Dolphins Under My Bed

by Sandra Clayton

  Once we are settled we walk down the quay to the office, pay two months’ mooring fees, and tap Joss for local information. Our two priorities are a launderette and a travel agent who speaks English. The lavanderia up in the town is closed for the winter, and the one that is part of the public shower block down on the town quay, just below our berth, is closed for renovations. We get directions to the English-speaking travel agent, however, but as we are leaving a worried-looking staff member rushes in shouting, ‘Utopia’s missing! Utopia’s missing!’

  ‘Oh dear,’ says David, ‘I rather thought we’d just found it.’ It turns out someone has moved a very expensive power yacht of that name further down the quay but forgotten to tell anyone.

  From Joss’s office we turn left up a steep wooded hill to the town, above the white chimney pots of the terraced houses on the quay behind our boat. We tell the travel agent we expect to be off in two or three weeks’ time, and ask how much notice is needed to get a flight. ‘Just don’t leave it too close to Christmas,’ she says.

  We make only a brief acquaintance with the town today. When you are going to spend a while in a place you can afford to take your time getting to know it. As with a person, it is best done slowly. Even on our first day, however, I’m afraid we fall in love with Mahon, with its whitewashed houses, terracotta roofs, palm trees and narrow, cobbled streets. A big horse feed store and saddler’s seems incongruous where streets are either pedestrianised or grid-locked by cars, while a tribute to trust and honesty is the king’s ransom of artists’ materials left on another shop’s doorstep. The people are very courteous and everywhere is very clean.

  We wander into the large porch of a church in a row of buildings and discover it is a monastery, with a small grille in the far wall and a bell to summon a brother. We have no desire to intrude so we tiptoe out again. Outside, at pavement level, there is an open service hatch. I bend down and peer in. There are rusting metal implements hanging on the wall.

  ‘Good lord!’ I whisper, ‘I thought hair shirts were as far as it went these days.’

  There is a shout and a loud bang within, and I back quickly out. Two steps further on we discover the cellar is not part of the monastery but underneath the police station. We walk swiftly on. Looking out vaguely for food shops, we follow a number of people into a building we take to be a market, but once inside find it is the Department of Social Security.

  At sunset, and back on board Voyager, The Last Post echoes across the water again. Although now that we can see directly into the naval base it is apparent that the seaman lowering the Spanish flag does so to the accompaniment not of a lone trumpeter, as we had assumed, but a scratchy recording coming from one of the buildings.

  We decide to celebrate finding such an ideal berth with dinner at a restaurant along the quay and order a bottle of wine to go with it from the affable waiter.

  ‘House white?’

  Yes, please.

  ‘Mineral water?’

  Yes.

  ‘Still?’

  Yes. Get a lot of English in here do you?

  ‘Yes.’

  Mahon gave the world mayonnaise. Originally called Mahonesa, it is based on the local aioli sauce. While the actual circumstances of its creation are disputed, it probably dates from a brief period of French occupation in the mid 18th century. The restaurant serves a local variety, with crusty bread, as a starter. It is an enjoyable meal with friendly service, and inexpensive.

  Back on board we sit out in the cockpit in the warm evening and look at the stars and the terraced houses on the quay, with their windows lit and fleeting glimpses of the lives lived within. It takes such small things sometimes to make life very pleasant and here even the street lights are designed to throw their light over the road where it is needed, instead of blazing upwards and blotting out the stars.

  51

  Winter Sun

  A new day and another sunny one. A few yards up the quay from our berth there is a small square. From there a flight of wide, white stone steps takes you up to the town. It is lined with feathery pines and palm trees and its borders are still bright with summer flowers even though it is now November. As you stand at the top, to let the muscle spasms in your legs and the rasping in your lungs subside, you can enjoy an unimpeded view of the harbour. It is only the second time you climb these steps that you think to count them – there are 153 – and realise with relief that you are actually fitter than you thought.

  At the top of this flight of steps is a steep, narrow, irregular-shaped village square. At its far end is a Carmalite church: huge, square, built of stone and locked. Beside it is a flight of steps up to another square stone building, unmarked but not unlike a town hall. Its entrance is busy with people going in and out. Remembering yesterday’s blunder into the Department of Social Security we enter with caution.

  It turns out to be the cloisters of the church next door, complete with stone columns and classical capitals. An escutcheon on one of the columns dates it from the 1770s. It is a beautiful building in the process of being renovated as a very up-market market hall. There are stalls along one side, for fruit, vegetables and flowers, and one corner is ablaze with great maroon chrysanthemums, white daisies and pots of green herbs. While a friendly woman serves us fruit and vegetables, she explains how many English words – along with those of every other occupier of this island over the centuries – combine with Catalan and Spanish to form the island’s unique Menorquin language. Opposite her stall are small, specialist shops: one for red meat, one for poultry and another for cheese. I indicate a large slice from a huge, delicious-looking cheese. Fortunately the man says tentatively, ‘Butter?’ before he starts cutting and then guides me to something that really is cheese.

