by Jackie Parry
‘Arrh, isn’t sailing great?’ and, ‘So relaxing,’ were odd phrases heard wafting over Mariah’s deck. We were motor sailing now, as the winds had become light, which was perfectly okay with us. If a better sail can be had going to a different country, then that is what we’d do.
‘Oh well, perhaps we’ll see Turkey another day!’ Noel said.
In the port of Lindos, Noel viewed his first castle. Unfortunately, Lindos was not a checking in port, so we could only step ashore briefly. In these situations, we had learned that most officials were sympathetic to circumstances, and if we were discreet, they were discreet. You had to choose your countries well when you want to bend the rules. We would not have done this in Egypt.
As picturesque as a postcard, Greece identifies itself with her white, concrete houses scattered across the jade of green hills. Clear water surrounded our timber home, a spotless beach was but a swim away, and nature put on a full show of fabulous weather. We enjoyed a day’s rest, but before we knew it we were sampling our first taste of the Med’s notorious weather. Forty-nine knots of harsh, skin-searing wind pummelled us around our anchor for one-and-a-half days. We were grateful that the harbour police didn’t insist we move, as we still hadn’t checked in; it was too dangerous to make us leave. To myself, I wondered what the Egyptians would have done. We stayed up all night doing anchor watch; we were boat bound during the day. Boat life can be crap sometimes. Anchor watch is hideously dull. If our anchor dragged or let go, we’d have little time to ready the boat before it ran aground or into another yacht. So we had to be ready to move in an instant. The clanging of the rigging and grinding of the anchor chain put a stop to any rest.
Crete was now scratched off the itinerary. Bob and Christine on board Breakaway (our Irish friends) were on anchorage in Crete and had tried several times to leave and kept getting beaten back by strong winds.
We decided to island hop a bit further north to try to avoid becoming trapped. Along the way, we caught up with some more friends, Tom and Leslie from Obsession. They had become our tour guides way back in Darwin that had talked us into going to Bali. It was their fault we had found ourselves in Greece! True to form, they had all information on the island’s hopping route, which we gladly copied down.
Rhodes city on the northern tip of the island of Rhodes was the next stop, and the journey there was unremarkable, so it can only be assumed that it was reasonably good. Rhodes was, however, spectacular. The old town sits behind the castle’s walls, and the castle stands proudly over the new city. Much of the castle has been rebuilt after earthquake damage, and what a fantastic job they have done. The Street of the Knights is a cobbled street with characteristic arched wooden doors and shutters. Here the knights slept with their horses stabled beneath them. So enchanting is the street, that you can almost hear the horse’s hoofs on the cobbled stones and the raucous laughter of the heroic knights.
It was 9 June, and we were planning to leave within the next few days. We were moored on a wall with all the charter boats. The marina management were harassing us to move. We were reluctant to move as we had to med-moor, which was a tricky bit of manoeuvring.
Med-mooring required you to drop anchor a certain distance off the wall, about two boat lengths. Once the anchor was dropped, it was necessary to steer towards the wall and tie the other end of the boat there. Our anchor was set up on the bow, like most boats. We had zero steerage in reverse, which if we utilised our bow anchor, meant we’d have to try to steer in reverse. We decided to rig up the spare anchor astern and steer forwards into the wall to tie the bow on the wall. Mariah had a canoe stern, so her back part was as pointy as the front (making her a great sea boat in large, following seas).
At the right time (which meant Noel shouted, ‘Now!’) I threw the anchor over the handrails, trying to ensure it didn’t hit the hull and that our feet weren’t in the middle of the coil of rope that ran out at an alarming rate. By some miracle, the anchor grabbed. ‘Perfect,’ we smiled at each other, wondering what all the fuss was about. Tearing ourselves from our self-congratulatory club, we noticed our Scottish friends from Athena (John and Carol) were frantically waving at us, as our bow glided slowly towards the wharf.
