Did I say I wanted to leave on the 10th of February? Intrepid readers should know by now, that like wave height estimation, whatever is said on the sea in terms of dates, should be doubled in time, and wave heights always halved. If someone says they’ll leave in five days, that means probably ten, and if the waves were five metres they were actually two and a half. That being said, I always have really good reasons for my delays (and my wave estimations are always 100% correct), and of course my reasons for this delay are great! But, that folks, is my story hook - I’m not saying another word! Maybe doubling the time is a little over the top, but I think the 10th is a little ambitious at this stage.

Life on the tiny island has been interesting, to say the least. Last week when I mentioned I was well on my way to going stone broke, I hadn’t quite expected it to become the understatement of the century. The following day, I thought to myself “how broke am I exactly, and surely I can almost double whatever I have in Euros to make myself wealthy in US dollars!’” Wealthy is of course a relative term, and in relation to me, it means being able to afford two minute noodles that come with two different flavouring sachets, instead of just one. Or maybe even the ones with the little dried shrimp in one packet, and the MSG, sorry, I mean, seafood flavouring in the other? As my online statement came up, I grabbed my heart in utter shock, almost careening out of my chair in complete disbelief, looking at what appeared to be exactly one million Euros in my account! No, really, there was a negative statement, the one million dollars was a typo… So there I was, numbers in red, with a negative symbol in front of them. How did this happen? It seems three and a half weeks of transactions were backlogged, and here I was thinking I was doing ok. This isn’t a cry for money (that will come later, I’ve been talking to this Nigerian guy, and we have an idea…), I still think I can scrape together enough cash to provision the boat from my tax haven account in the Caymans, but things are really on the wire yet again…

I know you all come here for my seafaring stories, but since I am stuck on land for the next little while, my stories of strange encounters will have to do for now. I hope that’s ok with everybody, and don’t worry, I’ve met enough strange characters to keep this blog active for the rest of my trip, should Constellation decide she likes relaxing in the sun more than sailing.

So I’m sitting in the Sailors Bar, and a young guy comes up to me with a big backpack, and asks me if I speak German. Well! Naturally, yes, I was living in Berlin for a year, of course I can speak German! Blah blah blah blah blah blah La Palma. That’s what he sounded like. All I could understand was La Palma. Ok, so I can’t speak German, other than to order Wurst and large beers, so we will have to switch to English. It turns out this young German wishes to get a lift to La Palma (another Island). I thought about this for awhile, and then I said, “No, but maybe La Gomera.” He wasn’t interested in La Gomera, and I wasn’t interested in La Palma, so then he asked if he could sleep on my boat. As you know my boat is only 26metres long (sorry, I mean feet), but I agreed he could stay for one night.

Later that day, a girl walked briskly into the Sailors Bar with a big backpack, and then disappeared again down the street. I thought it was a rather curious act, but ignored it and went back to drinking my tap water and surfing the web, leaving just before dark for a swim. As I was returning to the boat, I saw this same girl on the beach, and asked her what she was doing. She said she was French, and waiting for a ferry to another island. I asked her when the ferry left, and she said “tomorrow”. At which point it was ascertained, she was intending on sleeping on the beach. So I asked her what she thought of Germans, and she seemed pretty non-chalant about them, so I said she could sleep on my boat if she didn’t mind sharing the rather small space with myself and a German backpacker, because it was safer than the beach. Now… I know what you’re thinking: You’re thinking “gosh Nick is SO GENEROUS asking French girls to sleep on his boat” … ! My next door neighbour (his name is Paul) later told me he uses a similar line with Spanish girls, something along the lines of “it’s not safe to sleep at home, I have a catamaran!”. But truly, as this girl tells me she will be sleeping on the beach, all I could think of was my Portuguese friends and all the other generous people on my trip. My boat is hardly the Hilton, and the cupboards are only stacked with Pasta, but it seemed it was the least I could do. Besides, I wanted to write some jokes down that started with “What do you get when an Australian, a German and a French…” etc.

