The Dolphin Ordeal (as menitoned in vlog 12):

Ella kindly waking me up to let me know there are dolphins on one of the legs

Each day Ella and I arrived late in the day in an anchorage, we had a fairly standard procedure upon any evening arrival. I would fiddle with the anchor for a while, Ella would sort the washing up from the lunch on the hoof, sail and tiller covers would go on, various cleanups done and then one of us would get cracking with the dinner. I would then connect to the speaker and we would sit 'chillaxin' listening to the fantastic Fellowship of the Ring Audiobook by Andy Serkis. We did this fairly religiously and we were growing to love it. One night after arriving late into Sardineiro the end of the chapter came. Our eyes were beyond drifting, and fairly satisfied by with the progress we had made that day and decided to call it there. We were already in our pyjamas, lee clothes up and teeth brushed so it was a case of lights off, eyes shut. 

A good day come to an end until we were to set off at around 9am the next day

Or so I thought... 

At around 2am I was rudely awoken by Ella shuffling around the saloon. She peered through the port holes on starboard side, then on port side. "Jack, JACK" she said, prodding me hard in the ribs. "I think someone is on deck".

Being her brother and being woken up at said hour. I gave her some foul words explaining to her, as most brothers would, that she is clearly wrong. I then rolled back over trying to get back to sleep only to he a loud BANG, and a huge CRASH, as the boat yawed sharply around 30 degrees to port. 

oh...

At this moment I leapt out my bunk,  popped my head over the spray hood and scanned the deck. No one?

There was nothing? I crept up past the cockpit, past the mast and arrived on the foredeck. BANG! Brimble lurched again. What on earth is going on I thought? I wasn't overly nervous but concern was certainly growing, that was until I saw the culprit. 

I kid you not. The fattest bottlenose dolphin I have seen in my entire life was circling the boat. On each orbit this cheeky bastard was ramming into the anchor chain at full pelt catching it with its fin and spinning around it. Each time the boat was forced to go with it. This douchebag was playing with the Brimble like a beach ball. 

I like to think I'm a good swimmer however I didn't think jumping into the water, to show this miscreant a piece of my mind, would go well. I therefore elected for the more passive approach and told Ella to come have a look. We both had a giggle watching this absolute geezer having the time of his life. 

Ella, satisfied that her life was in no immediate danger, went back to bed. In hindsight i likely should have taken that moment to weigh anchor and find another spot and let the dolphin play with one of the other boats in the bay for a little bit, however instead I sat in the cockpit for a while thinking through the situation. Every time I expected this thick animal to give up, it had another go. It went on for another 2 hours. In the morning, I checked over the anchor chain, the roller, and the cleat and all seemed more than fine. Nothing like a good bit of entertainment. 

The Mad Affair of the Lost Mind (A Dad and John Story)

 A few years ago we were over in the West Indies in the Good Ship B and Dad flew out for a visit. Three generations of Halsalls in a 28 ft boat was always going to be trouble ..

Three Generations of Halsalls was always going to be trouble

.. having given Dad a few days to settle down into shipboard life in Antigua it was time to move on.

We checked out with Customs and Immigration in Nelsons Dockyard and sailed round the coast to Deep Bay where we BBQ’d on the beach and sat watching the sun set in front of a big driftwood fire.

The next day we sailed the 60 miles to St Kitts. It was a rollercoaster ride under clear skies with a poled out foresail, double reefed main and a lovely Atlantic swell helping us on our way.

At about 1700 we anchored off the east end of the island in White House Bay. We dropped the hook and jumped over the side for a swim ashore.

We were soon back on board and starting to think about dinner when Dad looked up and asked in an unconcerned voice .. 'where am I ?'

He's a bit tired we thought .. well we hoped. In truth we were as confused as he was!

White House Bay

We explained we were anchored in a remote bay on the east end of St Kitts .. we explained that he was on holiday with us and we explained we'd sailed over the year before. He was a bit surprised because although he knew we'd sailed over to the West Indies he had no memory of what he was doing here or how he'd got here.

We asked general questions about how he felt, checked his temperature, his pulse, asked about chest pains, nausea and headaches, we  looked for signs of a stroke, for any unpleasant rashes or unwanted swelling and then having run out of 'wellness' questions we concluded there was nothing wrong with him except for the fact that he had completely lost his marbles.

Dad interrupted our diagnosis ’This may be a strange question'  he asked …' but where am I?'
 

