Trauma

Following my thoroughly enjoyable sojourn in America with the family, it was time to return, by train to Plymouth, this time with a purely ‘social’ crew comprising of Peter, my next-door neighbour, and our friend, Jerry who refers to his forecastle cabin as ‘the front room’… Sailing was almost a burden for this crew, who viewed it as a means to indulge their sybaritic tendencies. With this in mind, I persuaded them to extend the cruise by a day so I could introduce them to the little-known jewel of the south coast; the Yealm River.

The whole experience ‘ticked their boxes’ and, having encouraged them both to contribute to this blog, I will not steal their thunder by duplicating what they are likely to recount and leave it all for their (probably exaggerated) telling. Suffice it to say that it was not without incident and that I was not an entirely reluctant participant in (most) of what happened…

 

Peter and Jerry write:

We have finally returned home after 5 days with Nick aboard Hejira.  We have been mugged, called all things under the sun, nearly capsized, met locals who didn’t speak English, stole someone else’s boat, hurled abuse at a river taxi operator and eaten our body weight in cheese.

A train journey to Plymouth passed pleasantly enough and upon arrival, the Skipper wanted us to victual the boat. We had dinner booked every night, but our shopping list included rose and red wine, gin, vodka, tomato juice, tonic, a meat platter, bread, cheese selection, biscuits for cheese, hot cross buns, wraps, butter, granola, milk, many bags of chocolates and some crisps.  The skipper clearly has a secret fridge because none of this was seen again on passage.

Once in Plymouth, we dined at Nick’s favourite restaurant where everything was served in a cheese fondue, and he ate all the (shared) starter and pretty much 3 main courses; the die was cast.

The passage to the Yealm from Plymouth was pleasant enough. We had the barking of incomprehensible orders and looks of disgust from the skipper but nothing unusual, we moored on a pontoon and called the lovely lady from the river taxi to pick us up and take us to the Swan pub, it is now that things started to go wrong.

We met Rodney, a Yealm local, who was recovering from major surgery and hadn’t had a beer for the best part of a year.  He had a couple of pints in the Swan Inn in Noss Mayo with us and kindly offered to row us across the river to the Dolphin Inn in Newton Ferrers.

He eventually left us, early evening, after another 5 strong pints of bitter and is now probably back in intensive care.  He had such a local accent, he sounded like Gerald the wall builder from Clarkson’s Farm.

After dinner in the Yacht Club, it was time to head to the boat, but Nick had other ideas, he wanted yet more food to replace the other food we hadn’t touched. A 30-minute diversion to the Co-Op meant we reached the pontoon at a time when the river taxi owner was safely in her bed, it was dark and we were half a mile from a boat moored in the middle of a river.  Nick proceeded to tell the water taxi operator exactly what he thought of them in a message recorded on their phone and followed up in an email. The words ‘shoddy’ and ‘stranded’ ringing out across the Yealm very loudly.  He then just started bellowing to no-one in particular, asking for a ride to our boat.  It was clear the police were about to be called, and we needed a Plan B.  We stepped in suggesting we could row back to the boat.  Nick staggered into action and searched for a boat he could steal.

We can’t recount the next 30 minutes but Nick’s attempts to steal a rowboat, with oars, without falling into the water were beyond hilarious.  An hour later, bitterly cold and having Nick row a boat badly (that he’d stolen) we arrived back at Hejira.  Sadly, because of all his bellowing, and our laughter, there were probably 75 witnesses to this crime.  We slept badly waiting for the inevitable knock on the hull from the river police.

We couldn’t get out of the Yealm quick enough the next morning, Nick sang like a canary to the harbour master, gave a false name and tried to delete his emails and phone messages to the river taxi. We were now, officially, on the run.

His temper didn’t improve and it was made clear the crew had better perform on arrival in Salcombe where buoys would need to be hooked and lassoed, lines made fair, boat fully prepared and we were now sailing under the name of Smith!

After a day in Salcombe, we heard that the winds were so bad that boats were requesting to stay another night rather than venture out into the violent sea.  Knowing we were on the River Taxi ‘most wanted list’, we decided we needed to get ‘out of Dodge’.  All the Kwells and ginger gummy bears couldn’t contain the nausea as we sailed at 45 degrees for 18 hours between Salcombe and Kingswear.   It was like the ‘Perfect Storm’ meets the ‘Cruel Sea’. As a crew we were beaten and still we had no sign of a hot cross bun, cheese board, meats, granola, vodka, gin, tonic, tomato juice or chocolates that we’d bought in Plymouth!

We just had to survive for one more night, but the final test was taking Hejira up the Dart and along Bow Creek with the water at the depth of the average bathtub.  The ‘black dog’ had descended on the skipper again, we were navigating a river with inches to spare, and he made it clear he considered his crew incompetent.  We were downcast, bowed and hungry.

Eventually, we made it safely to the Maltsters Arms in Tuckenhay to a hero’s reception from the proprietors and a long list of questions from the Devon Constabulary for multiple nautical and criminal misdemeanours.

Just another short sail aboard Hejira and, as you can imagine, we are looking forward to the next one 😊 !

 

Nick writes – again:

Arriving at high tide, just in time for a belated Sunday lunch, I am now writing this moored directly outside the Maltsters Arms at Tuckenhay. This is in Bow Creek, way up the River Dart and I am waiting for my wife, Paula (who they have been referring to as ‘Lady ‘P’) to arrive by car for the crew change. Very few yachts make the passage up the shallow, meandering channel because of the need to sit on the mud at low tide, but it is really worth the effort.

Matt and Erin at the Maltsters are very accommodating and there is electricity and water available on the dock and toilets ashore. There is only a modest charge for the facilities and the food in the restaurant is really excellent. If you are able to ‘take the ground’ it should be on your bucket list.  Erin also writes the ‘Bosun Bob’ series of illustrated children’s books, so I even managed to buy some presents for the grandchildren! I am now looking forward to resuming the cruise, but in a more leisurely and dignified manner with my wife!

 

Postscript:

Unfortunately, sitting on deck while sending a gloating message to the previous crew after dining on the residual provisions in Brixham Marina, I took a swig of red wine, not noticing that a wasp had gone for a swim. It stung me on the tongue and, despite antihistamine tablets and sucking ice, the painful tongue swelled up to such an extent that I couldn’t speak properly. I now understand the concept of ‘karma’…

We have now left Hejira moored in Torquay Marina and returned home by train for a welcome break.