Catching Up

Last year's trip was characterized by hurrying because we had committed to getting to Korcula at the beginning of August; this year is the complete opposite. We have no real schedule, so we can take our time. Consequently, we've been able to stop for a couple days and wait for the wind, the World Cup, the weather, etc.

We were able to spend a couple of days in Cadiz, where we had also stopped last year. It was much nicer this time around, though, because it wasn't nearly as hot as last year. Unfortunately, the anchor wouldn't hold so we had to go into the marina. The marina is quite a ways outside of town, so we had to walk about half an hour into the city, but we didn't mind. The only downside was carrying heavy stuff from the store, but since there were four of us (Roger was still with us) we made it work.

15 July 2014

We've been here in La Linea for the past 8 days. Roger left in Tarifa. We will miss his yummy cooking and help with the dishes (plus it was nice to have another pair of adult hands on board), but it's nice to be by ourselves again as well. Here in La Linea we are looking for a fuel cock for the outboard motor and waiting for good wind. Since we've been here, we've had an east wind, which will not help us at all as we head towards Morocco. Isabelle will be here in about three weeks and we are going to Morocco with her, so we are fortunate that we can take our time. Even so, we hadn't counted on being here for quite this long! On the up side, it's quite nice here just across the border from Gibraltar. We've watched the World Cup, been into Gibraltar several time, and met some people from Lagos whom we had never met there.

The week has been weird. There have been many frustrations, but there have also been good surprises. The other night when we came back from the beach, before we even opened the door, our neighbour handed us what must have been 5 pounds of freshly caught tuna. As it turned out, he literally provided dinner when we needed it. We didn't realise that Sunday was a holiday here, so the stores were closed. We wanted to go out to eat in town and watch the World Cup, but when we went to explore the options we discovered that the afternoon had been the "red wine festival," in which the town turns into Bourbon Street after a particularly rowdy Mardi Gras. There was so much cheap red wine on the ground that my shoes literally came off my feet and there were drunk people everywhere--not a place to come back to for dinner with Max, so we went back to the boat to reconsider the situation and that's when our neighbour handed us all the fresh tuna. Dinner dilemma solved--and Max discovered that he likes tuna steak!

Frank, with the help of Erik (who has been in Lagos for the past two years but we had never met him and his wife before running into them in La Linea), was able to get the motor running, so there was much rejoicing. I bought a new battery for my camera and Max got a new charger for his DS, so little things were taken care of as well.

 Max in La Linea

 Couple holding hands in La Linea

 The Rock of Gibraltar

3 August 2014
The picture below is from Marbella, where we stayed for a couple days so we could go up into the mountains to this pretty little village called Ronda. Frank thought it would be fun to rent a scooter (he had one in California and is licensed to drive it), so he and Max went on the scooter and I went on the bus. When Frank first brought it up Max was not sure, but then he decided he liked it. It took them a while to get there on the scooter so Max decided he wanted to come back on the bus with me. It was a very windy road, so to take Max's mind off his incipient carsickness I told him to see how many Pokemon he could name. He got to 204 by the time we got back--impressive!

 A tourist junk leaving Benalmadena (where I won a bet that we had been here last year, so Frank had to do the dishes--not that I was excited about that or anything…)

 A tourist horse in Ronda--poor thing is bored out of his mind!

 A little cafe in Ronda

 Light in the church in Ronda

 Max in a window

 Also Ronda

We've had a couple of horrible anchorages; one which seemed fine when we anchored but turned out to be the rockiest one I can remember for a while. The anchor didn't hold and we drifted quite a long way, only to find out that the windlass needed to be tightened and we couldn't find the special wrench to do it. Frank finally made it work by putting his foot on it to hold it--he is a genius! We've since gotten a new wrench, which you know means that we will find the other one relatively quickly.

There's not much to see here in Alalamar, although getting the new wrench and figuring out why we kept losing power at anchor was exciting, as was NOT being out in the water for the bad weather. The town here is sort of built around the marina, which means that we are moored right in front of a cafe that had karaoke last night--man, are people BAD singers!

I'll conclude with my usual promise to update more frequently--you can take that as you will!

Summer 2014--The First Installment

23 June
In Alvor:  we left Lagos on Sunday the 22nd and made the none-hour trip to Alvor, a wide bay at the mouth of the Alvor river. We didn't leave until about 6:00, so we arrived around 7:00 and anchored. Max decided he was going to check the anchor, but then decided against it. He swam for a few minutes and then came in. The rest of us--Frank, Frank's golf buddy Rogger who is sailing with us to Gibraltar, and I--decided it was too cold.