The situation was deteriorating, I quietly pushed the knife drawer shut .. and phoned step-brother Dr Alex in Blighty for advice. As ever with Alex it was to the point ..  ’pop him up to the hospital for a quick check up .. he might have had a stroke or something'; wise medical words indeed. The remote spot we had chosen wasn't quite so appealing now!
 

In the excellent Chris Doyle Pilot we found a number for ’Henry’s Taxi’s’ and it was Henry himself who agreed to pick us up 'on the road by the bay' in fifteen minutes. ‘Where’s Les?’ Dad asked 'and where are we?'. We ignored him.
 

Whilst we got the dinghy ready the kids probed Dad’s mind to try and root out the extent of the problem. ’D-o    y-o-u    k-n-o-w    w-h-a-t    a     m-a-r-i-n-a    i-s?’ asked Jack with a penetrating look. Dad refused to be taken in but Jack took this as a ‘don’t know’ response and pushed on .. ’d-o   y-o-u   k-n-o-w   w-h-a-t   t-h-i-s   i-s?’ he asked, waving a mobile phone in the air. I dragged Dad out of the boat and into the waiting darkness.
 

Whitehouse Bay was as silent as a grave ... you could have heard a fish fart. We clambered into the dinghy and started to row into the darkness and it was really dark. There was nothing to see anywhere. No stars or moon, no twinkling boat lights, no distant flickering streetlamp, no nothing ...  not even a white house.

As I rowed, heading roughly for where I thought the shore was, a voice broke the eerie silence ..'where are we?' and after a short pause ..  'and where's Les?'
 

Once on shore we clambered cross country up a hill through the darkness and found an old track which I presumed was 'the road by the bay' and after a worrying wait Henry rocked  up in his mini-bus.

The 30 mile ride to the hospital was unusual. Despite the fact that Henry knew he was driving us to a hospital and despite the fact that I had told him dad had lost some, if not all of his marbles and despite the fact it was pitch black and you could see next to nothing ... despite all of this Henry was determined that we should not miss out on the full tourist experience. ‘Welcome to St Kitts’ he said as we pulled away, ' you may know our island is located in the Leeward Islands towards the north of the Caribbean. It is 16 miles by 7 miles with a population of 39,000. This end of the island is not visited by tourists or locals or anyone.  In the distance over there you can see the flames of the sugar cane fields burning’ ... I had to ask;  ‘is that to clear the rubbish away after harvest’,  ‘no sir, somebody’s just set fire to them’.  Behind me Dad listened with interest ‘very strange’ he said. The tour continued for the whole journey. I said little but nodded a lot. Dad did the same.

We arrived at the hospital at about eight o’clock,. The spacious Waiting Room was full of people who looked incredibly well. In one corner of the room was a great big old telly  that everyone was watching intently. The atmosphere was carnival, it was just like a party in your living room.

The seeing-somebody-process was a bit bewildering. There was no signing in, no registration and no apparent way of queuing. I asked a healthy looking lady what I should do. ‘Sit down and they’ll call you when it’s your turn’ and got back to her telly.

The lady was spot on because a nurse soon shimmered up and we were ushered into a curtained cubicle for a chat. Dad sat down looking really quite well after 5 days sailing in the Caribbean. I tried to explain the situation, they thought I was mad. They ignored me and took Dad’s details, address, DOB, blood pressure, medical history and so on. Even I was impressed. He was like a medical encyclopaedia. They looked less and less convinced that there was anything wrong with him and increasingly convinced that I was up to no good. I mumbled an explanation 'he seems to know stuff that happened along time ago ..' I said. They looked unconvinced and a little bit hostile. Usefully, it was at this point Dad looked up and said quietly .. 'where am I’ and then to me ‘and where‘s Les?’. The effect was transformational .. the nurses immediately started calling him dear and only spoke to me. That's more like it I thought.

We were sent back to the Telly Room to join family and friends and I reminded dad where he was every few minutes. After about half an hour he suddenly glared at me ‘of course I know you’re not at work’ ... ‘well, you didn’t know 15 minutes ago‘ I fired back - the evening was dragging a little bit. Things were, nonetheless, looking up.

The Doctor, Hyacinth, put Dad on a drip, blood was taken and a variety of tests completed, none of which suggested that anything was wrong. But as the hours ticked by Dad’s memory rapidly returned to the point where he was both remembering what he was told and could also remember up to the point of dropping the anchor that evening. He was going to be alright.

