I suppose it was fitting that the maiden voyage of my new yacht - Serafina Pekkala (the queen of the witches from Phillip Pullmas ‘dark materials’) should have an all girl crew, though afterwards as I nursed my aches and pains I felt that at least one male, if not a wizard, would have been useful.
We were very international –Jutta and her daughter Lisa from Germany, Anna the Dane, and me English of Viking extraction ( I love pillage, not sure about rape).
As they hadn’t sailed before, ever, I was a little nervous, I don’t know the boat that well yet, but we were only going round the Marmaris bay to anchor behind the island and have a picnic and a swim.
Before we left I was very careful to explain what happened when we had to anchor and especially when we came back in and parked. Both Jutta and Anna have good English, but nauticalese – that’s a different matter!
“ OK Jutta the marina man will hand you the slime line, you hand him the stern line and pass Anna the slime line. Anna you take it forward outside everything hauling it in as you go, and then put it through the fairlead, haul in hard then secure it to the deck cleat. Jutta the marina man will hand you back the stern line, attach that to a the cleat, then do the same with the other one. “ easy peasy.
“Vot is a cleat please?”, from Jutta, a bemused “ Penny there are so many ropes!” from Anna. I should have drawn a diagram. Oh well, I’ll explain again later.
We had a lovely day, Anna found steering difficult, problem between left and right, they should never have changed the side of the road they drive on; but we anchored OK. I stopped Jutta flambéing lunch, (GRP plastic boats burn amazingly well), and we had a nice salad and a bottle of wine. Then a swim and a lounge feeling superior watching the day-trippers getting drunk on nearby gullets. Then off to sail as the wind picked up. Well almost. The anchor is hauled up round an electrically powered windlass. Only this one jammed after hauling up half the chain, I pressed the reset button but nothing. With half the chain up we were now drifting slowly towards a nearby gullet. Nothing for it but girl power, so the international ladies tug of war team set to work. The wine we had had didn’t help but we eventually got it all up (the chain, not the wine) before we hit the gullet, trippers looking on interestedly at the sight of three grunting, sweaty females.
The sail back was fun, the wind between the islands suddenly gusts, then changes direction, so explaining how to sail wasn’t easy, doing it wasn’t that easy either. We had to tack a few times .
“Ve are going to attack? attack vot ?”
. “Penny, why are we going the wrong way, Marmaris is over there ?”
Then I went through the parking procedure again :
“This -cleat, this - mooring rope, this -deck, this - stern, – Ok “
“Vot?”
She’s not from Barcelona, but Hamburg must be similar !
I reversed in beautifully; Jutta took the slime ( bow) line from the marina man, she gave it to Anna and gave him the stern line. Great. I breathed a sigh of relief, turned away, and then back to see Anna, lying on her back along the deck, doing a passable caretta turtle imitation, with the bow line wrapped around her leg. I leapt forward to take it from her. Anna determinedly hung on behind me, so I dragged her and the line forward.
Hauling it in was hard, as Anna was hauling it as well, but in the opposite direction to me. Fortunately the nice marina man came up, gently removed Anna from the line, gave me a nice smile and hauled it tight and secure. He didn’t actually pat me on the head, but his look suggested he wanted to.
Back at the stern, Jutta had the other end of the rope back now, and was happily holding it, as the boat drifted from the pontoon.
“Tie it round the cleat”,
“ pardon me?”,
“round the cleat, that thing on the deck”.
Jutta looked around for the deck,
I suppose when you are faced with new and slightly alarming things happening your brain reverts to your native tongue -
“ By your foot”,
Jutta looked around for her foot.
I suppose naming a boat after a witch was asking for trouble. The windlass worked perfectly later.
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