  A few doors down from the market is a bread shop: not a baker’s, more an odd jumble of a shop selling bits of grocery, soft drinks and mineral water. But behind the counter in wooden racks is kept the day’s delivery of bread, soft bread, and on the right-hand side of the counter, in a glass case, the most heavenly crème caramels, the first we have encountered since Tréguier. Across the square is an old-fashioned bottle shop with modestly-priced wines and a cheerful, elderly lady behind the counter.

  At the bottom of the square is the fish market which, from outside its high green gates, looks more like a luxury villa than a fish market. It is single-storey cream stucco with a terracotta roof, and built around an open courtyard where the fish is delivered each morning and the empty trays washed ready for return in the afternoon. The long low rooms around the courtyard contain the stalls where the local women sell the fish their men have caught. On the wall behind many of them hangs a painting of the family boat. The fish is very fresh and very reasonably priced. These are the kind of shops I had envisaged when we first set sail.

  We amble away from the old square laden with fish, fruit, vegetables, cheese, fresh bread, wine and a couple of orgasmic crème caramel pastries. Mindful of the climb needed to get back up here if we have forgotten anything, David pauses at the top of the long flight of steps. Raising the shopping bags he is carrying he asks, ‘Do we have everything we need?’

  I look from the bags of fresh, delicious food up into his tanned, relaxed face which only recently had looked so tired and unwell, and then out over the breathtaking beauty of Mahon Harbour sparkling in the Mediterranean morning sunshine. Yes,’ I say, ‘we have everything we need.’

  We have also achieved our two major objectives in setting out: a warm, dry climate and an improvement in our health. The latter has been achieved partly thanks to the former, but an active outdoor lifestyle has worked wonders as well.

  David has lost weight now that he no longer sits at a desk or in a car all day, or snacks on chocolate bars to keep alert during the 40,000 miles he used to drive every year. The reduction of allergens in his life – especially traffic fumes, dust and pollen – has had a dramatic effect on his respiratory system to the point where not only have the chronic sneezing and congestion disap
peared, but so has the sleep apnoea. He is also fitter and stronger.

  As for me, I’ve had chronic back and joint pain with periodic bouts of fatigue since childhood. There have been a variety of conflicting diagnoses over the years but none of them treatable without side-effects arguably worse than the condition itself and no guarantee of improvement. I had learned to live with it.

  Living with it had become harder, however, around the time of that cold, damp winter evening five years ago, sitting before the fire – David wheezing and me aching – when he had first suggested a fundamental change to our lifestyle. The pain had become much worse and the fatigue more or less constant. It had a lot to do with my age, an increasingly damp climate and a stressful, sedentary job. On the other hand, I had not been convinced that the dramatic change being proposed would provide any improvement, and part of my initial reluctance to living on a boat had been how I would cope physically. Now, thanks to the regular exercise required by a life afloat – combined with a better climate – I have more energy and am fitter, stronger and more comfortable than I have been in years.

  There have been changes in other areas of our lives too, like the challenge of acquiring new skills and increased confidence in our capacities. For instance, while learning everything he could about the handling and safety of a yacht, David knew that seasoned sailors would feel that he did not have the experience necessary for what we were setting out to do. Then, on our very first passage, to Alderney in the Channel Islands, he had made a mistake with the tide tables. Ever since, he now admits, he has constantly checked and rechecked all data for fear of making another. But his diligence has paid off and in the past four months we have navigated our way through some of Europe’s most difficult and dangerous coasts (the Channel Islands and Brittany), anchored comfortably and safely in gale force conditions (the Spanish ría s) and endured storm-force conditions with a potentially-lethal waterspout (Mallorca). We have also survived man-made hazards, including commercial ships with no lookouts suddenly changing course and the occasional attack fisherman.

  Our odyssey began with the surprisingly similar thoughts of two dissimilar people, an English Anglican bishop and an American explorer. The former asked, ‘How much is enough?’ The latter said, ‘I live more simply now and am happier’.

  But what is happiness? And can you be well, in the fullest sense of the word, if you are not happy? If I have learned anything at all by this stage in life, it is that happiness comes from within not without. There is no direct connection between happiness and, say, giving up everything to become a beachcomber any more than there is in devoting your life to relentless acquisition. Happiness seems to result from the way in which the things that you do each day, and with whom, make you feel.

  In the western world, where we are spoilt for choice and have the trappings of celebrity and wealth constantly in our faces, it is easy to pursue goals which do not ultimately bring happiness. What helps us to be happy is to understand who we are, what we really want that is within our reach, and then working to achieve it.