Last weekend--before we got our bimini back--it was 35 degrees Celsius (in the 90s Farenheit)--but the weather broke last Monday and the whole week has been unseasonable cool and cloudy. Today there is not much wind for our trip up the coast to Ferraguda. It's only about 5 miles from Alvor, so we were serious when we said we are not rushing things this year!

In Ferraguda we will inflate the dinghy and hopefully find an internet cafe; the three soccer-obssessed men I am currently travelling with are feeling out of the loop. There's not much wind at the moment so we will stay here for a little bit.

24 June
We left Ferraguda at 6:00 to charge the batteries and are heading to Culatra, near Faro. We saw some dolphins early, pretty close to shore, which seemed a bit odd. They were pretty small, so I wonder if they aren't young ones. The sea is quite calm--no waves after some rolling this morning.

28 June
We have pretty decent wind today after two days in Ayamonte, Spain. After Ferraguda the fun really began. We were sailing and when it came time to bring the jiub in it got caught in the wind and didn't furl correctly so we decided we would fix it when we anchored. The problem was that the wind was still strong, which made it very difficult but we were lucky because one of our neighbours from Lagos was also in Culatra and he helped us get the sail under control. The annoying thing was that our spinnaker halyard disappeared up the mast in our efforts to fix the sail, so Max was going to have to go up the mast and get it in the morning. He was ecstatic; he loves going up the mast.

The morning brought all kinds of excitement. Where we had originally anchored was a bit too shallow with the tide, and the anchor roller had come off the night before, so moving was going to be a challenge. David helped us pull up the anchor by hand and we were able to move to a better place. Bringing up the anchor was a bit nerve-wracking because David pulled the chain up and then I had to press the button so the windlass could take up the slack of the chain. I did not like the proximity of his fingers to the chain!

Before we moved, though, Max went up the mast in the bosun's chair for the halyard, but overnight it had worked its way to a spat he couldn't reach, so we let him down and David and Co. winched me up. It's a beautiful view from up there, but it's a little scary. Anyway, I was able to reach the halyard, so there was much rejoicing…

After we got moved, we took the dinghy across to the island of Culatra, where we got the ferry to Olhao, where we looked for boatyard to ask about fixing the anchor roller. No luck, so we decided to head for Ayamonte the next day.

All of this coming and going is complicated by the tides. Culatra is up a river, so you need to go in and out on the rising tide or your fighting the current.

Culatra itself--the tiny village on the island--is beautiful. It's only about 25 houses, I thin, and there are no cars. They do have a primary school, though, and a couple of restaurants, cafes, and a grocery store, but for pretty much everything else the people have to take the ferry to the mainland. They've also got a gorgeous, uncrowded beach there, but the weather for our whole trip so far has been too cool to spend much time at the beach.

Once we got to Ayamonte--home of the chandlery that we've ordered from before--we found the proprietor, John, who advised Frank and Rogger about how to fix the anchor roller. We watched Germany beat the US and Portugal beat Ghana and then headed back to the boat.

Friday was the most productive day yet. Frank and Rogger fixed the anchor roller and installed a crane for the outboard motor. Max and I thoroughly cleaned and organised his cabin. I put the line on our little second anchor.

The schedule here in Spain is weird because nothing except a couple of cafes open before 9 or 10 in the morning and the Spaniards don't eat breakfast before 11, lunch before 2 or 3, and restaurants don't open in the evening until about 8 or 8:30. It amazed me yesterday to realise that it was 5:00 already when I did not think it was later than 2!

Max was thrilled to go into town at 9:00PM to see the bullring, although they don't use it any longer. It was a "Sun Also Rises" moment, although I am not nearly as glamorous or as ruthless as Lady Brett Ashley, I think.

Photographically at least so far, it seems to be the summer of the phone. My camera is too big to fit in the dry bag when we go in the dinghy and I won't take the
risk of it getting wet, but I've also discovered that my charger may be a dud, so I can't charge the battery until I get a new one.

Here is Max about the go up the mast; David is just adjusting his straps.

You Know That When the Instructor Plays "Highway to Hell" During the Hardest Part of the Spin Class It's a Bad Omen--or, does Facebook really make us more witty?

