Blood and barnacles

19th March 2008, Rodney Bay, St Lucia.

The sun has come out again, but only after my swim, and my toe is bleeding. I must have scraped it on a barnacle when clambering onto the pilot ladder, not an easy feat in the gentle but large swell that is washing in from the north. Ben is expertly tending to it and I’m told I shall live. First lesson learnt - beware the barnacles!

Yesterday was long, and I spent nearly all of it in a slightly dazed surreal state, even when the plane had taken of and I was flying over the Atlantic I still somehow felt that it wasn’t real, and I was watching everything through someone else’s eyes. The flight was cramped and slightly turbulent, and when I had come through customs I was bombarded with offers for taxis, which always makes me doubly suspicious that someone’s trying to rip me off. After a little negotiation I paid $60 for the hour and a half taxi ride through shanty towns and mountainous rainforest to the other end of the island, and have been told that I got a good deal.

I arrived at Shuttlebutts bar and found a soon-to-be fellow crewmate hanging about in the hopes of bumping into some Pelican crew. As none of the crew were to be seen I got myself a rum punch to match his beer and sat down, no sooner had I done this than Ben appeared, as if by magic, behind me. We took my rum punch in a take out glass on the RIB, across the marina to another bar where the crew were having drinks as it was two crew members last night on board, a guy called Oli and the cook, Jan, she’s off home for 8 weeks and should be rejoining us in the Azores. My rum punch had mysteriously disappeared down my throat on the short trip across the water, but it was soon replaced with an even tastier version, and about two bottles of water as I soon realised that tiredness and dehydration were not going to be cured by rum. The partying continued after dinner with free tequilas from the bar owner, dancing demonstrations from Ben and Pip, and more cocktails, by the time we got on the RIB to take us to the boat my body clock thought it was 4am, though it was only in fact a more reasonable 12.

It was a magical ride across the bay, the moon was nearly full and bathing everything in silvery light. The hilly coastline of the island was silhouetted against a deep blue black sky studded with stars, and the water was deliciously warm as I trailed my hand in it while little splashes glinted like diamonds in the moonlight. I was sorely tempted to have a dip there and then.

Finally aboard my beloved Pelican, I was shown to my cabin where I dumped my stuff and had a cursory attempt at unpacking, but I had to have a good look about too and see what improvements have been made since I was last on. The saloon is looking lovely now, the red seating is a little less opulent than I might have wished for, but I doubt the budget would have stretched to plush velvet and gilded mirrors! The scruffy parrot hanging in the middle is perfectly piratical though. The walls are perhaps a little bare and stark at the moment, but I’m sure in time they will be covered with pictures and cards that chart the progress of the ship’s family life. I slept like a baby, only waking once when my phone started bleeping at 5.40 with messages from home- an empty message from my mother and some kind of media message from Ade that I can’t download. Grrr!

Breakfast was at 7.20, followed by a certain amount of lounging as the permanent crew started to get on with their maintenance tasks. The soon-to-be member of crew I had met in the bar the night before had joined the ship by then and we decided we should probably ask for a job - Anthony got painting on deck and I got scraping paint drips off the aft ladder, not thrilling occupations either of them, but all necessary, got to keep things ship-shape! After lunch Tom, who’s taken over the cooking from Jan, asked if I’d help him with the shopping. Naturally I jumped at the chance of a trip ashore and a break from paint scraping!

We were dropped ashore by the mall and arranged to get picked up a few hours later. The mall itself was fairly nauseous; most of the buildings in the vicinity and around the marina are horribly twee and look like pastel cardboard cut-outs, complete with private pontoons, manicured lawns and palms trees. The supermarket wasn’t quite so bad, mostly I was horrified at the poor quality of the meat available, the pickled pig’s snout was one of the more appetising things I saw!! When we were done we realised that we’d only taken a fraction of the time we had and were going to have to sit about waiting for hours, so we decided to get a drink and try and find someone with a VHS radio to call the ship and ask someone to come and get us. It turned out that the only VHS that was working was in the yacht club down the road from the bar we were in, so when we had finished our drinks we wheeled our bright red trolley down the road.

Tom went in to the club and I waited at the end of the drive with the trolley, the mission was a success and we trundled on to the bar we’d been at the night before to await our lift. Once the shopping was on the pontoon Tom popped off to take the trolley back, mumbling something as he went. The RIB arrived, shopping was put in it and we waited…. and waited…… Eventually we heard a radio call go out to Pelican from Tom, asking where the RIB was. The mumble he had left me with had actually been a request that after the RIB had collected the shopping, it would go on round to the supermarket drop off point to collect him from dropping the trolley back. When we hadn’t turned up he’d somehow got himself on board a German vessel to use their radio, so we picked him up from there instead!

The swell had grown by then and as the RIB zoomed back we nearly made air several times, awesome fun! It was time for a swim by the time we made it back to the ship, I have to admit I was a wuss and used the ladder instead of jumping in like the others, mainly because I am as yet unsure about the holding qualities of my new bikini, and swimming in deep water puts me in mind of sharks and things that come up from the deep to grab you. However, I did two laps of the ship and will be increasing that as the days go by, weather permitting, at least. That, of course led to the toe incident, I think I was actually the last to know that I had injured myself; having climbed out I went below to have a quick shower, started drying myself in my cabin and then popped back into my en-suite for something, at which point I saw the blood on the floor and wondered where it had come from! When I hobbled back up to the mess with a lump of tissue on my foot Ben was mopping the floor and people were asking how my foot was. It’s not a major wound but it was a bleeder! Since I started this the sun has set, supper has been eaten and I am now sitting in the saloon with a glass of wine. Now I must go and sit on deck so my little computer can pick up a wireless signal from one of the hotels on shore.

On deck… hrumph!!! It’s not playing the game, I shall try later…

Later. 3 til 4am anchor watch. The wind is up, but it’s warm, and the internets working!!!