  Many of the things that appear glamorous, in reality are not. Cruising is not glamorous, although from the outside it may look as if it is. For example, your living quarters are small, your wardrobe negligible, there is little money for restaurants, most entertainments are home-made, and anybody who has read this far can be in no doubt about the effort needed to fill the fridge or do the laundry.

  But we like our new life and our new home, and not simply because it is warmer and less stressful than the old one, or that we feel fitter and healthier. We have been overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of the world and the extraordinary courtesy and kindness of the people we have met. And next year, if we feel ready, we shall think about crossing the Atlantic.

  Glossary for Non-Sailors

  Antifouling – paint put on the hull below the water line to stop marine growth and shellfish becoming attached and reducing the speed of the boat.

  Autopilot – device to hold the boat on a set course automatically.

  Beat – when sailing with the wind coming from in front of you rather than from behind or to the side.

  Bluewater cruising – long distance ocean cruising.

  Boom – a movable beam which holds the bottom of the main sail and allows it to be set in various positions to catch the wind.

  Broad reach – when the wind is directly on the side, or beam, of the boat.

  Coaming – raised edge on deck to prevent water entering the cockpit.

  Courtesy flag – acknowledges that you are in someone else’s country and recognise its jurisdiction.

  Davits– two small hoists to lift and hold a dinghy, usually at a boat’s stern.

  Dead reckoning – the process of plotting a course or position from a known point using charts and tide tables.

  Ebb – the tide is going out.

  Flood – the tide is coming in.

  Gelcoat – the hard shiny outer layer covering the fibreglass from which our boat is built.

  Genoa – the large sail in front of our mast.

  GPS – global positioning system which tells you where you are.

  Hard – abbreviation for hard standing, when a boat is lifted out of the water to allow work to be done on its hull.

  Heads – specifically the marine toilet, but also refers to the room it resides in, including our bathroom.

  Heeling – when the force of the wind on its sails inclines a boat from the vertical.

  Knot – a unit of speed used by ships and aircraft, equal to one nautical mile per hour. One nautical mile equals roughly 1.15 land miles.

  Lines – ropes. See also Mooring lines and Shore lines.

  Log – a speedometer; also a written record which in our case includes weather, location, direction, etc.

  Luff – edge of the sail closest to the mast.

  Main sail – the large sail behind the mast.

  Mooring lines – ropes used to tie a boat to the shore.

  Neap tide – occurring soon after the moon’s 1st and 3rd quarters when high-water is at its lowest. (See also Springs or spring tide)

  Navtex – receiver for international weather forecasts in English, either on a screen or as a print out.

  Osmosis – when the outer protective skin (gelcoat) on a fibreglass hull becomes porous and allows water to attack the inner fibre-glass core.

  Outhaul – rope used to haul out a sail.

  Port – left-hand side of vessel looking forward.

  Raft up – when mooring space is limited, one boat will tie up to a pontoon or quay and a second boat will tie up alongside the first one.

  Red ensign – the official flag for British Merchant Navy ships and British leisure boats which is a red ground with the Union Flag in the top left-hand corner.

  RIB – stands for rigid inflatable boat; a high-speed rubber dinghy with a rigid, glass fibre bottom.

  Royal Yachting Association (RYA) – the national governing body for water sports in the UK, founded 1875.

  Sheets – ropes used to control a sail.

  Shore lines – even when boats are rafted up (moored side by side) good practice requires the outer boats to take lines ashore to prevent the combined weight of all the boats from being borne by the inner boat’s mooring lines.

  Shrouds – multi-strand, stainless-steel wires which hold the mast in place.

  Spring – while a mooring line ties a boat to a pontoon fore and aft, a spring is added diagonally to prevent the boat from surging back and forth.

  Springs or spring tide – the highest tide, occurring on days shortly after new and full moon.

  Starboard – right-hand side of vessel looking forward.

  Stay sail – small sail between the genoa and the mast.

  Squall – sudden increase in wind-speed, often accompanied by brief but heavy precipitation.

  Wind over tide – when wind and tide travel in opposite directions, thereby producing a turbulent sea.

  Winch – used to put t
ension on sails.

  Windlass – used to raise the anchor.

  Published by Adlard Coles Nautical

  an imprint of A & C Black Publishers Ltd

  36 Soho Square, London W1D 3QY

  www.adlardcoles.com

  Copyright © Sandra Clayton 2011

  First published by Adlard Coles Nautical in 2011

  Print ISBN 978-1-40813-288-3

  Ebook ISBN 978-1-40815-523-3

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means – graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems – without the prior permission in writing of the publishers.

  The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Note: while all reasonable care has been taken in the publication of this book, the publisher takes no responsibility for the use of the methods or products described in the book