Bragged Off!

A transatlantic tale of late life crises and naughtycal adventures

Vessel Name: Brag
Vessel Make/Model: Island Packet 420
Hailing Port: West Loch Tarbert
Crew: Brian Steven & Agnes Wilkie
About: Husband and wife relinquished lives in fast lanes of finance (him) and tv (her) for bliss-on-a-boat
Extra: 2017 marks the Big Cast Off: from Tarbert to St Lucia via Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Gran Canaria then the ARC
Social:
22 June 2017 | Kilmore Quay
21 June 2017 | Still Kilmore Quay
19 June 2017 | Kilmore Quay
18 June 2017 | Off Arklow Bank, Ireland
17 June 2017 | Bangor
15 June 2017 | Bangor
13 June 2017 | Largs
11 June 2017 | Woodentops
01 June 2017 | Woodentops
Recent Blog Posts
05 May 2018 | US Virgin Islands

BYE BYE BRAG

The End

04 May 2018 | Charlotte Amalle

ITS THE FINAL CARIBBEAN CURTAIN

03 May 2018 | Charlotte Amalle

WHO WOULD TRUE VALOUR SEE

03 May 2018 | Charlotte Amallia

IS OIL THE SPAWN OF THE DEVIL?

01 May 2018 | USVI

MURDER

01 May 2018 | Hawksnest Bay USVI

THIS IS ALSO AMERICA

BYE BYE BRAG

05 May 2018 | US Virgin Islands
Ag/retainecheat
The End

ITS THE FINAL CARIBBEAN CURTAIN

04 May 2018 | Charlotte Amalle
Ag/cool

Last day in this particular paradise: de frost freezer; scrub kitchen; pack my wee Baltic bag; print out boarding passes x 3; lobster lunch at Hook, Line and Sinker in lovely Frenchtown; luxury pedicure ...last pina colada sundowner...charge iPhones and Kindles...
Tomorrow I am for St Cyril King Airport in St Thomas thence to John F Kennedy Airport in New York thence to London Gatwick. (THOUGHT: If Gatwick were in the States, would we call it Blairwick? Magwick? Pittwick?) Home to Carly’s tea time Sunday May 6.
Brian is fast ferry to Roadtown, Tortola, BVI; slow cab to Beef Island Airport; small plane to St John Airport, Antigua; bumpy cab to Nelson’s Dockyard, Falmouth; fast (?) Xyacht45 Boxcar to the Azores. Home - ? sometime end of the month. Depends which way the wind blows - ie. typically on the nose. For 2500 miles.
Think I picked the winner this time...

PS Brag will be in the hands of kind and expensive strangers as she is loaded on to A Big Ship for her transatlantic crossing. But they’ve promised to kiss and pat her every single day at no extra cost...till we meet again. Xxx

WHO WOULD TRUE VALOUR SEE

03 May 2018 | Charlotte Amalle
Ag/roasting

Let him come hither indeed and take over the nightmare that is our travel arrangements. Brian has to get to Antigua to join his fast yacht home across the Atlantic. I have to get to Bishop’s Stortford. To be researched, booked, confirmed, printed out and paid for from yacht constantly on the move and consistently without internet access. But I did it. Or thought I had. Until I discovered by accident that Inter Caribbean Airways have cancelled all their flights from St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands where we are to Beef Island on the British Virgin Islands where Brian needs to be to get his connecting flight on to Antigua. Or have they cancelled that too? Who knows.
Which leaves me ‘safe’ in the arms of Delta’s slightly mysterious flight St Thomas-JFK. I say mysterious only because I appear to be the only person who knows about it. I have a booking reference. Automatic check in, they say. I was hoping for a boarding pass myself. Not to mention my very very cheap therefore very very dodgy Norwegian Air onward flight from JFK to Gatwick.
And I am really looking forward to my Gatwick-Victoria-Tottenham Hale-Bishop’s Stortford trans London trek on a Bank Holiday Weekend Sunday.
Meanwhile somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean will be a bobbing Brian...unless Inter Caribbean Airways don’t...
I HATE TRAVELLING I WILL NEVER EVER LEAVE HOME AGAIN. EVER EVER EVER.

IS OIL THE SPAWN OF THE DEVIL?

03 May 2018 | Charlotte Amallia
Ag/hit

As our transatlantic adventures come to an end in a flurry of sails off, on and off again, cleaning, polishing, dinghy deflating, packing, unpacking and generally doing everything three times before we get it right, strikes me that amidst this plethora of persecution, changing the engine and generator oil is the Room 101 of sailing. I mean, one sails to be free as a bird, at one with the winds and the seas, clean pure unadulterated fresh airs with all the graces etc etc etc. And then the black evil that is oil strikes.
Yesterday was The Longest Day. Brian spent it in the engine compartment relieved only by a few hours in the aft cockpit when he swopped engine for generator. I de rusted, washed and polished on deck. And passed tools. And supplied kitchen roll. And applied psychotherapy.
Didn’t work. We’re not talking. I blame the oil.
PS Actually today is competing for Longest Day title as we were up at 5am taking the head and stay sails off “before the wind gets up”.... But....he had to talk to me. And say please.

MURDER

01 May 2018 | USVI
Ag/sweating

the one thing about sailing you can generally rely on is silence. Now and again. When the engine isn’t running. Or the generator. Or tacking and flapping. And that’s when you realise sailing can be bliss. Wafting through the Virgin Islands on steady, reliable easterly trades has been pretty blissful.
Until today. The day before we head to a marina for the first time in six weeks to get ourselves and Brag sorted ahead of our various departures home, the Skipper decides to take advantage of our poor Norwegian friends Frank and Peder and take the main Sail down while we’re anchored in lovely but quite rolly Hawksnest Bay. This is our lovely new Sail with long batons which has made such a difference to BRAG’s sailing abilities. It was fitted last May in Largs by lovely Paul from Crusaders Sails who came all the way from Southampton to make sure the job was properly done. He said it was a bit tricky. And did a grand job. He also said it might be a bit tricky taking it off again but he would make a video and get it on YouTube before Christmas to make it a dawdle. I guess our Crusader Sail transatlantic eulogies mean Paul’s too busy for film making because so far no handy YouTube guide has premiered. And so it was that three grown men. At least two very experienced yachtsmen, struggled and struggled and climbed and pulled and cut and poked, and eventually got most of the rods out intact and the Sail was down. I should have mentioned we have the evil in mast furling Option. With the main Sail down, we are left with the evil bouncing foil inside the now empty mast, unprotected by a rolled up Sail. Crash. Bang. Wallop. All night long. Brian got up about 1am and got up on the boom with a long Boat hook and started stuffing yellow dusters into the mast to try to cushion it. I tried ear plugs. To no avail.
Ten miles to Sail (without a Sail = motor) so engine on to the accompaniment of Mast percussion. Worse than an in house Caribbean steel band without the tunes. And then four nights in a marina. There could be a murder.
PS Why must The Sail come off? BRAG’s going on the hard when she reaches Southampton and its obligatory to take all Sail off for safety reasons. When Brag gets to Southampton, I’ll be on granny duty in Bishop’s Stortford and Brian - ? Somewhere in the Atlantic...so the sails must come off now. Unless there is a murder...

THIS IS ALSO AMERICA

01 May 2018 | Hawksnest Bay USVI
Ag/v hot

Our first night in the US Virgin Islands: Hawksnest Bay on St John’s....
Brag's Photos - Main
No Photos
Created 17 June 2017
No Photos
Created 2 June 2017
Picture Book
6 Photos
Created 1 June 2017

About & Links