I know for a fact that the internet has changed the way that we communicate; all you have to do is look at everyone staring at their phones all the time, updating their statuses on Facebook, Twitter, etc.; pinning stuff on Pinterest, watching Grumpy Cat videos, and making their lives complete by finding out exactly what sort of stupidity people who are famous for no apparent reason are up to now.  What I am interested in, though, is whether or not it's changed the way we think.  Has the internet--and Facebook in particular--changed the way our brains function?  I would argue that it has.  

I've been trying to decide what my feelings are about social media, and I've decided that I have a very fundamental beef with with most of it.  It's so exhibitionist!  OK, I am a very lucky person.  I am living in a beautiful place, my son is in the sort of school that I wish all children could attend, I don't have to work my butt off to survive, and I have the time and energy to do many things that I like to do, rather than only what I HAVE to do.  And have I mentioned that (I believe) that my son is the most beautiful child in the world?  He's also the funniest, the smartest, and I might be the best mom ever.  OK, so that last bit about me is probably not true, but I do believe the rest of it.  Now, does anyone who happens to see my Facebook page REALLY want to know all that?  And do they want to know that in many different forms?

I guess what I am saying is that I question what we are doing when we post online.  On the one hand, when I am traveling or doing something else that might be interesting to other people, then I think that social media is a great platform.  There is the off chance that someone might want to see my pictures of places that everyone is not lucky enough to be able to get to, so maybe I am making someone happy in that way.  Once in a while I'll see funny things and think that maybe other people might think they are funny too, so I'll share.  But most of the time I wonder whether people really don't have something else they could be doing rather than reading my ruminations.

Remember when you were a stressed-out teenager and you were worrying about what you would say when you ran into the guy--or the girl--you liked in the hall? Do you remember trying out different comments in your head and imagining the reaction?  I hope so, because I would hate to think that I am the only one who did that.  I think that most people tend to stop doing that regularly once they are out of their teens.  I haven't done it in quite a while, though, until this morning.

Or maybe I have done it but have not been conscious of it?  I'm not sure, really, but I do remember huffing and puffing away on the stationary bike--hoping it was about time to quit (without my glasses on I couldn't see the clock)--this morning when the instructor got off her bike, went over to the stereo, and started AC/DC's "Highway to Hell."  I immediately thought of the title of this post, envisioning posting it somewhere.  Here, I thought, is the revival of my blog, leading to other people's thoughts and comments, and everyone realizing that I am not doing nothing; in fact, I am working!  I'm just not getting paid for it (she says, in very small letters).

So then, have Facebook and other social networking sites changed the way we think of ourselves, and, by extension, the way we present ourselves to others?  I realize that I am a bit late to this party, but one of the things I have been musing about in my private journal for a while now is the this question of why we post the things we do on social networking sites.  On the one hand, of course we want other people--people who may be far away but who are nonetheless important to us, for example--to know how we are and what we are doing, but on the other hand, aren't we carefully crafting our self-images?  Don't we post pictures of our latest projects, cute kid videos, our dogs asleep, etc. at least partly to see what the reaction from other people will be?  Don't we want some sort of validation, whether it's for our hard work, our no-doubt superior parenting skills, beautifully groomed and intelligent pets, or simply for the fact that we've made it through another day?

Yes, I believe is the answer.  So then the question becomes, so what?  Why should we care?  What is the significance of this realization?  I, like many others, would argue that the significance of this epiphany is that we are becoming more selfish, more narcissistic.  I don't like to admit that about myself, especially because I do try to be unselfish.  I also hate admitting that I am not sure what to do about it, especially because I've had so much fun writing this and can't wait to post it!

It's Football Season in the US--and you know what that means!

Actually, you don't.  You don't because you are not in my bedroom on Monday and Tuesday mornings.  And that's OK.  In any case, what (American) football season means here in Lagos is that as soon as he wakes up on Monday and Tuesday mornings, Max (aged 8) checks the football scores on my iPod.  Max wanted "NFL Mobile" on there, so there it is.  I am still not used to NFL scores popping up every so often!  The quickest way to wake Max up in the morning is to tell him that Frank is going to check the scores without him.  First, they have to check the Packers and the Saints, then they see who else has played and who has a bye, and then they get into the real meat of the morning.  The usual discussion ensues:  what each team's prospects for the rest of the season might be, how they will/have fared against their future (or past) opponents, and what would happen if some sort of unanticipated random match up were to occur.  All this is punctuated by videos of the weekend's highlights and, if I ask, they will tell me whether or not I actually care what happened (if they are happy I'm happy; otherwise I really don't care):  I am perfectly happy that my opinions on these matters be dictated by the men in my life.