‘No, don’t come in,’ they shouted.
With our minds focused on anchoring and controlling the boat, we didn’t see a mooring line straight across the gap! In the nick of time, Noel shoved our throttle into reverse, and we started to wonder how the hell we’d pull the anchor up. There was no anchor winch this end of the boat. With much grunting and grinding, a strong husband, and a well-behaved boat, the anchor came up without too many further dramas. We found another spot and achieved the impossible by comfortably mooring. These times were stressful and our kind friends John and Carol knew this only too well (as does any cruiser willing to admit it). They helped us tie up, calmed us down, and gave us a beer to steady the nerves, hence our reluctance to move. There would be a lot of practice with Med-moorings as we headed west.
We had to make a decision on timing, as we were running out of time to get to England that year. My two sisters (Denise and Josie) were planning a holiday to meet us somewhere, accompanied by Denise’s boyfriend (Peter), her son (Kieran), and Josie’s daughter (Trinity). We had not met Peter and Trinity, and I deeply missed my family. They booked a flight to arrive into the main airport in Greece on 18 June, but at that point they didn’t know where to head. They patiently waited to hear from us to find out where they would be holidaying.
After umpteen phone calls, much uhhming and arhhing, and weather worrying, we all finally met up in Kalamata, home of those rather yummy olives and a port on the Southern side of Peloponnesus.
We left Mariah at a new, professional, and well-run marina in Kalamata and hired a car to meet the crew from England in a place thirty miles west of Kalamata. Here, it was quieter and much prettier. We spent a week catching up, eating, drinking, and getting to know each other once again.
Saying farewell left me feeling sad and relieved: relieved because the holiday went well and sad, as I hate farewells. I clung to the thought that I’d be seeing them all again soon in sunny old England!
Along the Messina Straits (around Italy’s toes), there was a traffic separation zone, so everyone knew where they should be. Traversing this waterway at night, we were blessed with calm seas. We had a couple of scares when boats and ferries were crossing our channel and their navigation lights were camouflaged by the many shore lights on either side of us (in places the channel was only one-and-a-half miles wide). As we were both exhausted from being up all night, we found a small bay at the end of the straits to stop and rest. We found a spot on the end of the concrete pier, but then noticed that there was nothing to tie up to. With a bit of creativity, we managed to tie up to one of our oars, which was shoved into a crack in the concrete for our bow line; for our stern line, we found a two inch piece of rusted metal to tie on to. We collapsed into bed and tried to sleep with dozens of noisy fishermen as our neighbours.
When rested, we had a lovely evening with our neighbours on Zigizoo, who were great at providing us with much information on the French canals, as they had been through them two years ago. The canals were our target.
Our next stop was the Aeolian Islands, just round the toes of Italy and north-west, which was touristy, but pretty. We had our first Italian pizza here and it was the worst pizza we had ever eaten!
We visited the Volcano Island, where you can cover yourself in mud. I was all ready to wallow for a while, but when we got there it looked like a huge muddy puddle. No bubbles or mystery, so I didn’t bother. It looked pretty hard to find mud anyhow – it all looked too watery.
From here we went to Sardinia and made it just as the winds picked up, so the last hour was a bit hairy. The marina was basic with just toilets and a small hut with a bar. The town (Olbia) was groovy and fun; beautiful men and women in the height of fashion draped themselves over walls and sat on grass. However, even though they were dressed fas
hionably, they were all dressed in the same beautiful clothes that bore no individuality.
We met some young lads who worked in a cafe. They knew about two words of English, and we knew the same in Italian, but we all tried to communicate and had good fun in doing so. We were glad we met these guys and had a laugh with them, as the people in the marina were straight-faced, didn’t bother to communicate, and didn’t know how to laugh. Still, we were glad of the shelter when the winds really picked up, and for six days we had to sit tight. Finally, we could leave, and we completed a couple of day-hops up the coast.