That night, I made International Pasta (it’s the same pasta I normally make, but in company it has a more exotic name), and raised the French, German and Pirate flags on the port spreader, to indicate I was no longer singlehanding in the marina - The Pirate flag was to indicate to the rest of the pontoon that we were not to be messed with. The French girl quite aptly took Croissants and Wine out of her backpack, and the German guy quite strangely pulled out a bag of mung beans. So we’re sitting there with Croissants, Wine, Pasta and mung beans, and I can’t think of a damn joke. Or maybe that is the joke? Anyway, it was Carnival night too, and trucks were going past the marina with Drag Queens dangling off the back. Is this story becoming surreal, or what? In the end, the French girl left the following day for her Ferry, and later in the evening Paul invited me and The German over for a drink, and then said it was a Sunday night, and that he and his friends would drive through the mountains for something to do (Paul is from Gran Canaria). The German then packs a sleeping bag, and asks if he can leave his big backpack on my boat for a bit. I agreed, and then he asked me to sprout his mung beans while he was away. Sure, why not, it’s not like I have anything else to do… Later in the evening, after a hair raising drive through the mountains, The German walks off into the woods without a torch, holding a rolled cigarette filled with what appeared to be grey, dried flower petals (he was a health nut).

My Spanish friends said ‘LOCO’, and we left him there, and drove back down the mountain stopping at a quaint little Hamburger place for provisions. My Spanish friends kept saying “Nick, your friend is really really crazy, LOCO LOCO”, to which I responded “yes, he is German, this is what they do”, because really, it wasn’t such a big deal for me to be dropping this kid off in the middle of nowhere… In fact, it seems like yesterday that I was curled up on the side of a road in Sweden! Thinking back though, I don’t recall trying to smoke flower petals… Having said all that, he did seem quite resilient , and it’s not as if it’s Northern Europe here anyway, so the worst that could happen is he returns with a chill and an empty stomach.

After The German fiasco, I was back at the Sailors Bar to check my email, and met an American. I wanted to ask him if he’d sailed to Bermuda, to which he told me he had sailed from America via Greenland. Wow! What an amazing trip to do in a sail boat! Then he started telling me about how expensive fuel was… Now, I know fuel can be an issue, but really, a sailing boat doesn’t use that much diesel. Later in the conversation The American starts complaining that he burns one ton of fuel every two days. ONE TON OF FUEL? What kind of sailing boat does this guy have? Or maybe he forgot to launch the sails? Later it becomes apparent that he actually has a small Coaster, or for the uninitiated, he actually owns a 30+metre diesel cargo ship, built in Norway. The American was using a cargo ship as a pleasure vessel, and had a crane, two cars and a Ducati onboard. He ’sailed’ to Morocco, craned the Ducati off the boat, and then toured the continent! He makes money hauling cargo around the country (no, not that kind of cargo), and is unique in that his boat only has a small draft (meaning it can go in relatively shallow waters) with the ability to go up river and along the coast. I couldn’t really fathom how this was possible from a bureaucratic standpoint - Surely you can’t just buy a large boat and start hauling goods? To which he replied “No, in 1st world countries, what I do is not possible”. Prior to here, he’d spent two winters and one summer, stuck in Belgium because they couldn’t quite understand what a single American with such a big ship was doing in their waters…

So the point of the story is, if you have a big enough boat, it sounds as if plying up and down the African coast with legitimate cargo might be a profitable business. Which is why I’m going to use that one million Euros I have, to buy a fleet of those really sketchy looking Greek tankers you see everywhere… Maybe I can haul mung beans?

I promise my next post will be more nautical, and involve Atlantic preparation themes… And I know you’ll want to hear about what happened to The German, so as soon as he shows up, I’ll get the low-down on his Nature Adventures too.

nick.

Firstly, I’d like to welcome Airnavsystems.com onboard, as a new Bigoceans.com sponsor! AirNav build flight spotting software and products, and are releasing a new ship spotting product called ‘ShipTrax’. It seemed like a very fitting partnership, and AirNav are assisting with additional funds, which is really what I need at the moment. I seem to be going through what little money I have at a great rate, buying charts, parts, and provisions. Very, very special thanks to Andre for approaching me with the idea, being so fast to help out, and for believing my trip is a worthy idea to support.

