Friday 17th October
THE LEGEND SAILS ON!
Defying all odds, after a lifetime of drunkenness and
debauchery, today, Malcy has reached the grand old age of 65! His avowed
intention for many years now has been to 'Grow old disgracefully!' He has
certainly succeeded! After the Government elected to buy him a crate of
champagne every winter - fuel allowance (he opens one every time he feels the
cold!), the profits of the Railway Hotel are to be boosted even more by the
Treasury forking out for another 40 pints worth per week from his old age
pension!
I
first met him in the Powerboat Club in Abersoch in 1972 in the early days of the
first Quasar. He was sitting there, clutching a tiny Olly on his knee with one
hand and with a pint of Mackerson and Cider in his other hand. John spots him
and says 'Do you want to come sailing Malc?' He says yes and we haven't been
able to get rid of him since!
Without writing at least 100 pages it is impossible to
touch properly on his many exploits over the years. However one in particular is
typical. At the time of the Fastnet disaster in 1979, we were in Tregier,
Brittany, sheltering from the gales. We had a particularly heavy night and Malcy
had disgraced himself badly, in particular by pelting us with rotten fruit after
a late session in a bar and then by stealing the little wooden man directing us
into the restaurant where we had a really nice meal
earlier!
I was
so disgusted with him I set 'Mo the Crow' (a tough cookie!) onto him and she
chased him and he jumped into the Tregier River to escape her, still clutching
the little wooden man. Very dangerous, as the River was running at around 7
knots! I was for letting him drown, but Howard thought maybe we should rescue
him in the dinghy. I was still livid as we approached him, so I pushed him under
the water with the oar! Malcy, despite his inebriated state, was as quick witted
as ever and retaliated by pulling the bungs out of the dinghy! We made him row
round the Estuary the next day looking for the little man, but alas it was lost
forever!
Untypically Malcy's birthday passed fairly quietly. Among
his presents were a dressing gown and a horned helmet for his next ski holiday!
We celebrated with 2 bottles of wine for dinner instead of the usual
one!
Saturday 18th
October
ROLLING
ALONG!
Since
yesterday we have been sailing with the Twistle not at spectacular speeds, but
at around 7.5 knots we are making steady progress, albeit with some
rolling!
A
couple of problems emerged over yesterday and today in that the bathing platform
failed to function and the anchor winch suddenly started unwinding. Malcy
eventually traced the problems back to wiring that had chafed through and was
shorting out underneath the wet locker! Potentially fire causing! Two hours
later everything is sorted. Well-done Malcy!
Chicken curry for dinner and oranges, which are about the
only fresh fruit left!
Sunday 19th
October
REFLECTIONS
An
uneventful day! We are still rolling along at 6.5 to 7 knots with the Twistle
looking at the cyclone position on the weather info provided by our chums on
Kualula from someone they met in Cocos. It is 1000 miles ahead of us and
hopefully will continue its track SW so that it hopefully passes Mauritius well
before we get there! Lindsey has an SSB call to Kualula every morning at 09:00
and they are in touch with the Swiss yacht Antares Royal at the same time.
A
normal day, washing, minor repair jobs, book reading, Ian working on his slide
show set to music, lots of sleeping in my case and a steak stir-fry for
dinner.
At
21:00 hrs local we are about 1760 nm from Mauritius in position 13.50 S 87.55
E.
Bit
of a sad day for me today. It would have been my mother's birthday. I reflect
about how things were two and a half years ago and how much has
changed.
I'm
on 20:00 to 22:30 and 6:00 to 8:30 in the morning - the easiest watches! So its
goodnight from me!