25 September 2010
I was so terribly embarrassed. At the skippers briefing today we had offered Paul a berth aboard Voyageur, which he had graciously accepted. Invited to dinner aboard Tzigane we had completely forgotten about it. But perhaps we were doing him a favour. He had a rather stressful day. The beach barbeque had been cancelled due to the weather, and everything had to be rearranged for Sunday. He came over equipped with sleeping bag and evening meal, his accommodation, a tent on the beach. If I was his age, if I had been him, then I would have relished the prospect of sleeping alone on a desert island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, with only the sounds of the surf crashing on the reef and the moon and the stars as my only source of light. Sorry Paul, but I hope you enjoyed your experience, and can forgive us. Perhaps it was meant to be.....
To leave or not to leave...... that is the question.
Do we go or not. Now we are faced with an interesting dilemma. David is measured and he is calm and I absolutely trust him in his decision making, but most of all I trust that in Voyageur we have a boat that was built to take us safely around the world. She was not built for racing, she was not built to break records, but she was built to sail upon the oceans of the world in safety and in absolute comfort. We are utterly convinced by these boats and nothing or no one will ever convince us otherwise. It seems tonight that everybody is deserting us. The barbeque, scheduled for yesterday had to be postponed until tomorrow, Sunday. Oh my goodness what were we to do. The people on West Island were expecting the fleet to attend. But one by one, we heard via the VHF radio net that many would not be there. It seemed like a mass exodus. We have been there and done all this before. Back in 2005, when our rally had departed Tenerife we received information of a tropical revolving storm out in the Atlantic. Naturally we were hugely concerned but we held our nerve and on the sound advice from rally HQ headed south. Two thirds of the fleet chose to head to the Cape Verdes, where they were delayed for a week, while the rest of us carried on without mishap. Come 8am tomorrow morning, after David has heard the latest update on the weather forecast, he will decide whether we leave or not, irrespective of whatever any other skipper is doing. Of course it would be infinitely preferable if we had the company of other WARC yachts. What is important is that the decision is made on the facts that are available to us, including the advice from WARC weather forecaster. We have always felt that being in a rally, we are part of a group and the reason that we chose to sail around the world was to be in the company of others! I sometimes wonder though.....
During our time here we have had very sociable time of it, largely attributed to the influence of John and Jenny, Tzigane. They are great fun, great company and great hosts. But we must not forget the hospitality of A Lady, where we dined the other night. An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman, a formidable threesome indeed!
Susan Mackay