May 14, 2019
We have officially successfully completed our maiden voyage on Florence! We managed to travel around 200nm in just over 24 hours. We can say this, which our instructor has confirmed - Florence can MOVE. She is a great sailor, and "sails like a witch," as he would say. We had a downwind sail most of the way to the Isles of Scilly, which are a small group of fairly isolated islands off the west coast of Cornwall off the tip of England- only reachable by boat, and a long boat journey at that!
We arrived right before sunset into St. Mary’s port, which was pretty wild and wooly upon approach. The island is marked by very interesting and dramatic rock formations that we navigated around upon entrance. The harbour proved to be very cold and windy. We attempted to drop anchor manually, as we realised in situ that not only were our electric winches on the fritz, so was our windlass, which is the electric motor that helps deploy and haul in the anchor. Even just two days into boat life, we are accustomed to things not working and having to be prepared to deploy a Plan B, so just as we had manually furled and winched sails for the entire journey here, we (and by we I mean the two Steves) rolled up their sleeves and deployed the 40kg anchor. Unfortunately, the anchor did not dig on first attempt, so after a painful exercise of hauling up the anchor and chain by hand (no easy feat), we picked up a mooring buoy further into the harbour and tied off, more than ready to call it a day!
It was extremely satisfying to have completed that long passage in just over a day, our first ever on Florence. We were tied up just in time to see a spectacular sunset, for which we popped a bottle of bubbly, and our instructor Steve (AKA Hozza, as we will now refer to him to save confusion) got some great photos of me and Stephen cheers-ing into the sunset. The bubbles never tasted so good! It was a heady mix of accomplishment, relief, and exhaustion as we soaked in those first moments upon arrival.
The 3 of us sat in the cockpit sipping champagne (definitely opened a second bottle), talking about our sail, the boat, how she handled, our highs and lows of the journey, and all manner of things. Hozza is extremely erudite and an encyclopedia of knowledge on just about any topic you could muster, so as a crew even in these first hours we are never stumped for interesting things to discuss. He is simultaneously a life-long sailor and an aficionado on all things involving boats, weather, tools, and fixing broken shit. A useful guy to have around, as the cardinal rule on boats seems to be, if it ain’t broke now, it will be soon :) He is also, casually, a professor of philosophy at University of Edinburgh and one of the leading scholars on the science of gerontology (the science of ageing. Shout out to the women out there: his biggest advice - SUNSCREEN! Noted). He is also passionate about politics and astronomy and has seen pretty much the entire world on his boat, so yeah - an interesting guy to have around, and our daily lessons so far have encompassed much more than learning how to manipulate our rig according to wind conditions.
I took my first shower aboard Florence, which I was looking forward to and NEEDED, though I couldn’t get the hot water to work, so it was a rather brutal experience - turned out the hot water lever in the shower was just jammed. Then I made us a hearty meal of tortellini, homemade sauce and salad that we ate in the saloon before PASSING THE F* OUT! Learning to sleep on passage is definitely going to be an acquired skill. Your hours are interrupted and the best you can do is to try to squeeze in a few here or there when you are off watch, while being on a pretty significant heel. I found what I have dubbed the "reverse star fish" position to be the most effective for not rolling all over kingdom come in the cabin: it involves lying on your back and spreading your limbs out as far as you possibly can - surface area is the name of the game. Sexy it is not, but you have the best chance of not rolling off the bed in this position I found. I slept so deeply that first night post passage. It's funny, you subconsciously experience the rocking and rolling motion of the boat in weird ways - I dreamt I was in some sort of a pod being knocked around as if gravity kept dipping in and out, while Stephen dreamt he was in some exposed elevator shaft swinging around wildly in the wind. Weird.
