01/16/2010, Mid air across the Atlantic
Saturday 16 January 2010
After the blog titles 'Tsunami Warning' and 'Child Overboard', I really did not think that the title for our final day on board was going to be very "dramatic".
Yesterday (Friday) morning we got up early and started the tedious job of shutting down the boat: donating food supplies to the neighbours, decommissioning the water maker, mountains of laundry, chucking large amounts of illegally hoarded coral overboard before the inspection by the Customs Officer... and so forth.
Ulric became the victim of his own perfectionism: he operates an 18 page inventory list for QR III. Leaving the boat in St Lucia for a period of time requires that every item on board be 'temporarily imported to St Lucia'. The Customs Officer who came to our boat took his job very literally and insisted on being shown every single item on the list before ticking it off. To his horror Ulric realised this was going to take the whole day, if not several days. In the thick of it all this man put down his sunglasses in an ill-advised location and three little boys, somehow, managed to walk (if not dance) on them and smashed them. NOT GOOD.... The Customs Officer was not pleased.
Ulric then came up with the idea of writing a new and more succinct inventory. The Customs Officer returned one hour later and this time the process was painless.
The boys did not like the focus on dismantling. For them it was a BORING day. With the usual amount of stress & rushing we got in our taxi to the airport on the other side of the island. The drive took two hours. Brendan insisted on being told the name of every town and village and the number of inhabitants (if known)... He forced the taxi driver into 'tour guide duties' and proceeded to interrogate him closely on exactly how many volcanoes St Lucia has, in comparison to other Caribbean islands. The winner is, as Brendan well knows!, is Dominica with nine active volcanoes! In the end I promised Brendan to draw him a huge map for his bedroom with all the islands, cities and volcanoes on it! To go with this entry I will post a picture of Brendan and Ulric by the stinky sulphurous live imploded volcano in Souffriere on St Lucia!
Eventually we arrived at the airport and checked in. We filled in lots of paperwork and proceeded to the Departure Hall. Suddenly I heard my name being called repeatedly. They were paging me and asking me to return to check in desk. Totally puzzled I asked for permission to return there and found the woman who was looking for me. She took me to the great hall where they x-ray the hold luggage. I was told that something in my bag had set off all their alarms in a big way. What on earth could it be??? The huge ball of brain coral I had wrapped in a dolphin dress and illegally hidden in my bag??? My large collection of volcanic stones, hidden equally illegally??? Uh oh...
To my astonishment Ulric's huge red hold-all appeared. I was told there was something in there that looked extremely dangerous on the x-ray. (What has husband done now???) So I opened the bag and the woman soon found a box with pieces of sharp heavy metal in it... and a separate plastic pouch with electric wires you could connect to the device. So I said: "I totally agree with you that this looks like a home-made bomb or explosive device. I understand fully why you paged me. HOWEVER, this is a piece of equipment for a yacht and NOT A HOME MADE BOMB. I had to explain this several times, even offered to drag Ulric out of the Departure Hall for an even better explanation as to what the heck this object might be. Eventually she decided to trust me and allow the bag on board of our plane. And I had to go through customs and security all over again where the security officers asked me what on earth had caused a security alert of this magnitude, quite unheard of apparently at the small St Lucia International Airport. The next thing was my husband laughing his head off: what on earth did you put in your bag, haha?! I soon set him straight on that one, believe me!
At last all five of us are on our way home, (writing this on the airplane). The weather forecast is 5 degrees Celsius and rain. So maybe we escaped The Snow and the 20cm of Black Ice everywhere?
I fear that Europe will look dull and unreal to our eyes. My mind hasn't quite left the rainforest. We visited 12 islands in the Caribbean and what an adventure it was.
By Imelda
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01/14/2010, Rodney Bay, St Lucia
Thursday 14 January 2010
A few times today Quinn and Elliott tried to convince us that it is Friday today. In that case we would have missed our flight to the UK - so it gave us a fright! However, reliable resources reassure us that it is Thursday today and the Real Fright of the Day was still to come.
In truth I thought that today was going to be an uneventful day with an exciting picture from Dominica: the muddy faces of our three boys in the gloopy orange volcanic waters of Souffriere Thermal Springs.
We left Martinique... the family encountered Wind Force 5 and some high seas (i.e. waves 4 meter high) but we all coped with that. We got as far as the bay leading to the lagoon that houses Rodney Bay Marina, where Pigeon Island is.
Ulric had promised the boys that they could do some 'jumping off the boat in safe waters' to compensate for the long day sail. Entering the Bay and seeing Pigeon Island nearby gave us a false sense of security. Ulric said: Quinn and Elliott, you can do some swimming now! I was desperate to go below deck and have a breather from the big waves. Ulric called me up again to watch Quinn and Elliott in the water because he wanted to call British Airways. It was one of those moments when life turns upside down...