Hyacinth asked which hotel we were staying at. 'Its a boat actually not a hotel'. 'Oh, a cruise ship ?' she asked. 'Well like a cruise ship' I said ? 'Does it have a Doctor on board ?'. 'No, we have an engineer, a school teacher and two children'. 'How big is the cruise ship ?' ... '28ft' I said .. 'she's more of a ship that cruises really'.

Unfortunately, once Hyacinth found out the size of Brimble she refused to release Dad. But I really did need to get back to the boat so I said good bye to Dad and walked out of the hospital wondering how on earth I would get home.  'Yo mon'  Henry called out, 'I knew you'd never get back so I thought I'd wait'. It was three in the morning.

Dad stayed in hospital for 4 days. The medical profession and the insurance company were unhappy for the patient to return to the luxury of the good ship. They were not convinced that a super yacht was the same as a Super-Yacht and as such Dad was forced to rough it, with full board at the 5 star Mariott Hotel. This was not all bad news because the children hadn't had a bath (literally) for 9 months so we pretty much moved in to his room .. it was only one room but still bigger than the good ship. So that was alright then.

Dad fully recovered and was later diagnosed as having suffered from Transient Global Amnesia which sometimes occurs when you swim in cold water! There's no lasting damage.

 Next in the 'Dad and John Series' .. the Affair of The Brightlingsea Water Taxi

 

The Dreadful Affair of the Backfiring Toilet (A Dad and John Story)

It was February 1997 and we'd just made our first transatlantic crossing to Tobago in the West Indies.

Dad and his partner had flown out to spend a few days in paradise, it was perfect, but for Dad it was to be something he later described as 'the worst experience of his life' .. let's talk toilets ..

 

The personal challenge of every sea toilet, their raison d'etre if you like, is to suck clean water in and fire dirty water out. Every toilet knows that for it to be 'high performing' it must never reunite the operator with the contents.

So, the principle of a sea toilet is fairly straightforward but in practice they are quite complicated little monkeys that require love and attention. Fail to give them this and there can be dire consequences.

A toilet (SL400)

One of the biggest issues is that the toilet is below water level so far from needing to encourage water to come in, you're actually trying to constantly stop it from sinking your boat. The flip side is that to get rid of the bad stuff you need a fair head of pressure to push out into the deep-blue beyond. This is typically delivered through a mechanical hand pump.

To make sure that nice water and bad water always flow in the right direction sea toilets have a necessarily complicated system of valves, syphon-breaks and sea cocks. Malfunction or abusive operation of any of these is likely to have an unpleasant impact on the effectiveness of the toilet.

But lets get back to the good ship Songbird. Her toilet was a Simpson Lawrence 400, a classic in the world of sea toilets and a good friend - we'd bonded the first time I stripped her down and the relationship had strengthened over time as I got to know her every valve, spring, nut and washer.

A joker valve

But, despite this unhealthy intimacy one thing I never managed to get to work well was her siphon break.  Now this is bad news because what it means is that when you have used the heads water carries on flowing into the boat with potentially dire consequences. We solved this by having a simple rule .. you ALWAYS shut the sea cock after use. Of course you MUST also remember to open the sea cock before you pump out because otherwise the contents of the loo can't go anywhere and you run the risk of developing considerable back pressure.

Now the last bit of the toilet equation is called a joker valve. These are simple little rubber non-return valves that only allow the water to go one way .. unless under extreme back pressure in which case they catastrophically invert. This is a key point. Hold it in your minds ..

Lets get back to paradise. The good ship is gently rocking at her anchor outside a golden beech. We're sitting out in the sunshine supping a beer and watching the world go by. Dad pops down to use the heads and catch up on Chapter 17 of his Tom Clancy novel.
 

A few minutes later there's a 'whoooooosh' from the heads followed by a groan. Such was my relationship with the toilet that I sensed rather than knew what happened ... a high pressure toilet backfire.
 

The chain of events was simple but devastating. Dad had fully utilised the toilet as he browsed a good few pages of his novel. He then went to pump out but made the mistake of not opening the outlet sea cock. 

 

An Icelandic Geiser

He started to pump to evacuate the contents of the toilet ... when nothing happened he pumped harder and with more vigour ... still nothing so he pumped even harder. The effect was catastrophic.

 

With every stroke of the pump the pressure behind the valve increased, just like pumping up a tyre or charging an air rifle. Once it reached a certain point the joker valve could hold on no more and with a faint sigh of exasperation it simply gave up, instantaneously inverting and releasing all the built up pressure in an almighty blast. The contents of the toilet were projected upwards and outwards with the energy of an Icelandic geiser.

