Diary of an Offshore Virgin
It didn’t take long to make a decision when the phone call came at the end of August last year, asking if the we would fancy a trip with the Bailey’s to sail their Oyster 58.5 from Kinsale in Southern Ireland to ‘somewhere in Spain’. A week later flights were booked and a week after that Dave and I were off to join Graham and Julia. At the time going to Ireland was the most exciting thing for me being a huge fan of most things Irish, especially the accent that can bring on a tremble of the knees! Which is strange as I’ve never been there. Landing in Cork was somewhat disappointing. The whole of the area was covered in dense low cloud and the rain was torrential. To add insult to my initial impression the taxi driver was Welsh with no sexy accent. However Kinsale did not disappoint, a beautiful place nestled in the hills around the river with picture perfect streets and architecture and good old Irish hospitality. So far so good.
At 8am the next morning us four CCYC members – two of whom were extremely experienced offshore sailors, one reasonably experienced and the virgin, ventured out of Kinsale. I have to confess that I had a private back up plan, having never sailed off-shore before, that if the sea did not look inviting I was straight back to the airport and leaving the seasoned sailors to it, but I didn’t realise that we had to make it out of the river to see the sea, so that was it, I was going. The sea when we got there was not as calm as I would have liked it and by 10am we were all life jackets and lifelines on but nothing too dramatic and the lovely Oyster ‘Firefly’ calmly sailed off on a reach to ‘somewhere in Spain’.
The plan at this stage was that the Ross’s would leave in Spain to fly back home, and the Bailey’s would continue leisurely further south without us. My time was taken up with Bay of Biscay homework. Having given myself nightmares over it I had a second back up plan to skirt around the north of it to ‘somewhere in France’ again to leave the seasoned sailors to it, but opted not to mention to them that I was worried about ‘cabin fever’ and having to get off. I was very worried about my new horror that is known as the Bay of Biscay and not seeing land, and sailing through the night, and navigation, and charts. My list was endless.
However the first night passed without incident and I found myself enjoying the watch in the dark and four hours on and four off stuff. There was a little sail trimming involved but constant breeze from one direction was a new concept for me. We just reached, reached and then reached some more. By day two I was a little braver and ventured into the world of charts and navigation. Day three we hit ‘The Bay’, by now I was thoroughly enjoying my off-shore experience, bring it on! Having sailed (and motored) through some fairly dull patches with very little breeze, the wind now picked up a little. After all my initial prayers to be on the only boat on the planet to get through this stretch of water in calm flat sea and a gentle force two, it transpired that no-one upstairs had been listening. By nightfall a good force seven was blowing with big waves (well big in my world) coming in from all directions. Our lovely boat – by now I consider a piece of her to be mine – safely rocked and rolled through, instilling confidence by the bucket full. Probably the best time of the trip for me was this rocking and rolling through the night in the shipping lane. I remember at 3am, when a large gin palace passed by, wondering if they were looking down on us in pity. Well gin palace, I wouldn’t have traded places for all the tea in China, I was having a ball.
It was almost disappointing to reach land. Bayona, ‘somewhere in Spain’. If you ever find yourself in the Yacht club there have a gin and tonic as Julia and I wisely did. They are huge; the glasses could have held goldfish. The boys ordered beers and held out two hands in anticipation of a stein having seen our measures. The looks on their faces as beers arrived in glasses that most people put tequila in was priceless. I would have expected the same look if they were watching our lovely ‘Firefly’ sink!
After a fabulous night on the town and much discussion, team Ross opted for staying put and continuing to Cascais in Portugal. Important work stuff was diminishing by the hour for Dave, and I was going nowhere by now except to maybe wave Dave off at the airport. Two more days of sailing, another overnight stay further down the coast of Spain, and our first jibe! And we arrived at our final destination. It was stunning. A beautiful place, 30 degrees of heat and the Portuguese made us so welcome that we were offered a dragon for a regatta that weekend. Dave’s work dilemma was now huge, what could he say by means of an excuse as to why he would not be back at work the following Monday morning? Team Bailey is brilliant at this game, my favourite of their suggestions was ‘a bad oyster experience’ and ‘ we are stranded because of Hurricane Julia’. It’s pretty irrelevant what he came up with as by then we were staying.
I could write for hours about this trip but have to wrap it up at some point. So to surmise: a trip that could have gone either way for me (love it or hate it) I loved. I learnt a lot and am keen for more. Graham and Julia are born to teach with endless patience and Dave and I can spend more than a weekend together and still have things to talk about. We won the Dragon Regatta, which was pretty much the icing on the cake and Dave didn’t make it back to work for another week. And despite my love of all things Irish it was a 60 ft boat that I fell in love with and can’t wait to see her again.
Sarah Ross