Under the Microscope

by Dave Spikey

  And so it was that we arrived in Bodrum, Turkey on our honeymoon and took charge of our thirty-five-foot yacht. The yacht was very new and the layout of the ropes (‘sheets’ to be accurate) and mainsail and foresail (genoa) was completely different to the old yacht we’d learned on almost two years before. It was part of a small flotilla, accompanied by two other (much bigger, much faster) yachts (both skippered by very experienced sailors), plus the lead crew’s yacht.

  We nearly died in the very first hour. After showing us the charts of the area, helping us plot a course for our first port of call and giving us a guided tour of our yacht, the flotilla organizer took us out into the bay in order to familiarize ourselves with the reversing and steerage of the yacht. He told us that the sail on the first day was the longest, at about eight hours, but it was worth it in order to get to the massive unspoiled Hisaranou Gulf. He then bade us goodbye and dived off the boat and swam back to shore.

  We chugged towards the mouth of the bay, the sun beating down, the stereo playing chill-out music. There wasn’t much wind, but then it began to gust and so, like the complete novices that we were (read ‘complete idiots’), we hoisted the full genoa and then every inch of mainsail and turned the engine off. As we left behind the tranquil waters of the bay and headed towards the channel between the Turkish mainland and the island of Kos, we were hit by the full force of the high wind that gusts strongly down the channel and forms a giant natural wind-tunnel!

  The wind hit us broadside and knocked us over – almost totally over – and we totally panicked, as you would, because we had absolutely no control. I tried to steer the boat into the wind, but the pressure on the full sails was incredible, and no matter how hard I fought, I wasn’t going to beat the wind. We now know that we should have let the wind take us about, but we were terrified that it would turn us over.

  After five awful minutes, Kay was horrifically seasick and we were still fighting the wind and the massive list of the yacht. I sometimes think how lucky we were that one of us didn’t end up overboard because we were battered at a ridiculous angle for ages.

  I instinctively told Kay to let the rope for the genoa go completely, and she undid it from the winch and it began flapping wildly and noisily – but it was a different matter getting the massive mainsail down. It is a fact that you can’t drop a mainsail while it is full of wind; the pressure is too great. What you need to do – I now know – is bang the engine back on and rev it up and turn into the wind, so you are head on to it. There is then little or no direct pressure on the sail and you can drop it. Alternatively, you can let the boom out until the sail is head-on into the wind for the same effect.

  At the time, we knew nothing of this. We had our theory certificates, but no real practical knowledge – what made us think that we could sail a proper big yacht?! Eventually, it dawned on us that we should use the motor to head into wind and after what must have been half an hour, we had the mainsail down and had somehow managed to get the genoa rope back and get the foresail under control and refurled.

  Our problem now was that we were way behind schedule, the sea was rough and the wind still strong – and Kay was totally ill. We decided that we would have to motor the rest of the way, so that was eight hours into a choppy sea, hitting every wave head on.

  I have to say that after that baptism of fire, we had a fantastic week’s sailing and visited several stunning Turkish bays and harbours, which were completely inaccessible by road and so wonderfully isolated, with just one or maybe two tavernas, which allowed you to park at their moorings if you spent the evening in their hostelry.

  We have sailed a lot since and have taken the kids on flotilla holidays around the Ionian Sea and recently around Skiathos and Skopolos, where they filmed Mamma Mia. One day, I want to go back to Turkey and sail that same route – without the terror and feeling of total helplessness, of course – because the coastline we explored and spent time in was stunningly beautiful.

  We had another near-death experience on Kay’s brother Stephen’s yacht, Calista, off the Bay of Lyons, when we were hit by the Tramontagne wind that sweeps down France. Stephen had asked us if we would crew for him and his wife Kath on the yacht’s maiden voyage from Marseilles to Palma, Majorca via Barcelona, and it was an offer we couldn’t refuse.

  Their son, Michael, joined us in Marseilles, where the yacht was undergoing sea-trials. We sailed at midday and for eleven hours there wasn’t a breath of wind as we motored at a steady seven knots through the Mediterranean. Stephen plotted our position and advised that we were approaching the Gulf of Lyons; Kath said that she’d been reading about the incredibly strong wind that came out of nowhere and blew down through the Gulf. She said that the warning signs were cigar-shaped clouds, but we didn’t take a lot of notice because the sailing had been so calm and the weather beautiful.