This routine got me thinking, though, about why so many women don't care much about football, which made me remember that I once taught an essay in a writing class called "Spandex Nation." It was written by someone whose name I can't remember (maybe Hilda Gonfor[?]--I am quite sure it was Hilda Someone because I thought at the time that Hilda is a very uncommon name.  If anyone knows, please let me know!  Now of course I have no idea what her essay has to do with American football, but it sparked this tribute from me at the time:

Homage to “Spandex Nation”

It’s time to take the issue of men and football out of the realm of cocktail conversation among women and hold it up to the light.  For years now, women have been frustrated in their attempts to understand American football.  Note, please, that I am not saying that women can’t understand it; I am a woman myself and I flatter myself that I am not stupid.  However, I don’t understand why, after years of boredom and frustration I finally understand only two important football concepts:  first, I understand what the four downs are and why they are important, and second, I understand that when a team switches from offense to defense, an entirely new set of players takes the field.  This fact, incidentally, is part of the reason that football teams (I am not including their staffs and hangers-on here) are so colossally large.

Now, let’s compare my experience with that of my husband, father, brother, and various ex-boyfriends.  My brother was watching football (knowledgeably) with my father when he was 5 years old.  My husband was born in Germany but moved to Wisconsin when he was four, so he understood the intricacies of the Packers’ playbook as soon as he learned English.  I've never really discussed the rules of football with my dad (an orthopedic surgeon), but I do remember it seemed like every time someone got injured he could diagnose how serious it was from the couch.  It's very disconcerting to hear, "Looks like he's out for the season" on what looked to me a pretty routine play.

When I was in my 20s I dated a guy who had only been in this country for four years.  He was one of the most opinionated and knowledgeable fans out there.  I asked him once how long it had taken him to understand the game and he told me that he understood the rules after watching only one or two games.    It seemed perfectly intuitive to him.  My son, who is now 8, has been telling me (accurately, apparently) whether or not I have an opinion on a particular game for years now.

The only possible answer has to be chromosomal.  When someone is born with a Y chromosome, the ability to intuitively understand American football is attached to one of the genes on it.  Since the human genome has not yet been mapped in its entirety, we don’t know which gene that is, but it does appear to mean that, due to our lack of this gene, women who want to understand football often must put in hours of painstaking and time-consuming work.   So the next time you watch a football game and think of the women reporting from the field as simple tokens to fill a quota, remember that they have probably put more time into training for their jobs than the players on the field, and they’ve certainly put in more time than their male counterparts.  Let’s have some respect for these highly qualified individuals because they have to want it more or they wouldn’t bother.

Finally Some Pictures

10 October, 2013

Now that we are back in Lagos and I have gotten the internet figured out again, here are a few pictures from the summer.  If you are on Facebook, you have probably seen them, but if not, there they are.

Abstract Cadiz

Boat near Cefalu, Italy

Another boat near Cefalu

Cefalu

Croatian Anchorage

Confession Reflection

Diane at the Beach

Diane at the Helm

Dubrovnik Boats

Belle and Frank

Dubrovnik Street

Dubrovnik Shutters

Happy Frank

Housewife Cadiz

Isabelle Relaxing

Isabelle is Pensive

Le Castella, Italy

Kayak Polo in Siracusa, Italy

Jack and his silly nephew in the cave in Korcula

Little boats better run...

Diane and her nephew

Jack and Max

Max from Above

Siracusa Alley

Near Vulcano, Italy

Max in Siracusa

Max in Bari

Siracusa Sunset

Siracusa

Square in Palermo, Italy

Storm's a-comin'

Octopus!

Jellyfish!

Frank, Isabelle, Max, and Me

From the house on Korcula--you can see our boat at the dock!

And Now, the Next Installment...

We are trying really hard to put the Mediterranean behind us, but we don't seem to be allowed to.  We thought yesterday that it was a beautiful day--perfect weather, calm seas (like a lake, really), so we left our quiet anchorage next to the power plant at 4:45 heading towards Estipona.  That required an overnight.

Frank went to bed at 9:30 and Max and I took the first shift.  We played some games and I watched for boats. There were a few waves, but not many.

