Saturday 9th June '12

7 sleeps to go before I'm on that train....

Last evening four excitable children plus lovely Julie (Mrs Bobbie D) met at the Five Pointed Star in West Malling for a final chat about the trip.  We will see each other once more before we leave but that will be at Bobbie D's retirement party and we don't hold out much hope of getting any sense out of him past 7 pm in the evening. 

At the start of the meetig I handed out the newly aquired crew tee shirts and immediately apologised to Bobbie D because The Kipper and Steve made me order an extra large for him.

In no particular order we discussed the following:

The journey to Falmouth has been coordinated and agreed: we will be meeting at Tonbridge railway station to embark on the 10:40 hrs service to London and then onwards to Falmouth Town.  Julie will be joining us and she and Bobbie D will spend Saturday evening together in what is described as a 'posh' hotel before Julie bids us farewell on the Sunday.  I feel it worthy of note that very early on in this meeting The Kipper said out loud that he will be buying the crew dinner before we leave.  I say again, The Kipper definitely said that he will be buying the crew dinner before we leave.  All present agreed that it was very nice of him to offer and of course, we will be taking him up on it. 

A reminder went out to remember to pack passports, the E111 form and our medical insurance.  I find it slightly unnerving how often the subject of medical/travel insurance comes up.  Suppose I ought to make an effort and get some!  It can be a bit tricky to get cover for a trip such as this because believe it or not some people might consider it fool-hardy and dangerous to be more than 12 miles offshore for any length of time.  Of course, there are companies out there who specialise in this field of insurance - Topsail being one of them so I will be accessing their website (www.topsailinsurance.co.uk) to see if I can purchase said insurance from them. We also discussed finances and agreed that we will contribute to a boat kitty and will order our Euros before we leave.  There was general discussion about the financial crisis in Greece and the slight worry that once they finally arrive at the final destination their bank/credit cards may not work and the Greek economy might have failed altogether.  See we can discuss grown up stuff when we need to. 

We reminded the Kipper to bring along the ships papers - Small Ships Register certificate, Insurance paperwork, a crew list with passport numbers ready to hand over to the various marinas they will be visiting along he way and his VAT certificate (Petra is a 1988 build so this could be required if the foreign authorities wanted to get really sniffy about it).  Steve also suggested that The Kipper should have copies of his boat insurance in Spanish, Italian and Greek: from his own experience of trotting around in the Med he knows that this will be a requirement and could cause delays and problems if it the copies are not to hand.  Insurance companies expect this and will email the necessary copies out to him. 

We moved on to discuss the jobs that need to be completed once we arrive in Falmouth.  The Saturday has been given over to travel and as we'll all no doubt be tired and emotional (that word again) by the time we've finished sitting on a train for several hours; we don't plan on doing much on the evening of our arrival.   Subject to us managing to find five seats together on the train, we'll be putting together a menu plan for the trip on the way down to Falmouth.  We discussed the logistics of ordering some minced beef, stewing steak and chicken from a local butcher and asking them to vacuum pack it and deep freeze it for us.  Julie suggested that Morrisons might be good for this so Steve is going to make some enquiries this week and order if he can.  We don't plan on switching the fridge on during this trip so it will act like a cool box.  Hopefully, if we put our frozen supplies in the bottom of the fridge it should keep for several days.  If not, I'm sure Neptune will be appreciative of a little extra protein in his diet. 

On the Sunday two of us will be packed off to the supermarket and two will remain to complete jobs on Petra.  We have yet to decide who will be resposible for shopping - if I go, I can guarantee that there won't be any celery making an appearance in our shopping trolley and at Bobbie D's request, no beetroot either.  The jobs list for the Sunday will also include a rig and deck level check, check the anchor light during the rig check,  re-running the Navtex aerial, re-packing the Genoa which I am horrified to say has been 'stuffed' in the sail bag for reasons that have yet to be made known.  Of course, at the use of the word 'stuffed' The Scribe raised an eyebrow and put that job at the top of the list.  The toilet pump needs a service, we need to top up with diesel and water before we go and purchase and stow the emergency water rations.  At the moment, it has been suggested that the bottles be stowed up in the forepeak under the berth.  There followed a general discussion about the amount of water we were going to need and we did have remind ourselves that we are not actually crossing the Atlantic and are only going to be at sea for maybe 10 days at most...hopefully...all being well....


