (who were much more attentive in round two) said they’d send a fingerprint expert in the morning, so we weren’t to touch anything.  Adhere to these rules we did, I slept on a yacht, and left everything as is; my dad commented that we were lucky the holes in the door were too small/high for the cats to escape.  Unfortunately, not so much the window the burglars left open.  When I returned to meet the fingerprint expert I found one very unhappy cat, screaming because she hates being left on her own, which could only mean one thing; the other had escaped.

With my remaining valuables in my handbag I set off down the road, calling for my cat, hoping he’d call back.  Whilst also thinking to myself that I’m stuck in some Truman Show parallel universe where everything which can go wrong, goes wrong, for the amusement of the powers that be.  The cat calls back, he’s in a locked sunken garden about ten doors down, I can’t get in and he can’t get out; eventually I persuade him to jump high enough up the wall that I can lean over and catch him and haul him the rest of the way….. job done, we’re a three again.

We’ve had the locks changed, twice (the glass men accidentally broke the key in the lock whilst putting the glass in).  We’ve experienced fingerprinting powder and the mess it leaves behind – I think both cats and myself will have black feet for weeks.  We’ve had a door taken out, to have it then go awol for an hour, whilst the man who was supposed to repair it in situ chased it across Tenerife.

So, what did they take?

– Currency:  Non EUR, lots of random notes.  I am intrigued as to what happens when they realise the value of one hundred trillion Zimbabwe dollars ($300 USD at issue, $0.40 now).
– Laptop:  Not the new one, the one with all my photos and documents on.  Years will go by before I stop missing this.
– Usb dvd player:  I have been meaning to buy a dvd player for the tv, guess that’s a job for tomorrow, otherwise I’ll never know what happens in The Good Wife.
– My running backpack:  The Glastonbury 2015 canvas bag was on the same shelf, they’d have got a bit of history rather than a sweaty, haggard piece of my life.
– Jewellery:  They took the whole box, mostly sentimental, one of those situations where you’d pay more to retrieve than they’d ever make from selling on.
– Perfume:  Limited edition.  Treated myself before I left the UK, didn’t even get to take the box out of the plastic.  Guess it teaches you about the foolishness of “saving” something.
– Water:  They took a bottle of water from the fridge, opening a six pack in the process; how long were they in the apartment to require a cold beverage?!
– Sheep’s cheese:  No joke.  A large piece of sheep’s cheese.

The above makes for a rather bizarre shopping list, rotters.

Onwards!

It’s 6am, my new awake time, and I’m listening to my latest – uninvited – flatmate having a whistlingly grand old time in the lounge.  In case the title wasn’t a giveaway, he is a cockroach.  Since I accidentally captured one a few weeks back I now know what they sound like, and I can hear them from two rooms away, my eyesight may be dire but I have excellent hearing, more fool me.  And once I hear them / him / her / it, sleep is not forthcoming.  What I should do is get up and go for a run – instead I lie here listening to the whistling, hoping that for some peculiar reason he’s left the property, but knowing that slow whistle wheeze will recur sooner than later.

He’s in the lounge, and he’s been there since mid July.  I can’t fumigate the room properly as the cats’ bedroom is off the lounge.  The fact they hiss at him occasionally means he’s a large one – and of course in my head he’s now at movie proportions, although there’s nowhere for a six foot cockroach to hide in my apartment, I do brace myself before I look behind the sofa.

My best friend tells me I should be glad they don’t fly (FLY!!) here.  Apparently in India they are everywhere; as if ‘Delhi Belly’ wasn’t enough……

I read an excellent comment the other day about how these guys will be eating our bones and tupperware long after we’ve destroyed humanity with nuclear weapons.  At 6am I’d like to know if there’s really a way to purge the world of cockroaches and mosquitos for good.  Or is there a greater purpose for these things?  Do they somehow hold the entire ecosystem together?  I don’t know if that knowledge would help me, as I lie here waiting for Mr Cockroach to whistle to let me know he’s still there – with my huge, Spanish size, cannister of instant cockroach killer spray at the end of the bed, on a shelf by the lightswitch.  If he makes the foolish mistake of invading my room, sorry sir, that’s coming your way – unless he actually is six foot, in which case I’m going straight off the terrace!

Or should that be purrspective?  Sorry.

I have had a couple of requests for updates on the cats…. so, here we go – please press the back button now if you aren’t of a pet friendly persuasion.

The cats were far quieter in the taxi from the cargo depot to the apartment, via the letting agent office (and almost being wombled on the streets of San Blas!) than they had been in the car en route to Gatwick at 6am, which was a delightful experience – and that has continued since we’ve been here, they have been calm and content all round.  Although I am sure at first it was due to the flight being more than a little traumatic, and relief at being on land again – you can’t explain to a pet that it might be terrible, but it’s only four hours, and there will be love, cuddles and a lot less engine noise awaiting them at the end of it.

The female cried at 4am most mornings when we were in our ad hoc accommodation, which I believe was due to the fact we were confined to one room when it was human sleep time – dawn chorus aside – and she has never liked a closed door (Kim K would be proud of the FOMO!!).  However, here she seems to be okay with having a portion of the apartment (my bedroom and the office) closed off to cats; keeping the fluff contained is desired, that stuff gets everywhere, and in this heat it sticks to you.

They have their own bedroom and the run of the open kitchen / lounge, where they make themselves very much at home on the corner sofa from morning to evening, cats really do sleep a lot.  They’ve never been a fan of furniture actually directed at pets, so I don’t bother, scratching post aside; I’ve had a “big boy” scratching post delivered here, delivery was twice the cost of the item itself, but in combination with an automatic feeder it means I can be both lazy and houseproud (and I think that takes me slightly under the crazy cat lady threshold?  Or did I lose at that forever when they got passports?).

There is a terrace which I am keeping off limits, partly because we are on the first floor (second if you are from the USA) and I’m nervous about them following a butterfly over the wall and ending up on someone else’s terrace roof – but also because I’ve been warned about the feral cats by a kindly pet friendly plumber.  Back in the day, when doing my pre kitten purchase research, I deliberately picked a breed which would be happy housecats, this also means they have no fighting instincts – they are also cream and fluffy; Canarian black sand would not be their friend.  The Birman is also known as The Sacred Cat Of Burma, which is where the breed derived from before almost being wiped out in WW2 and rescued by the French, so they are quite comfortable by design with the increase in ambient temperature.

Cat care wise we have had one win and one fail.  Win wise they love love the Spanish catfood.  I am struggling to find non tuna based dry food, and generally have to go to three supermarkets before I find a chicken and/or beef base, but I’m trying to keep a stock in hand whenever I spot some.  Brings back memories of Bristol when I always seemed to have a box in my handbag….. associated drinking games, anyone?  Litter wise we are not in an ideal place; Amazon let me change my delivery address and the litter made it to Tenerife from the UK, via Germany and Spain, but then we got stuck and it is somewhere in limbo (the DHL man and I couldn’t interpret the website, and the man in the local parcel office can’t understand me)  – so now we are without World’s Best Cat Litter (corn based and flushable) and on the generic stuff you have to put in the rubbish bin, thank goodness for the Spanish system of communal bins with every other day collection.  If anything a big reason I don’t miss London is fortnightly refuse cycles!

Overall, therefore:
+ cats love the temperature
+ cats love the food
+ cats are happy with the apartment
– cats aren’t quite sure what to make of cockroaches…..

I think they would say we can stay!  (In a strong South Bristolian accent, of course.)