Quinn and Elliott showed me their jumps. Next thing I know Elliott is climbing back on board but Quinn is suddenly in choppy waters beyond the dinghy. Just as I think: yikes, the gap is widening!, Elliott raises the alarm and says: Mum, Quinn can't get back to the boat, he is drifting off! And sure enough, he was disappearing at a frightening speed as Queenie was drifting rapidly in the opposite direction. I screamed for Ulric to get back on deck and get in the dinghy. No point jumping in because the current was too strong and then we would have two people over board and two major problems in the water. There was one thing I didn't realize: the outboard engine had been lifted off the dinghy before our open sea crossing. As Ulric jumped in the dinghy with the unwieldy outboard engine, a dive boat appeared on the scene. My first thought was even greater panic: what if they don't see Quinn bobbing in the water and motor over him?? So I was yelling and pointing and jumping on deck like a woman possessed. At first they looked amused and waved back politely. I jumped even more frantically: CHILD IN WATER!!! Then they realised what was going on and moved very swiftly to position themselves at the point Quinn was drifting to at tremendous speed. Next thing I knew, thank God and His Heavenly Armies, they grabbed him and lifted him out of the water. By then Ulric was on his way in the dinghy and collected him shortly after. I felt ready to collapse with post traumatic stress disorder. But the stress wasn't over yet: Ulric and Quinn, from afar, were yelling something about a lever: move the lever back!!! Stop Queenie!!! Elliott was quicker on the mark than I was and yanked the engine into reverse. Ulric and Quinn climbed back on board and Ulric said: Queenie was on a collision course with Pigeon Island at frightening speed! Only then did I realize I was on a moving boat, I had assumed she was stationary. That was the second shock of the day...
We wrapped Quinn in towels and fed him lots of chocolate. Then he and I cuddled up in my bunk for a while until his colour returned and his speech sounded more normal. He said: Mum, I am a good swimmer and I tried every stroke I could think off, but I can't swim at those speeds in such high waves. Oh My God! And Oh My Sensible Child, remembering all swimming techniques during such an ordeal.
And so today we were lulled into thinking we had spent a month sailing in the Caribbean without major mishaps. We thought we were on the home run... Obviously we need to have a meeting to discuss how to respond to person or child overboard scenarios in the future and Ulric needs to put me through the same safety briefing he puts all new crew members through.
Two very traumatised and incompetent parents are now going to catch their breath - and say a big prayer of thanks to an Angel in form of a dive boat called Sandals...
On a lighter note: Elliott still plans to have his own boat, when he grows up. It is going to be called 'Cruising Beauty' and his dinghy will have the name 'Motoring Beauty'!
By Imelda
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01/13/2010, Fort de France, Martinique
Wednesday 13 January 2010
I woke to the bleep of a text message arriving at 5.20 am this morning. Judith was warning us that there had been a massive earth quake in Haiti overnight. That a Tsunami Warning was now in force for the area and that Gatwick Airport was closed again due to excessive snow.
We pondered all this and figured our best option was to head south and put an extra day sail between us and the northern Caribbean. We can't bank on BA not flying us home all over again, we had better proceed to St Lucia as planned. We also figured that if a Tsunami showed signs of coming our way we would head for the open sea.
By 6.30 am this morning we were gliding down the coast of Dominica. I was on deck for my appointment with Father Sun. The sun rose over the mountains of Dominica and I sang my song for Father Sun about Light on planet earth with the people of Haiti in my mind and in my heart.
With Father Sun safely in the sky we hit the choppier waters between Dominica and Martinique. I was on 'whale watching detail'. Saw lots of things that resembled dorsal fins and tail flukes, but no certified sighting. Just the sense that these waters were teeming with life and that the local whale population wasn't far off. I closed my eyes and could hear the songs of whales traveling halfway across the planet in our mysterious oceans.
Sitting on deck I became acutely aware to the Song of the Sea and the Song of our boat. To the way the wind sings in the rigging and catches us by surprise as it swirls and surges around the local volcanoes and mountains. There was even the song created by the wind in our water bottle, as soon as we took the top off. Then there is the Song of Princess Ransom, the dinghy. She dances in the water and dreams of freedom. If she were a human being she would wear hot pants and crop tops and look quite provocative!
In the Petrified Forest on Martinique Quinn and I got talking about the Songs of Trees and the Sounds of a Forest. We listened to the wind rustling in the leaves and dry twigs cracking under our feet. We agreed that people think of trees as silent beings, but in fact music dances in their branches and under their canopy as much as sunlight does.
We reached Fort de France in Martinique in good time and went for anchor. We took a trip ashore to sort out the customs declarations and Mum desperately needed to buy an extra pair of shorts.
And now: the boys are 'in the cinema' (watching a film on the computer) and I hope Dad is about to fix us some "sundowners". Colour has retreated from the world. Not far from here in Haiti people are suffering - I send them my prayers, Love and Light.
By Imelda
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