Moving on, The Kipper has been closely watching the weather and it seems the official line on this is that the weather at sea has been pants!  You don't have to have a weather forecasting degree to know that the weather of late has been howling - particularly yesterday - and forecasts with wind speeds of up to 60 to 80 knots have been mentioned.

Bugger that!!!

We all have our fingers crossed that this will have blown through and settled down over the course of next week and once we are ready to leave on the Monday, we'll have a good five day forecast to look forward to.  If I see so much as one 'Zebra's Bottom' (I cleaned that up) on a weather chart I'm going home. 

Going back briefly to the subject of water - Steve announced that he will only need to wash every other day because apparently those nice boys and girls from Gillette have announced a new deodarant that gives 48 hour protection.  Thank you so much Gillette: damn your clever marketing and advertising campaign.  For the record, we'll be carrying out our own clinical trials on this miracle of body cleanliness (I can't write or even think about the word 'odour' this early in the morning) and if it doesn't work Steve will be chucked over the side with a bar of soap and a strongly worded letter will be posted the minute we make dry-land. 

Strangely, the conversation moved on to a place called Formentera which is I believe on the Island of Ibiza.  Truly animated conversation from the boys around the table because apparently, this is a beautiful place (think paradise and the lost city of Atlantis...mmmm Patrick Duffy....and we're back in the room) where everyone and by this I mean the ladies, walk around naked.  At this point, The Scribe begged Julie to come with her for moral support...

She said no...

Time was moving on and after that conversation it was difficult to get the boys to focus.  The Kipper made mention of the fact that he has renewed the sim card in his dongle...I'm sure the ladies will be happy about that and the crew were delighted for him. The Scribe once again put forward the motion that the Kite will not be making an appearance (well okay, unless it's absolutely necessary) and will remain safely stowed in it's bag in the forepeak where it can't do any harm and cause any trouble.  The Kipper just had to show us all a picture on his phone of Steve's boat running with the kite up...Scribe remained suitably unimpressed.  Steve is going to speak to his nephew to see if he can borrow fishing line and lures, The Kipper is going to see if he can knock up a storm board this week for the forepeak hatch and the cabin hatch - working on the principle that if we have it, we won't need it.

He is also going to update the contact details for the EPIRB so if the worst happens, Falmouth coastguard will contact his son Roger who will then contact all or the crews nearest and dearest to let them know there might possibly be a problem.  Julie did enquire that in the event she doesn't hear from us, how long should she leave it before she starts to worry.  We suggested about 2 weeks - if she hasn't heard from us by then I'll be in trouble because I'll have to be back for work!  We promised that we will make sure Bobbie D calls her the minute he has any kind of signal or at the very least, sends her a text to let her know all is well.  Bless them, how long have they been married...posh hotels, tearful goodbyes and now I have visions of Julie doing an impression of the woman from the Scottish Widows advert pacing the harbour wall waiting for him to return.  Julie, I hereby solomly declare that we will look after him for you and make sure he clips on, eats well and phones you whenever possible.   

And that was about it - Bobbie D and Julie had to get back because their poor puppy dog has injured his leg and can't be left for too long, The Scribe had to get away because she has to leave for Wales in the morning to go and assist on the Dragon Ride and has yet to do her ironing and pack her bag and, being a Friday evening in West Malling, the atmosphere in the pub was heating up nicely with the occasional outbreak of shouting coming from the smoking area.We decided it was a good time to leave and headed off with promises to see each other at the retirement party where we will all be wearing our crew tee shirts.