 

I rushed down below ... 'are you alright Dad? After a deathly hush I heard the muffled response and the words I hoped never to hear 'stay back .. the toilets exploded'.

 

An hour or so later we were supping a medicinal cocktail. 'Anyway'  I said trying to raise crew moral just a little 'at least you had your mouth shut' ... he gave me a resigned look. I said no more. Shit happens.

Next in the 'Dad and John Series' .. the Affair of the Lost Mind
 

The Tricky Affair of the Sinking Dinghy (A Dad and John Story)

As a small boy my summer holiday was almost always a series of hops, skips and jumps along the East Coast in a little 23 foot sailing boat. Our home port was Malden and with a fair wind we could often reach such exotic places as Harwich, Burnham and Brightlingsea. If time permitted we would make the perilous journey across the Thames Estuary to the seaside town of Ramsgate. In the diminutive Christabel every passage felt like a grand adventure that required bravery and seamanship in equally high measures. It never dawned on me that with a draft of 18" if we'd got into trouble we could have stepped off and walked home.

One day we found ourselves anchored off the hard at Queenborough. I was fishing with my crab line and Dad and his sailing mate Phil were down below.

As I sat watching the world go by a small dinghy caught my eye. It was full to overflowing with a large man, a large woman, three large children and an enormous dog.

As they motored past they sank. For an eight year old this sort of thing is important and interesting. I watched intently.

After a few minutes it was quite obvious to my young eyes that this family were not used to sinking. There was a lot of floundering and shouting and the dog appeared a particularly weak swimmer. I felt I should share the situation more widely. I leant down below. 'Dad? A dinghy has just gone past with some people in it, and a big dog, and its sunk.' .. 'What sort of dog?' Dad asked, 'A big one'  I replied. ... 'Ok where are they now' Dad asked. 'Just outside'. I said. Dad looked out of the port hole. 'Bloody hell Phil he's right'. He leapt to the rescue. 

Now, it's important to know that the only thing that came close to important to Dad apart from Christabel was his Avon Dinghy. He really loved it and would protect it at all costs from damage. Children would most probably heal but a damaged dinghy is a damaged dinghy. 

So it was bad luck that the first to spot the chance of rescue was large dog. His swimming had improved but it was quite clear he was ready for a lift. He saw the dinghy approaching and not unreasonably assumed he would be welcomed aboard.

This was not the case. The dog had claws and the claws had the potential to damage the dinghy. So instead of being warmly welcomed he actually received a swack on the head with an oar and a loud 'bugger off'.

This was not what he expected. I think he thought the whole oar thing had been a simple mistake so he had another go. Once again the dinghy was in grave peril so Dad had to send an even clearer message and he did so with an extra hard smack. Big dog  was now angry. His owners were non to pleased either but preoccupied for the moment with their own problems they did little. The rescue was going poorly. I watched on.

Dad rowed on manfully, occasionally whacking the dog over the head with an oar. One by one he loaded the people into the dinghy which in itself was getting perilously full.

Last in was the women who was placed in the back of the dinghy.  The dinghy was now stuffed to the gills to the point that big lady's knees were now stopping Dad rowing. I could hear raised voices from my comfortable viewing platform but it wasn't until years later I learnt the conversation that then took place.

Unable to row dad asked the lady if she would 'spread her legs'. He admitted afterwards it was a poorly worded request but cited the pressurised situation as the cause. The lady, who was not in the best of spirits declined. A Mexican stand off had developed and would have continued but for her partner's spirited intervention 'For fcks sake luv, spread your fckin legs or he won't be able to fckin row now will he?'.  A passionate exchange took place between the dog-boat parents. This was only interrupted by dad whacking the dog over the head and the associated cries of attempted dog murder from the children. In the end the lady begrudgingly opened up providing the vital rowing room that enabled the rescue to be completed.

The family were returned safely to the shore and I returned to my crab fishing.

Next in the 'Dad and John Series' .. the Brightlingsea Water Taxi Affair

The Great Oilskin Affair (A Dad and John Story)

'Juss one more 'n we'll go back to the boat for a nap'  Dad said waving his arm helpfully in the direction of the bar. It was a bitterly cold, wet and miserable October lunchtime well over ten years ago. We were in the yacht club and we were absolutely rat-arsed.

Of course we didn't know this. What we knew was that the beer we had drunk had given us the strength of ten tigers, the mental agililty of two university professors and we were enjoying ourselves.

Earlier that morning we'd delivered Dad's boat, Sea Frog,  into her winter marina berth and with her safely tucked up and a cold, grey, sleety rain, steadily falling we'd decided the only sensible thing to do was to keep our oilskins on and walk up to the club for a quick pint of beer. It was half past eleven in the morning.