  As the sun began to set, Kath pointed to the distant sky and asked, ‘Would you say that those clouds were cigar-shaped?’ None of us thought they were.

  At about eleven o’clock, Stephen organized ‘watches’. Michael and I took the first four hours and everyone else went down below to bed. We continued to motor along surrounded by the placid Mediterranean, illuminated by an incredibly bright, almost full moon that shone in a cloudless, star-filled sky.

  Then we felt a breath of wind, and we decided to put up half the genoa and a third of the mainsail. We got them up and trimmed quickly, then knocked the engine off and we were sailing. The wind increased a notch and we hoisted a bit more sail. It continued to increase – and now we had nearly all the sail out and we were proper sailing, real fast, ten, eleven knots: exhilarating.

  Then the force of the wind doubled in seconds, then trebled – and we were in trouble. I asked Michael to get Stephen, who by some miracle was fast asleep on his bunk. Stephen came up and assessed the situation, got everyone on deck and switched on the motor. Kath said, ‘I told you those clouds were cigar-shaped,’ as we struggled to furl the genoa and slowly, very slowly got it in.

  By now, the wind was incredibly strong. We had to get most of the mainsail in, so Stephen revved the engine and fought to bring us into the wind. He ordered Michael up to the mast to pull the mainsail down as I eased the sheet, but Kath wouldn’t have that!

  ‘No, Michael’s not going up there, he’s too young to die. Dave, you go!’

  Oh right, thanks, I’ve done all my living, have I?!

  I clambered forward and strapped my safety harness onto the mast and tried hard to pull the sail down, but I couldn’t get the final reef (needed to secure the sail) onto the hook. Stephen had to come and help

  – meaning someone else had to take the wheel. Kay, looking a peculiar shade of green, heroically dragged herself off the floor and took control, while Stephen joined me and together we got the last reef on.

  As we got back to the cockpit, there was a strange, loud ‘bang’, which turned out to be the gearbox signalling its surrender; so now we had no control over the yacht and the fifteen-foot waves were coming at us like giant battering rams out of the dark.

  We rode it out for about an hour, by which time only Stephen and I had avoided the acute seasickness affecting the others, whom we could see lying on the cabin floor below. Kay was half-sitting, half-lying with a bucket, which she hugged for dear life and occasionally vomited into. Then Michael, who had been the last to succumb, panicked and tried to take the bucket off Kay; she saw that his need was greater than hers and relinquished her grip on it. She crawled to a cupboard and retrieved a frying pan. I remember thinking, ‘A frying pan? That’s not going to work. That is possibly the singularly worst choice of vomit receptacle imaginable; there is a very real risk of splashback there.’

  The sea began to get even bigger and rougher and scarier, and we were taking a hell of a battering, so we decided that we must send out a distress call. We decided not to send a ‘Mayday’, the call reserved for the most serious of maritime emergencies, but we would send a ‘Pan Pan’, which is the next most serio
us. I was despatched down to the cabin to do this.

  The three sickies were in a bad state as I set the VHF to emergency channel and sent out a ‘Pan Pan’, quoting the name of the yacht, brief details of our emergency and our position. No answer. I tried again and again, but no one answered. (We later found out that the antenna had not been connected! The VHF had worked during sea trials because it was tested in the port of Marseilles and transmitted adequately over that limited distance, but it didn’t work on the open sea.) So that was it: we were on our own.

  We’d been battered for seven hours or so by the time the sun came up. I stupidly assumed that things would be better in the light of day, but I was completely wrong – now I could actually see the size of the waves coming at us!

  At about seven o’clock, we spotted a trawler and set off an emergency flare, which they saw and set a course for us, bless ’em. They were circling us about twenty minutes later and we tried to communicate in basic Spanish; I spun the useless wheel to demonstrate that we had no control and shouted in my best Spanish: ‘El f**kto!’ I dropped my jeans to show them the colour of my underpants and they sailed off! Bastardos!