We woke up to a beautiful day in the Scilly Isles and took our dingy, whom we've lovingly dubbed Rum Jumby, out for the first time to the harbour to explore. We were pleasantly surprised by St. Mary’s - it looked a little grim and industrial from the harbour, but once one street back, she was really quite charming. She had a lovely twee high street - very English seaside - and we discovered that almost the entire island is occupied by an old military fort, initially built in the 1500s and one that has undergone many iterations throughout the centuries. Stephen and I went on a lovely walk in the sunshine and brisk wind around almost the entire island, tracing the stone walls of the fort and stopping in the different artillery outposts. The scenery was really quite dramatic, and I felt infused with a child-like energy I hadn't felt in a while as I bounded from stone to stone around the fort’s perimeter. For whatever reason, I felt very free - a feeling I was not accustomed to in London. It was worth embracing :)
We met back at the wharf and took the dinghy back to our floating home. She looked lovely on approach, and I’m starting to think of her as ours - our home.
I was on the helm as we slipped the mooring lines off our buoy and let the wind take the boat back and point her bow out to sea. Next stop - DUBLIN! We had a great sail for several hours up towards the coast of Ireland. The wind died a bit at times, so we turned the motor on occasionally. Some tide against us meant we were a bit slower going than on our last passage. Perhaps unrealistic to assume we will scream along at 8 knots under sail at all times on this journey! Stephen and I were on the 6-10 PM watch, so we saw a lovely sunset and then were on again from 2-6 AM the following day, in time to see the full sunrise. It was the first sunrise I’d ever seen with Stephen, and it was a special moment - to be able to watch the sun set with your husband and to watch it rise again the following morning was a holistic experience I won’t forget. The sunrise was very gradual, and you could see the first hints of light a couple hours before the sun eventually poked her head above the horizon. It was very peaceful watching the sky gradually change colours as the hours ticked by, and the experience eradicated any sense of fatigue we were feeling in those early hours. To boot, we saw dolphins splashing in the waves as the sun crested over the horizon, which was pretty bloody ace.
By around 2 pm that day, we were ready to be in Dublin. Passage weariness sets in, and you realise that you are cold, stiff, exhausted, your hair is in knots, and you want a shower and a glass of wine real bad. There were several more hours to go though, and the scenery of gently sloping emerald hills off our port side was a lovely and effective antidote to the fatigue. The crew got showered and ready to go while on passage, as conditions were manageable and we were all really keen to get to Dubin and scream to the nearest pub for that first pint of Guinness. We made it to the town of Dun Loaghaire (pronounced Dunleary - the Irish have a knack for strange spellings) around 7:30 PM. The town, which is just south of Dublin, has an enormous marina where we would be practicing docking the boat on and off the pontoon for a few days - plenty of room to try all different approaches in different wind conditions / angles, with room for mistakes if need be. The 3 weary sailors moored up the boat in our berth and practically sprinted to the marina to check in before heading into town in search of that first Guinness. We found a grubby but charming pub on the high street called Dunphy's (the only spot on the street not called O'Leary's or O'Brien's, FYG), and the 2 Steves happily downed a few pints each while I had 2 glasses of reeeally average wine - serves me right for ordering wine at a pub, a lesson I never seem to take to heart.... I could feel myself getting drunk after about 2 sips, and the crankiness started to set in HARD. I was beyond exhausted from our days on passage with minimal sleep, and it was starting to show. So after trying to needlessly pick a fight with my husband and embarrassing myself in front of our skipper, I decided it might be time for Admiral Abby to hit the hay. I had a deep and so freaking necessary night’s sleep, enjoying not being on a bouncing heel and having to wake up at all hours of the night.
We spent the next two days in Dun Laoghaire doing extensive parking practice, which was both nerve-wracking, exceedingly helpful and exhilarating. Hozza claimed that I had a particular knack for driving and parking the boat and was among the best students he’d ever taught in that regard - I’ll take it! Parking a boat this big is not easy and requires a decent amount of guesswork in terms of when exactly to turn and how quickly to do so, trying to gauge your distance from the pontoon while being about 10 meters out from the bow in the cockpit. At any rate, they were long and intense days but super helpful - I want both Stephen and I to be extremely confidant parking this boat in tight marinas, in potentially difficult conditions, with no help from outsiders. A lofty goal, but I think after the past two days we are well on our way. Most helpful piece of advice when parking a big boat: CONFIDENCE. Don't start turning your bow or stern until you are convinced you are mere inches away from T-boning the dock (you always have more room than you think), then turn swiftly and smoothly, and you will most likely get it right. And if not, that's what fenders are for! And boat insurance....... :/
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