The Good Ship Sea Frog - Ebbtide 33

Inevitably, we had more than 'juss one' before we left the club. Witnesses later described us as unsteady, incoherent, confused and a little bit loud.

Before we left we booked a table for dinner at seven .. the barman seemed surprised, even concerned, he had a facial twitch and he twitched slightly as we made our reservation. We walked back to the boat and enjoyed a brief and well earned afternoon nap. It was now five o'clock.

By seven o clock we were in the pub again, thirsty, hungry and happy. We drank, we ate a little bit and we drank some more. We discussed important things that fathers and sons discuss when drunk. We planned, we debated, we argued and we drank some more. Finally, close to midnight we were asked to leave.

We walked to the cloakroom to collect our oilskins only to find that they'd been stolen. Well to be specific Dad;s trousers had been stolen and my jacket. We were both very upset. This stuff is really expensive and in any case, oilskins stolen from the club? .. what is the world coming to? I went to discuss with the management. The barmen received my rant with concern and empathy .. his twitch twitched. He asked for my name .. I paused from my rant ... now, this could be tricky .. I focussed .. I really focussed ... I mouthed the words silently in preperation .. I went for it .. 'Shon Hoe Shawl'. He asked for the name of the boat. I really focussed, the name thing had gone badly .. I must try better. I focussed again. 'She fog'. It was close, I thought a good effort.

I grabbed my oilskin trousers and we left, happy that we had done the right thing by sharing our disappointment with the bar staff.

Dad's jacket did look a bit strange though. The colour wasn't  quite right and it was really tight, the sleeves stopped at his elbows. The whole outfit looked like it had shrunk in a washing machine .. In fact, it was so tight that Dads arms were sort of forced up away from his body as if someone had stuck a mop handle through his sleeves. He seemed happy but I couldn't really understand how he'd managed to get it on, it looked more like a tank top than an oilskin jacket.

The short walk back to the boat was uneventful other than Dad occasional colliding with gangways and boats due to the unusual elevation of his arms. We said little because we were no longer able to.

We arrived at Sea Frog, clambered aboard and went down below. The sight that met us was a complete surprise because hanging up, seemingly everywhere, were oilskins. Our earlier mental agility had faded considerably by now and we were overwhelmed by the complexity of the situation so we went to sleep.

We woke late. I looked up from my saloon berth to a forrest of oilskins hanging around me. I went through the inevitable step by step review of the previous night and pieced together the jigsaw. It was not pretty.

In a nutshell, when we had returned to the bar we weren't wearing oilskins. So when we left we had actually stolen other people's oilskins. They then reported the theft to the barman with the twitch. He was so concerned at the emerging crime spree in his club that he called the police. And so it was that at two in the morning Ipswich CID were walking round the marina in search of Shon Hoe Shawl on She Fog. In the absence of a Shon or a She Fog or anything similar they started to wake up a number of people on similar named boats including the crew of the unfortunately named Sea Dog. They may have approached us but we were asleep and unwakeable.

All this emerged later and was revealed by a gleeful harbourmaster over subsequent weeks. But back to the morning. We had to return the stolen oilskins! 'Well I can't do it, said Dad. This is my home port, they'll know me and in any case look at the size of the jacket'. It was a fair point. The jacket dad had pinched was tiny, probably a woman's and Dad was 6ft 2". I begrudgingly agreed.

It was confession time. I went up to the club. The barman was there. He flinched a little as I walked in and as I approached him he started to twitch. I'd obviously made an impression. I explained what had happened. I actually said Dad had pinched everything. It seemed only fair. He gave me the name of the boat and the name of the victims of our crime.

The repatriation was not a friendly affair.  Our fellow shipmates didn't have a little chuckle as I explained how Dad had accidentally picked them up when we left. There was no slap on the back and the wise words 'oh, we've done exactly the same thing ourselves, don't worry at all'. It was frosty, very frosty. I left. I didn't really feel very well anyway.

The rising crime levels in the Woolverstone area were briefly reported in the local press but interest soon waned when nothing else happened. The nervous barman left and the whole affair would have been forgotten except for the harbourmaster. He never forgot it. And every time Dad and I were together .. and I do mean every time,  he would ask the same question  .. 'Are we on the syrup tonight lads, coz if you are I just need to warn the staff?'

Next in the 'Dad and John Series' .. the Dreadful Affair of the Backfiring Toilet