2004 Xmas

Wishing you a very Happy Christmas 2004!

We have had a major lifestyle change this year, we have gone sailing! Last Christmas Nigel sold his half of Guernsey Sheet Metal, and Elaine left her job at NRG International in February. After many weeks of preparation, the boat was made ready, the house was let, our possessions were sorted out, the admin was taken care of, the boat was loaded up, and we set sail on 1st May.

After visiting Nigel’s mum in Cornwall, we crossed the Bay of Biscay to La Coruna in NW Spain. We took four months cruising the coats of Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar and the Balearics (Formentera, Ibiza and Mallorca), and had many adventures along the way! It was very hot and dry once we got to the south coasts of Spain and Portugal. Added to that a fair dose of Sahara dust.  anyway we have learnt a bit of Spanish, but Portuguese was a bit beyond us. We have been to some very old cities, some tourist traps and some very local towns. Mostly we anchored to save on mooring fees, which are extortionate in summer. We made some alterations and additions to the boat to cope with the heat but plan to make more changes for next year. We met some lovely people in a few places, but were very much travellers, only scraping the surface in a lot of places.
We have kept a diary and other records and photos of our trip; if you would like to see all the details then please visit our website  www.spinalonga.co.uk (many thanks to Shane)

In order to allow Elaine and Daniel to return to Guernsey for a few weeks in September, we decided to call a halt in France. We stopped at Toulon, just west of the main tourist haunts, and just east of Marseille. After nearly a month back in Guernsey staying with Elaine’s parents and visiting friends, and allowing Nigel some space and time to get a lot of jobs done on the boat, Elaine and Daniel returned where Nigel had finally settled the boat in the Rade de Toulon, outside a little town called St Mandrier. Now we are in the marina at St Mandrier for the winter, and have made a few friends locally. Daniel is attending the local Ecole Maternelle (pre-school) in the mornings, and after two months so far is learning some French and finding his feet. The town has good links to Toulon via a cheap ferry run as part of the bus service. There is local shopping and a great market on Saturday mornings, but for larger supermarket trips we go to Carrefour in Toulon, now usually just Elaine and the pushchair. We have located the local Mr Bricolage (like B&Q), the local sailmaker, and the local boatyard for the other supplies we need.
We have looked for work but the job market is very slow in the winter, even advertising around the town has brought no response.
Elaine bought a tiny sewing machine for EUR17.50 in Cartagena in Spain and has now been practising with it, catching up with clothing repairs and making a few larger items for the boat. We may therefore get a bigger machine if we can find somewhere to stow it safely. However the sextant and celestial navigation books we bought before departure have not yet been taken out of their cupboard!
Nigel has been making a bathing platform / sugar scoop for the stern, and has been doing internal joinery and some woodcarving as a hobby.
Daniel’s new hobby is the Playstation! He is a wizard now with Scooby Doo and Wallace and Gromit, while we have electricity for the winter at least. Nigel is also teaching him to read, he can read about a hundred words now which is amazing considering he is not yet 3½. His French is coming slowly, he obviously understands quite a bit now and is starting to come out with a few words and bits of songs. Elaine had the same experience when small when her family spent a year in France, so it is interesting to watch it again. At least being in France rather than another country, Elaine can help Dan with the language.

Elaine and Daniel will probably return to Guernsey for a visit at the February half-term, then we plan to leave St Mandrier at the beginning of March. We will then sail on to Corsica, Italy, Sardinia, Sicily, Malta, Greece, and Turkey. If we can achieve that next summer, we then plan to come back out of the Mediterranean at the end of the summer, to get to the Canaries for the autumn in preparation for an Atlantic crossing around Christmas to the Carribean. This is the trade wind route mostly taken by sailing yachts, and we anticipate a crossing of about three weeks. After that we will make further plans depending on our budget.

Well that’s our news, we’d love to hear news from you too.
Wishing you a very happy Christmas and New Year,
Elaine, Nigel and Daniel.