Yotlinx organised a boat out of Kremik, north of Split in Crotia for a week of sailing up and down the Dalmation coast – in the end only five of us went for it – 4 Shell workers and Mike.
The flight from Edinburgh saw me behind a hen party with sparkly sequins on their tight T shirts who all had to remove their belts for security and were staggering through security holding up their jeans. Sadly they weren’t going to Split. I next bumped into a part time fireman we normally meet in the steam room in the Kelso swimming pool – he was off for a lads weekend which may have been tarnished by me shouting ‘I didn’t recognise you with your clothes on’. The skipper, Alan, had to drive down from Aberdeen and we met the other side of security where his normal routine is
I have a metal hip – just step through the metal detector sir;
NAAAAAAW, NAAAAAAW- right sir step back
Are you wearing a belt sir? I have a metal hip – off with the belt sir and step through the metal detector;
NAAAAAAW, NAAAAAAW- right sir step back
Do you have any coins in your pocket – err no I have a metal hip – you must have a metal hip sir on you go….
We met up with Andy in the Wetherspoons pub at Gatwick which was kindly offering ales at a very decent price. Andy was disfigured in a car crash in Australia and had lost his leg and had an amazingly positive view of life which put my grumping about anything in its place. With an early start we left when the pub shut and retired to the Yotel for a power shower and a few hours sleep before meeting the rest of the crew – Pete and Kevin the mate (or Fanny and Johnny as they came to be known for their prowess in the galley). We all filled up at duty free with Gin and Malt Whisky – emergency rations.
After such an early start the flight was of course delayed for hours due to a maintenance issue, and we now had Kevin snoring loudly in the lounge so we were all keep to go, so on prodding the airport staff it turned out they needed to get ‘the engineer’ from Luton airport – who must have changed a bulb as the plane was ready 5 minutes after he was due to arrive.
The plane was full of bankers – HSBC had filled the plane and the marina boats with staff who were going sailing (what happened to this credit crunch in banks?) – it was a sensible strategy to get to the SunSail offices before them otherwise we would be sailing out several days later… we did, got our briefings as to where it was possible to go and departed before the HSBCers had unpacked. We also discovered that they had given us a much larger boat than we had expected giving us all separate cabins (mine was ensuite with the galley head) – we had a 43 foot Jeanneau with BMW logos on the front.
Skipper decided to show us the ropes – literally – we tacked until we were a well oiled machine – a knackered machine at that and sailed to the port of Rogoznicko where we had the pantomine of the ‘lazy line’. Skipper had heard of them but never used them – the rest of us made it up as we went along. The guy on the dock would pull up a rope and we had to grab that at the stern then pull that up the side of the boat and secure it fore and aft – that way we were physically perpindicular to the dock and secure – we tied onto the dock and dropped the gangplank down. Whilst skipper dealt with paperwork the rest of us were tasked with finding the supermarket. It took an icecream and a mile walk before we found one – where some aged blonde Croats in hot pants were out shopping and helped us find some tea. Walking back pleased with ourselves we then discovered that there was a supermarket opposite our boat. Skipper assumed we had just gone to the pub and broke the news that the lazy line was about 50 quid a night – those news articles about the pound dropping hit home (from my Lonely Planet guide the pound had halved since last year – this was going to be an expensive week).
A few beers and discussing football and joining the EU with the pretty waitress and some locals and we retired back across the narrow gangplank with the long drop down to a cold sea to open the gin and chat under the stars on deck. It turned out that drinking a lot before a long sail in the morning was not a sensible idea.
