In my last post I was anchored between the 2 sheltered islands of Il St Marguerite. The next day, things changed and the weather took a turn for the worst, as you will see......
Monday 14th Sept
Weather became worse and forced us to move again, but not before leaving the safety of the islands and encountering the Med at it's finest!!
After leaving the channel, we entered into open sea, which became progressively more rough. The boat, which is designed for cruising, was being hammered by the swells, which came over the bow!
I remember looking down the starboard walkway and seeing a mountain of water coming towards me....not the best view in the world, but exciting nonetheless.
I decided to film our voyage through the waves, so you could see what it was like, although it had to be cut short before the swell got bigger and the real action started, as our tender rope broke, leaving the tender floating amongst the swell, and near the rocks.
Towards the end of the clip, listen for the snapping sound of the rope!
Thankfully we mangaged to save the tender. After manouvering the 31m boat alongside the 6m tender, the 2nd Captain, which was my first Captain and happend to be onboard helping with some mechanics, jumped into the tender and rode the waves back into the channel.
We at that point turned our bow towards the waves and headed out to sea, before finding a window of opportunity which allowed us to turn back towards land and our new anchoring site, sheltered by the bay.
Tues 15th Sept
The heavens opened up and the rain came down in a big way!
As there was still alot of swell and strong wind, i had to do watchkeeping which meant staying awake from 12pm- 6am, monitoring the anchor (to see if we were still in position, and had'nt moved),other boats close to us as well as the status of the generator etc.
Wed 16th Sept
Still raining and so am unable to work on exterior.....sometimes a pleasure, when you need a break, but there's always the cleaning after, as the rain is rarely clean and leaves dirt behind, which can stain the boat if unattended.
Tonight is the engineer's turn to keep watch, so i was able to get a good nights sleep.
Thurs 17th Sept
The rain stopped, but the wind and swell did not. The wind was predicted to be force 5 so we moved from current spot to the front of the island, as it shielded us against the wind and therefore swell.
The wind picked up and was pretty much in full force when i had to pick up the 2nd Captain and chef from the shore. This meant i had to drive in my 6m tender across open ocean and back again. It was without a doubt, the most challenging drive I have had yet. There was one moment where i almost capsized, but somehow it worked out.
Fri 18th Sept
A very early morning start,as the wind direction and intensity had changed, which meant we had to pull up anchor and cruise back to our previous spot.
The weather for this time of year has been pretty bad, one of the many proofs that globl warming is very real and happening. According to "Cap" he used to get storm predictions for the year, and has seen the change in intesity and frequency over the years. The problem is that the predictions nowadays are very inaccurate, due to the increase in frequecy and changing of the seasons.
If you haven't already seen it, check out: An Inconvenient Truth......Here's what it's about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnjx6KETmi4
The day consisted of cleaning the generators (as there was still oil all over the place from the smoke incident). This is one of the worst cleaning missions I have had to do, as it took so long, because of the small areas in hard to reach places, and the engine room was hot.
The weather was still pretty dodgy, so i had to do another watch keeping stint, but only from 12pm - 4am this time, as i woke the engineer up to take over.
The watchkeeping was not without incident. Our tender seemed to be sagging at the back end, and the engine was lower in the water as usual, so i climbed on and opened the bilge area. The whole compartment was filled with water, as well as 1/3 of the aft section, as the automatic bilge pump had stopped working. All it meant, was that i had to flick the switch manually. Although a very simple task, it could have been a disaster if it was not noticed.
Problems on yachts are not always easy to spot, and it could be something behind closed panels or inside the body work of the boat, so you need to learn to spot tell tale signs that something is wrong before it gets worse.
Sat 19th Sept
Cleaned up after rain and then took it easy and watched movie 2 of my 100 winter collection. Winter in the S.France is not the best....besides the big swell and heavy winds, there is lots of rain. The upside tho, is that you can go skiing in the Alpes. The slopes are an hours drive from Cannes, and so I plan to make use of my free time.
Sun 20th Sept
My Captain took his leave today (1 week), and so the first Captain I had, filled in for him. Told that we goin going to be in Monaco Boat Show and then back in port by next week Monday/Tuesday!! Good old land.....
The decision one has to take once the Med Season is over, is whether to stay there for winter or leave the current job (should it be on a permanant basis) and head to the sunny Caribbean.......the latter is the option most chosen, but weigh up the pro's and con's of each and choose accordingly.
Thats it from me for now.......check back next week to see what i'm up to!
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Email: courses@certifiedtraining.co.za
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