It’s been a very busy past few days - I sat around sick for too long, and then when a good forecast came my way, it was all panic to get myself ready. As you can see from the above sponsorship, I haven’t just been sitting on my laurels. I’ve also spent over a week waiting on another partnership which would have provided some neat communications potential for my trip to the Canary Islands, however nothing has come of it yet, and it’s time for me to leave. If you missed it, there is a photo of the article regarding my Cape Horn aspirations (!!) located here.

Yesterday I provisioned the boat with supplies, which turned out to be an epic job. To begin with, I had exceeded my daily transaction limit at the bank, and only had 140euros in my pocket. I thought this would be enough for 15 days of food, but apparently I was wrong. By the time I was done shopping, my trolley was about to break, and I could barely push it. I tried to get money out, but it was futile, so I hid my trolley in the honey isle, and high-tailed it out of there, feeling really guilty about some poor kid having to re-pack everything because of my stupidity. It was with great luck that S/V Aquamarijn were able to loan me some money, and I ran back to see if my trolley was still hiding. Thankfully it was, and I caught a taxi back to the marina with a boatload of provisions. Putting all this food somewhere turned out to be a new experience, and I know for a fact, I will be finding food purchased in Lisbon, hidden around the boat for many years to come.

So my route now, is direct to the Canary Islands, not stopping anywhere. This is an 800nm trip, which I expect to take from anywhere between 7 and 14 days. I’m not going to mess up my expectations on maintaining a 4kt average like I did across Biscay, which put myself under a lot of pressure to arrive within three days, to tell friends and family that I was ok, and not to send helicopters. I expect to take around 10 days, but up to 14 I think is still quite possible. I have a decent forecast from Commanders Weather, but I’ve been waiting around today for reasons I’ll explain some other time, so already I’m 9hrs behind where I should be. I will be heading 1degree east of a direct line to Lanzarote, anticipating a wind change in a few days to South, which means I will hopefully be in a good position to tack back onto course for the Canaries, without sailing directly into the wind.

‘August the mighty Yanmar’ has new oil, and I never found an explanation for the overheating. Today I ran it in gear (in the marina) at a decent pace for 30mins, and ran an infrared heat gun on the block, but there were no signs of overheating. Fingers crossed the issue was a bag around the inlet or something simiarly temporary.

I spent last night having another wonderful dinner with the Hooligans et al, and then had a second dinner and drinks with Pedro #1, Pedro #2 and Ana, which was really nice. I’m still in absolute awe at the generosity of everybody around me. Last night I came into my boat, and sat down, and I must admit (I don’t get called Mr Toughguy for nothing!) I almost felt a little teary at everyones generosity and kindness towards me. I’m just some guy with a little red boat, trying my best to do my thing, and people are helping at literally every turn. Remember Pedro #1 saved me from a lonely Christmas, invited me into is really great family, fed me, gave me a bed, introduced me to his closest friends, and really showed me a side of Portugal people rarely see. Pedro #2 took me out for dinner and lunch everyday, showing me what amazing food the Portuguese produce, let me sleep in his house while I was sick, took me to the maritime museum, the planetarium and even parted with a bag of food and some extra money, citing I would need it for the marina in the Canaries! The Hooligans (plus Ton & Petra) have been really wonderful company in La Coruna, and here in Lisbon, and packed huge bag of extra Dutch provisions for my trip, and even loaned me a satellite phone (one of the reasons todays departure is delayed, finding a new SIM card) so I am able stay in contact, and hopefully maintain web-based position reports on my 800mile journey. I will miss everybody so much… I wish my boat were 15 times larger so I could just bring all the incredible people I meet along with me. I cannot necessarily return this kindness directly to the people who have helped me, but be rest assured, I will do my very best to ‘pay it forward’ and help others whenever I possibly can.

Thank you so much Portugal. The Canaries are Spanish territory, so this is the end of Portugal for me, and also the end of continental Europe. I cannot believe I am leaving Europe, after being here for almost two years. What amazing experiences and people I’ve met, from Berlin, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, England, Belgium, France, Spain, Gibraltar, Guernsey and Portugal. This is my longest solo non-stop voyage so far, over doubling my Biscay distance. I can’t wait to reach the Canaries, and look forward to telling you all about my biggest passage so far.

See you in a couple of weeks, and check back when you can, because there is every chance I may be able to get some news up on this site from somewhere out there in the Atlantic. More than likely updates will come via Twitter or onto my tracking page.