Next stop Corsica. We landed at Port Ajaccio, where Napoleon was born. We loved it there, and I think we liked it so much because of the people. They were friendly, happy, and enjoyed our clumsy attempts at communicating. I was enjoying the fact that not many people spoke English; I had been studying French for a few months, and was surprised that I could communicate, though only the basics. Everyone was so friendly, so I didn’t feel shy about having a go. It became great fun and fuelled our desire to spend time in the French canals.
We became residents in Port Ajaccio for a week and whilst it was a nice place – and a good anchorage – we were eager to leave. Time spent here was eating into our time in the canals. There had been strong winds in the Golfe Du Lion, where we were heading, but those winds were abating. We only needed two days for the 200 mile jump and our last overnight trip.
I don’t mind overnight sails on the whole. In fact, I came to enjoy them more and more, especially when it was hot. Hot, hazy days hid boats on the horizon, whereas at night, you could spot the lights from another vessel from miles away. The cruise ships were so huge, you could see the loom of their lights before they popped over the horizon. I liked a good eight hours sleep at night, so that was the only part I disliked. However, I did enjoy a snooze during the day to catch up and of course the rewards of a safe arrival into a new port.
Darkness seemed to bring out the “night-horrors,” and I had to work at not letting myself indulge in sorrowful memories or horror stories. During the day, I’d never think about death or feel fear. I trained myself to calm my thoughts and enjoy what the night offered, winking stars, cool air, vivid moon, and wonderment at, ‘what was out there.’
We found the perfect weather window and skedaddled as fast as the Yanmar would allow to Port Saint Louis at the bottom of France. We anchored outside the port in calm weather near a huge industrial area and cracked open the champers. An enormous wave of relief lay on both our shoulders. Anchoring in the dark in unknown waters didn’t faze us one bit. Mariah was our home; we knew every part of her and every part of each other’s character. Our teamwork was like poetry or a fine song, flowing, easy on the nerves, and enjoyable. It had almost been a year since we had left Australia and three years living permanently on board.
There was little time to waste. The following day, testing my poor French, we were in the marina booking in for our mast to be taken down. We didn’t know much about the canals, only that our depth of five feet was about the maximum you would want. There are many different off-shoots and routes to take, but we selected to traverse one of the main routes to maintain the necessary depth beneath. This route took us from south to north, right through the middle of France.
We had gathered advice along the way and knew that we could obtain additional fenders from boats that had just traversed the canals (from north to south) and wanted to be rid of their plastic covered tyres. As usual, the worries about how it would all happen dissolved with the patience of time.
We spent one day preparing for the mast to come down, removing most of the rigging, the boom, and organising a place for the boom and mast to lie. I became Noel’s assistant; he had it all figured out and I was there to simply hold this, pull that, and hang on to the other.
The following day, we cautiously puttered over to the wharf where the mast would be taken down. The young lad scampered up the mast to fix the crane’s loop in place; he was sinewy and quick, clearly having done this a thousand times. Our mast was timber and extraordinarily heavy, it was about thirty-four feet high, so we needed a good crane. The mast came down in minutes while we stood and watched. Hardly a word passed between us all. Our mast was as long as the boat, so it fit pretty well. That afternoon, we ventured into our first lock and into the labyrinth of the French Canals.
I was not sure whose idea it was to take this route. We wanted to get to England, spend time with my family, and fulfil Noel’s dream of sailing to England. We could have sailed north along the coast of Portugal and France, but the predominant winds were north and therefore it meant bashing our way up the coast. We’d had enough of head winds and once the idea of France was planted it grew and made perfect sense. Plus, of course, there was the added enticement of French wine, baguettes, and poetic language.