By the time Frank woke up at midnight things had gotten rougher. We were fighting the wind and the waves, so we were not making good time.  Max brought his Powies and his glow-in-the-dark turtle into our room and the two of us lay down. Max went to sleep after a few minutes, but I could not.

We had high waves--for NO apparent reason--all night. We had to abandon our plans for Estipona and change course for Benalmadena, only about 18 miles away.

[Added much later]:  We made Benalmadena and spent a day there.  Then we continued towards Lagos.  Our trip after this was uneventful, although I should note that we were ZOOMING through the Straits of Gibraltar.  We had the current and the waves pushing us and we were making almost 8 knots at one point!

We arrived back in Lagos on September 22 and Max started school again on the 24th.  He only missed three days, thanks to Frank's incredible planning and navigation!

The Boring--sorry, uneventful--Part of the Trip

Nothing nearly as interesting as the storm and nearly running out of diesel has happened lately.  We last had internet in Mallorca in Porto Christo, three days ago.  We left there on Monday under cloudy skies, and the clouds have stayed ever since.  We've gotten some rain, but not much.  The Boring---sorry, uneventful--Part of the Trip

The only other thing was that last night we were in a very crowded anchorage and had a short but intense thunderstorm.  It was very windy and we had to anchor in water that was much deeper than we wanted to, but there wasn't any room anywhere else.  We actually almost hit another boat when the anchor didn't hold, so we had to pick up the anchor and try again.  The second time it did hold, which was a good thing because we were closer to the rocky cliffs than we wanted to be.   

Now we are heading along the coast of mainland Spain.  We follow the coast for a few days before going through Gibraltar and heading towards Portugal.  We are hoping to be there in 8-9 days.

Sunday, 15 September

Friday afternoon we stopped in Torreveija to get diesel and spend the night so that we could fill the water and shop.  We were thrilled to discover that the marina only charged €15 for the night.

The thrill stopped there, however. We were directed to a very narrow slip which Frank was going to have to back into.  This in itself is not uncommon, but the space he had to turn the boat in to get in position was much, much too small. Even I know that you can't turn a 12-meter boat in a barely 14-meter space without asking for trouble.  The marina does not, judging from what we heard later.

Frank did eventually get the boat turned around (he has gotten quite competent at this sort of thing this summer, especially when you consider that we do not have bow thrusters [those allow the boat to be steered sideways and if we ever buy another boat it will have them]) but unfortunately got caught on the anchor lines of some of the other boats.  

In case I haven't been clear about how these Mediterranean moorings work, they are designed to fit as many boats as possible in a small space, so all the boats go in either bow or stern first.  Two lines hold the boat to the dock, and then lines are attached to the bottom of the harbor and the dock. Someone has to be on shore to pass the anchor line to someone on the boat.  Then that person attaches the anchor line to the end of the boat NOT attached to the dock to keep it from trying to go forward out of the slip.  Usually there is just one anchor line per boat, but this marina had two per boat; it was the sort of marina that once you get in you might as well stay and save yourself the trauma of having to moor again if you go out. We did notice that there seemed to be a sort of community there who all knew each other, much like in Lagos, so we think they are probably staying for the winter. 

In any case, we had pretty much everyone who happened to be around trying to help us and express opinions. Frank was his usual unflustered self (but I know it was an act) and did not panic or get snippy with anyone.  After about an hour we did finally get in, although we did have a line caught around the keel.  Everyone who helped us was very sympathetic to our plight, all (according to them) of them having been in the same boat. It was a miracle that no damage was done to any boats!

We ended up having to get a diver to go down and untangle the line. I really resented having to pay for that because I think it was irresponsible of the marina to tell us to go to that slip. It seems a pretty common problem; one guy who also has a 12-meter boat said that he's been arguing with the marina about the narrowness but hasn't gotten anywhere. 

Saturday morning we got out of there as early as possible after hitting the grocery store (a very nice one, at least) and motorsailed fir most of the day until we stopped at a quiet anchorage that had mooring buoys!  

We left there at 4:45 this morning and have been battling the wind and waves ever since. Our luck may have run out as far as that's concerned.

Monday: our luck had run out. Fortunately we found a very quiet, sheltered anchorage next to a power plant. It wasn't much to look at, but the water was crystal clear and there were  very few waves. Max swam out with Frank to check the anchor and then later did it a couple if times on his own. We had a quiet afternoon swimming and playing Qwirkle.