-moby nick!

It has now been three weeks in La Coruna. I guess it’s become a self-fulfilling prophecy that I would end up here for winter… As I’ve said before, every major port I arrive in, I admit defeat and proclaim that I’m stopping, getting a job, and getting a haircut. Somehow I’ve managed up until here, but La Coruna clearly has some kind of magnetic anomaly which has me glued to the waters surface.

I had however triumphantly proclaimed earlier this week that I’d had it, I was going south regardless of all my worldly problems: I still had one tiny trick left up my sleeve, which was to call Lloyds Bank, and somehow convince them I really needed the ₤90’s worth of overdrawn fees returned to my account. I had a long forgotten automated transaction take me to to a ‘whopping’ ₤18 in the red, which resulted in this incredible overdraw penalty. I also had the fortune of a secret cheque in my name, to the tune of ₤125, yet it was useless if cashed onto an account already in the negative. This lone cheque was the result of the local Esso factory in Bursledon spilling it’s black soot all over the boatyard I was in, entitling me to compensation to clean the boat. Good friends from the yard filled in the forms for me, and collected the cheque on my behalf, but I had no way of cashing it. I was really trying to avoid a bad credit record in the UK, so I had been pondering that I might cash it anyway, to get rid of my ‘debt’… To cut a lengthening story short, I knew if I could get the fees back, cash the cheque, plus the €50 marina key deposit, I could release myself from these pontoon shackles, and edge further south in search of more good luck, and heaven forbid, maybe even a small job. But unfortunately, after telling you my most private banking secrets and hidden cheque stories, there is no triumphant or happy ending. Sometimes when you’re about to hit a brick wall, you actually do.

Which brings me to my next thoughts on the topic; of why I mention all this… I often think back to the days when I dreamt all of this up, and just really had no idea how I could make it happen. You read the same story over and over again, about someone doing something on large sponsorship, a good pension, or simply a lot of money. I guess I’d like my story to be about the person who tried to do too much with too little. I tell you not of my woes in hope for a step up (but I am incredibly honoured when granted one), but rather to chronicle things for myself and others, and ultimately to be one of the limited success stories in small boat, small funded and independent long distance sailing. While I may make out that things are difficult (and mostly they are, but on a relative scale), the truth of the matter is, I would not have it any other way. Someone said to me the other day ‘if it really gets too hard, why not just sell up and leave’? I’ve never thought of doing that - I’ve thought of what I might do if I sank the boat, (which if you’re wondering, would be to start walking home, or buy another one) but very little energy has been dedicated to the subject of selling up. Besides, if I did that, then what would I do?

I say all this, to prep you (and maybe myself…) for the news that I simply cannot continue this year, and I will be staying in La Coruna, working, and building my own ideas into things that will power me forward, as early as possible next year. Up until now I have avoided saying the final ‘this is it, I’m staying put’, because I’ve always secretly held out that something would happen. But in my quiet reflections on the situation, I was honest with myself, and admitted that without sizable cash injection, even if I did manage to get out of here, I’d quite simply get stuck a little further down the coast, yet again. I also came to the conclusion that I was really happy to have come this far, and also felt good that I could sit back and stop for a minute, knowing that I had tried as hard as I possibly could to get here.

So what now? Well, I may not be able to sail, but I will never rest! I have my own ideas and projects to work on, and I hope to get enough paid work to keep me nourished and in good spirits (if you need any web development work, be sure to hit me up!). Over the next few months, I’ll tell you all about what I’m working on, what I’ve been doing, and about future additions my sailing project. This entire idea has always been bigger than myself, and I hope to keep it that way with some slight additions and route changes.

Thanks so much to everybody for your help and encouragement in getting this far. Everywhere I go, people are helping in every way they can, and it’s almost arrogant to say that I sail singlehanded. I hope my temporary defeat is not disappointing to you all, and I trust on prior experience, you know that any admission of ‘defeat’ is closely coupled with the word ‘temporary’ - I will get home, on a small boat, alone and with much gusto!

nick.