This was the first time we had taken the mast down, and it was far more complicated than I ever imagined. You needed the mind of a technician, which Noel had. With the mast down, the dynamics of the boat completely changed. We were now on a motor boat. While sailing, we were a formidable team, but I couldn’t help wondering how we’d cope in the canals. For a start, they were narrow and traffic was a constant consideration. The depth was shallow, too near the edge, and we’d run aground. Umpteen locks had to be traversed, which called for clever boat handling. With this mix of changes, potential problems, and caring for a timber boat in harsh metal constructed locks, I wondered if we would maintain our composure. Was our great teamwork that we were so proud of going to start showing some cracks? It became a whole new challenge to be met head on.
My first mistake was to say I was from the UK. Many French do not like the English for historical reasons and probably culinary reasons too. I did most of the radio work with limited French. On the radio I tended to have a heightened British accent, which wasn’t helpful. We proudly flew the Australian flag, but on reflection I think it would have been better to start every conversation with, ‘We’re Australians!’
With a fair bit of confusion regarding the opening times, and with our mast securely lashed down with a web of ropes on deck, we were ready to tackle our first lock. It was not too scary as the lift was only half a metre. Once we had managed to clamber up the wall to tie to the bollards, yelled at the lock master not to yell at us, (‘allez!, allez!’), everyone calmed down and the procedure was quite easy.
It was fairly simple, and my fear of what occurred in the locks vanished, replaced with a serene calm – I knew I was going to like this. All of a sudden, we found ourselves in the mighty Rhone!
We were moving through the water at six knots and doing three to four over the ground, the Rhone having a good flow to contend with. In Cyprus, we had received mixed messages about the French Canals. One such article in a sailing magazine had, within its opening paragraph, stated, ‘… and so commenced our long awaited canal voyage, which could only be described as two months of hell.’ Cheery.
On our first day, we reached Arles. To travel in the locks, we were required to purchase a license, which was pretty straightforward. After a booklet of rules, navigation, and money was exchanged, we were let lose. It’s amazing freedom. There’s no lecture, just a few pointers, and off you go. The great thing was that we weren’t allowed to travel at night. We had to stop. After endless nights of plunging into darkness, this was a welcomed relief. There were plenty of ports, anchorage spots, or jetties hidden away, where we could tie up or drop the pick and relax.
When we landed in Arles, we took a couple of days to sort the deck out. It was quite unusual to have the mast horizontal. We rigged up some shade, as frying in the extreme heat everyday was a trifle boring. We generally got ourselves ready to move further up the river and encounter our next lock. In Arles, we experienced our first bullfight, of the spectator kind, not the participating kind. We sat in a two-thousand year old amphitheatre, where many bottoms had sat before, and watched huge, black, powerful beasts become tense and wound up by skinny little white huma
n. It was all quite fascinating.
Let me reassure anyone contemplating the journey through here that the canals are bloody marvellous. We state this even though we had had a robbery on board and that the locks, especially at first, can cause severe palpitations of the heart and generally made you wish that mummy was close to hand. It was beautiful. We were mostly surrounded by trees, parks, twittering birds, and people picnicking on the grassy banks. We puttered through the most handsome towns we had ever seen, stone houses, bending with age, cobbled streets full to the brim with character. It was like sitting in a postcard.
The locks deserve a mention, as they were quite incredible. The locks in the Rhone were huge, absolutely bloomin’ enormous actually. There was still some commercial traffic on the Rhone (although not much), and large barges had to traverse the locks, too. The whole process was really amusing. I was in charge of communications, and I think it was fair to say that I gave the lock-keepers a good laugh. It is one thing ordering steak, chips, and a beer, but to organise for us to go through the lock via a radio was quite another.
The large locks were daunting, a bit like puttering into a horror movie. At some point the lock-keepers obliged by opening the doors. The doors were painted a lovely shade of black in order to match the decor within. This of course made it a trifle difficult to actually distinguish any difference in the door being open and the door being shut. But not to worry, we only had a three knot current against us and a one hundred metre long barge up our backside to contend with. When we’d worked out the lock was ready, we puttered into the big, creaking, groaning, metal chamber.