  We were totally gutted by this apparent callousness and I suggested that we try to sail. We put up a bit of the genoa, but it didn’t help much … and then we saw the coastguard heading our way. The trawler had obviously been in touch with them and given our position, so not bastardos after all. They towed us into the lovely harbour of Roses, north of Barcelona – and just to add insult to injury, our slowly turning propeller snagged a mooring line as we were manoeuvred into a berth!

  Kay and I got onto the shore and kissed the ground, vowing never ever to set foot on a yacht again. But despite this, of course, we do still sail and both took part in the Cowes ‘Round the Island’ race onboard the charity yacht Prostate UK.

  As we turned with the wind behind us at the Needles, our spinnaker fell off … but that’s another story for another day.

  Buddy Holly and the Dragon Tattoo

  A BRILLIANT BONUS of being a successful stand-up comedian is that you get asked to perform at venues all around the world. I’ve worked in Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Spain, Germany, Portugal and Ireland … and inevitably funny stuff happens on every trip. Two trips stand out above the others, though, for different reasons, and they were to Dubai and Hong Kong.

  I had been booked to do the Dubai gigs many months previous to the date of travel, which fate contrived to be the week prior to the invasion of Iraq. I don’t know how well you know your geography, but Dubai is pretty much next door to Iraq, and understandably this preyed heavily on the minds of entertainers scheduled to make the trip out there in the troubled times. Many acts, mainly American it has to be said, pulled out of travelling, fearing attack from the Iraqi forces, but us Brits are made of sterner stuff. (In any case, we were getting well paid and gold is incredibly cheap out there.)

  At Manchester Airport, Kay and I (I always take her with me. It saves kissing her goodbye © Antiques Joke Show 1977) bumped into a bloke I’d met on the club circuit at one time, who was a pretty fair vocalist. He told me that he was going out to perform at the Dubai Country Club in a ‘Rock and Roll Legends’ type of show. He was Eddie Cochrane; Elvis, Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison were also in the production. He invited us out to see the show if I had time in my schedule, and we chatted about the Iraqi conflict and the performers who were bottling flying out there.

  Later, as we arrived at the gate, I was aware of a good deal of noise, agitation and raised voices. Then Elvis came over with a look of disbelief on his face. Eddie asked him what was the matter and he said that Buddy Holly wouldn’t get on the plane! He said his wife didn’t want him to go as she was worried sick about him being so close to the war and he wasn’t keen on flying anyway (who could blame him?). We followed Elvis back to the heated discussion, where Roy Orbison and the rest of the band were pleading with Buddy to get on the plane, how could they do the show without him?

  I was the only one on Buddy’s side. ‘Leave Buddy alone!’ I shouted. ‘If Buddy doesn’t want to get on the plane, he doesn’t want to get on the plane’ – because I’m thinking, seriously, the last thing I want on a nine-hour flight to Dubai is Buddy Holly sitting next to me. Buddy didn’t fly.

  When we arrived at Dubai Airport, it took hours to get through security; it was chaos. There were soldiers with machine guns barking orders at everyone and there must have been over a thousand people in the arrivals hall. We eventually got to passport control and the woman on duty took Kay’s passport, studied it, compared the photo and stamped her through.

  Then she took mine, studied it, compared the photo, looked puzzled, held the photo up to my face (it is a bad photo), studied it a bit more – and then summoned a big machine-gun-toting military policeman over. She said something to him and he took the passport, studied it some more, and then held up the photo beside me again, just at the moment when the noise and clamour of the arrivals hall seemed to stop, as it sometimes does. Kay timed her moment perfectly and said to the guard in a loud voice, made even louder by the sudden lull, ‘I know, he looks like a terrorist, doesn’t he?’

  I gave her a ‘Thanks for that’ look as I felt two thousand eyes turn in my direction … but then it was over, the noise resumed and all seemed well – until the guard found the plastic bag full of Coffee-mate in Kay’s bag! Well, you can’t get it abroad.