So it’s now almost been two weeks since I arrived in La Coruna. My work situation has kind of disintegrated, for a number of technical reasons I won’t bore you with. This poses a minor problem to my plans, but alas, there is nothing I can do but keep pushing and searching for solutions. I’m really becoming quite aware about how easy it could be for me to stay here and not move for the winter, which is unnerving, so the search continues. At present, I literally can’t afford to pay my way out of the marina (you pay on departure here, as opposed to day-by-day, which means you put yourself in a debt of sorts…), so until something comes out of the woodwork, I’m iced in. I like to think of myself as being a Shackleton of sorts, stuck not really by choice, but rather by extremities. My capture being pure economics, as opposed to a harsh icy climate though - The weather here is actually quite stunning.

I was somewhat amazed to find an article on the web about my attempts at work, yet it was positive, and definitely a good advertisement for any future employers! It was also quite exciting that Tom and Tina Sjogren of Explorersweb Inc. took any interest at all in my predicament, they being the ultimate adventuring duo, and also hosts to one of the largest portals of genuine adventure and exploration. It’s also been one of my favourite websites for a long time, from the days of sitting back and dreaming of far flung adventures.

Besides all my ongoing woes, I’ve certainly not been bored while living here - Several days ago the German schooner ‘Johan Smidt’ appeared overnight, with a crew of high school students and teachers, on a program called ‘Die High Seas High School‘. One of the English teachers noticed my ridiculously large Australian flag (it was all I could find over here!), and came over to talk - He was quite unexpectedly from Adelaide, Australia, and invited me over for a cooked lunch, and to do a talk about my voyage in English to the students.

I spoke about my voyage across from England to Holland, and they were all rather impressed I knew Johannes Erdmann, who had in fact sailed up to Vlissingen with me. I spoke about my lack of toilet facilities, and explained that two buckets consisted of the toilet, the bathtub, and the kitchen sink. They were rather amused to hear I thought their boat was a floating motel, and insisted on seeing my little ship that I was intending to sail home on. So we walked around to Constellation, at which point there were gasps of astonishment, as they climbed in and out of my little boat, which I had to explain should not be boarded by all of them at the same time, for fear of sinking her.

I’d only spent a tiny amount of time with the crew of this new arrival, but when throwing their lines off, I must admit I felt a little sad. It’s always hard being the one who is left behind - It’s far better to leave first…

It wasn’t long after, that I met a local Mini-Transat (Classe Mini) sailor, who invited me out racing. I can sail a boat in one direction, but I can tell you now: I’m no racer! It was a fun experience, and I’ve always wanted to sail one of these crazy French pocket rockets. I think they are the 21st century answer to the Contessa 26 - In fact, I wouldn’t be suprised if they had a similar length in the water. There was little wind, but you could really feel that these boats go amazingly fast, and crossing the Atlantic in them in the bi-annual race is one incredible feat. It was also interesting to be on a boat specifically designed for solo offshore racing. They are virtually unsinkable, with foam core added for buoancy, and have a number of important safety features, such as the transom escape hatch, and the ability to completely seal off the cabin. Demasted or similar, I think you could ‘happily’ curl up in your floating pod and survive quite nicely. I’d love to have unlimited funds and the aid of a naval architect to build the ultimate one-handed offshore cruising boat! The minitransat is a nice idea for racing, but for my own super-boat design, I’d lessen her beam, increase the length a little, and up the displacement, increase the weight and strength of the keel, yet keep all the safety and unsinkable traits - I would now like to be referred to as ‘Nick Jaffe, RNA, PE’.

After my racing experience, I suprisingly found another Contessa 26 in the marina. Noticing the owner onboard, I found out via the son being a translator, that the boat was named ‘Fantasia’, and had in fact come from England, via the French canal system, the Med, and around the Cape of Good Hope, right back up to Alicante! Who the skipper was, I have no idea, but if you know, please mail or leave a comment, I’d be most interested. I’ve been invited to lunch tomorrow by the owner, which I’m looking forward to.

So, while I’ve had a lot to do in La Coruna, none of it really solves my immediate problem of be stuck in an economic ice berg. I’ve tried to motivate myself by reading the adventures of Shane Acton, aboard Super Shrimpy, the 18ft plywood boat which he sailed around the world on with less money than I, but alas, it’s neither made me any money, nor inspired any further ’southing.

What comes next, I’m not really sure. But one thing is for certain, I need to learn Spanish!

nick.