  I’ve been lucky enough to play Hong Kong twice and on the first occasion, we flew into the old infamous airport, which the planes had to approach through the skyscrapers, flying at ridiculous angles and with breathtaking proximity. I remember that I was very apprehensive because I knew of the airport’s notoriety. The flight went beautifully, and then the seatbelt light came on and the pilot spoke over the intercom.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘This is your pilot Paul Redmond speaking, we have started our approach into Hong Kong Airport.’ I thought, ‘He sounds like a confident sort of chap. Probably ex-RAF; squadron leader, I wouldn’t be surprised. I expect he’s had years of experience in flying this route.’

  That made me relax a little bit, but that only lasted for about a second as he continued, ‘I’m pleased to say that first officer Andy Peters has volunteered to land the aircraft today,’ and I blurted out loud, ‘Andy Peters? Shouldn’t he be in a broom cupboard somewhere?’

  And then I had another thought! Exactly what does ‘volunteered’ mean?! Was there some sort of argument going on up there? Something like …

  Pilot A: I’m not landing it. I landed it last time.

  Pilot B: Well, don’t look at me, I’ve flown it all the way here.

  Andy Peters: I’ll have a go.

  Pilots: Will you? Oh, nice one, Andy.

  As it turned out, it was a beautiful landing – but guys: think about your choice of words!

  The gigs in Hong Kong are at the Punchline Comedy Club, which is based in the Viceroy restaurant, situated right on the harbour front near the famous ‘Star’ ferry terminal. It’s a brilliant Indian restaurant in a stunning location. When you stand onstage, you can see the breathtaking skyline of Hong Kong through the big windows and you think, ‘How great is this? Just because I can make people laugh, I get to come to this fantastic city and witness all these fabulous sights!’

  There are three comedians on each bill and if you are ever in Hong Kong, I urge you to seek it out. The entrance fee includes an amazing Indian buffet set out on the terrace, which overlooks the manic and exciting Kowloon Harbour and has the skyline as the backdrop. After the buffet, the gig starts inside the restaurant, which is set out with chairs theatre-style, and it’s a great show.

  I love Hong Kong city: it’s one of my favourite places ever. I love the colour, the vibrancy, the noise and the hustle and bustle. I love the fact that it is a stunningly beautiful and very modern city, yet at street level it’s still very Chinese, with markets and shops echoing with the shouts of the traders, coloured neon lights flashing on and of
f all around, and the constant clanging of the old-fashioned trams as they clatter past. In England, we have that saying that you wait for a bus for ages and then three come at once. In Hong Kong, you don’t wait hardly a minute and yet still three come at once, painted in garish colours with bells clanging constantly.

  And don’t forget that Hong Kong is an island that provides many other opportunities for the traveller and tourist. Visit the beaches and the famous Stanley Market; get a tramcar to the top of Victoria Mount and sip a cocktail at skyscraper level whilst drinking in the breathtaking skyline from above!

  Hong Kong is famous for its tattoo parlours, which have always been sought out by visitors, most notably the sailors of the Allied fleets. On my first visit, one of the other comedians on the bill, who I knew quite well, decided he wanted a dragon tattoo on his back to complement his already staggering range of body art. I went with him to have a look at examples of the type of tattoo available, and was stunned by the staggeringly huge choice.

  I decided to do a bit of sightseeing while he was being tattooed, and so I left him to it and said I’d return in a couple of hours. Whilst out and about, and after a couple of ice-cold Chinese beers, I had this little idea in my head which made me laugh out loud, which is always a certain sign that the idea is brilliantly funny (which I still think it was). In retrospect, I should have definitely thought longer and harder about the reaction that it might provoke – but I didn’t, I just did it.

  I walked back into the tattoo parlour – suppressing a manic little giggle – and sought out my pal, who was still sitting patiently in the chair while the tattooist worked on his back. I walked straight up to observe the artist’s craft from behind and feigned a startled, stunned and shocked expression. Then I shouted in a loud voice, ‘No!! He said “dragon”, not “wagon”!’

  That is funny, right? I thought everyone would agree that this was a top joke. I didn’t anticipate that my pal would jump up and try to look over his shoulder (which is ridiculous; you can’t see your own back. As my daughter once said quite profoundly, when she was just a toddler, ‘Daddy, no matter how hard you try, you can never see your chin.’ So your back is way out of sight, right?).