Fitness Routines

"Adina" - a beautiful Hylas 46 had left when we got up this morning - bound for Spain and carrying Tom and Susie on their first long passage. They left me these beautiful daffodils. 

Susie and Tom

The birthday furnished the excuse which allowed me to break my routine. Although I'm a hopeless athlete (only shining at the 3-legged race at school) I've always tried to maintain some type of exercise program.

Slim version with Mama Naluai in Hawaii - 2002

Marigold Edwards on Trav 3 in  N.Z.

Beth with Kevin

With friend Shelagh in France 2013

Karate promotion in Bellingham 2004

With Signe at Fitness First

Frida and Rae

 

Canada's10BX program, the Ottawa marathon (1987) and a brown belt in karate kept me fit in past years. Marigold Edwards and Beth Hansen (former owner of "Red" - our sister ship) have helped me stay more fit. To develop the "core" teacher Heather Quipp (Alexander Technique) and friend Shelagh Aitkins have kept me a practitioner. It's difficult to keep my level of aerobic fitness and keep off the extra pounds while travelling.  In port, one can join a fitness club. Frida or Signe and I met 5x weekly to go to Fitness First in London.
On the move,  Larry installs some TRX straps every time we reach a harbour.

Signe's 'bespoke' yoga exercises for me

TRX resistance straps

 I currently spend 18 minutes doing heavy aerobic resistance training with these 5x weekly. I follow this with either 35 minutes of Callanetics or 15 minutes of yoga (thanks Signe).

The advantage of the Callanetics is that over the last 7 years (since Jilly introduced me to it in Nelson N.Z.)

Jilly with Peter at Christmas 2006

I can do these even while we're offshore.

Callanetics - 1990 edition

Falmouth in the Sun

Rainy weather - so this photo (taken September 2011) reminds us Falmouth CAN be a lovely place!

Fal River seen from Pendennis Castle grounds

Larry is installing the new GPS. In lieu of his contributions to this blog, I've been encouraged - this week by Shelagh and Frida - to write about our life from my perspective. Signe (aboard SV Capabara) laughingly told me about a sailor who wrote a book entitled "How to get a Woman on your Boat".

In my case, it's been 20 years since I surprised Larry and myself by asking to do an "offshore" trip. I'd taken a few sailing courses previously and could sail, but had made a solemn determination never to sail again. With solemn convictions, it's surprising how often one is completely wrong.

I discovered the choice of Captain made all the difference after marrying Larry. However, as a strong feminist I decided to BE the Captain. I took out a group of women friends and we were all assigned tasks. Focussing on navigation, routing, weather and chart-reading full-time precluded my enjoying the things I wanted to do. I discovered a new respect for the office of Captain. All of these tasks are SO easy for Larry - after serving as a pilot for over 35 years, captaining our ship is second-nature to him. My job as Admiral is more important  anyway - I choose the destinations! Inheriting some talent for artistic things, I also control how the boat looks inside and out, provisioning and menu, most written communications, entertainment of friends aboard and choice of and editing of photos.

In 1991 and early 1992 we spent time sailing around one of the world's great "cruising grounds" - the Gulf Islands of Canada's BC, and the San Juans west of Washington state. However, in order to convince me that the "cruising" lifestyle would be a fun way to spend our retirement a  multi-night trip was necessary. Without applying any pressure, Larry managed to mention the joys of being in Hawaii on your own boat - a destination he had previously sailed to several times. So the idea for the trip seemingly came from me!

Traversay II was a 37' Jeanneau "Sunshine". We had no refrigeration - just an ice box. The trip took place from June 25-July 12, 1993 and I kept notes ... here are some of them ...

 We're in dense fog, I thought I spotted a "mirage" on the port-side just in front of the bow. I remember thinking "what's a water-skier doing out here?" when all of a sudden a big fin surfaced right next to me! Larry just missed the orca whale as it disappeared into the fog.

Larry set up our bed (we'll sleep "consecutively") amid-ships using lee cloths on the starboard sofa. We had a drink and he came out to stand watch (2000-0200 hrs) leaving me to try to sleep - too excited and worried about every bump!

I got up at 0200 for my watch. It was pitch dark (very few stars). There was a fishing vessel off the starboard. Later, I watched a huge freighter come in past the starboard side and slowly disappear far behind our stern - travelling towards the harbour.

I was really tired. Fortunately, it started to get light at 0400 hrs. I kept eating, drinking and visiting the 'head' so that helped keep me awake. At 0600 I got out the alarm clock, lay outside and set it for 15 minute intervals in case I fell asleep.  Poor Larry - I got him up at 0730 to add sailpower.

We're trying to keep the boat between 5.5 knots and 7.0 knots so we get there faster. It means constantly shortening and lengthening the foresail (thank goodness for roller furling!) and every now and then Larry has to add or take out reefs in the mainsail.

This Hawaii logbook details the joys of arrival along with my feeling that offshore sailing was "a better thing to have done then to be doing".

The trip over, we had a wonderful time in Hawaii. The people of Hilo (our first stop) were lovely and laid-back. We got to make REAL friends (in my case musical friends) like Buddy and David and George and "Mama" Naluai in Honolulu. What a wonderful introduction to the "cruising" life Hawaii turned out to be!

Seen during a dive

Molokai morning seen from Trav II

Buddy's piano

Dartmouth and Books!

Jilly shows off Simba

We're in Falmouth after a night-long journey avoiding gale-force winds now molesting England's SW coast.

Captain Jilly Hampton

 I spent time on watch reading "Just Sea and Sky" by epic voyager Ben Pester. It's a chronicle about his England-New Zealand 1953 2-man sailing trip in an 1899 wooden yawl Tern II. He argues that much has been lost by the mod-cons of modern sailing vessels and our reliance on technology.

Upon arrival here and the discovery that our installed GPS had failed (meaning purchase of a compatible new instrument with consequent wiring and carpentry troubles), I had sympathy with his argument. It seems that every day now we have a new failure - yesterday it was the printer which declined to publish reasonable-looking photos. Our instruments (like the owners) are ageing.

A lack of installed lifelines lead to Pester's nearly losing his life when he committed that sin of male sailors - trying to pee off the bow. Chastened by that, he still argues that having safety gear leads people to a false sense of security rather than good judgement. He includes the sailor's maxim: Keep a hand for yourself and one hand for the boat! I've had 2 terrible boat experiences - in one of which I fell off the boat (and yes- it was the female-type sin of hanging out the wash!). Keeping 1 hand for myself would have saved Larry a lot of trouble in rescuing me. In the second instance (going up the mast at sea to disentangle a mess of ropes up at the Spreader) I was most hesitant to use the 2nd hand for the boat, but it had to be done.

Dartmouth City Centre

Why oh why didn't Nature provide sailors and pianists with 3 hands!!

'Hercules' - the steam train

Rowers on the River Dart

Seen on the River Dart

 Jilly has worked at Dart Marina for some years. We met her when she was a guest aboard while mutual friend Raydene was staying with us. She's preparing her lovely well-preserved boat Simba (an Excalibur 37) for her future cruising days. It turns out that we share a birthday. In addition, her father (like Larry's father) was a Spitfire pilot (in our exchange she's borrowed our book "Spitfire Pilot").

While in Dartmouth we took a relaxing Dart River cruise to Totnes, went to a wonderful Museum in that town, ate gorgeous seafood (courtesy of Jilly) at 'Rockfish' Restaurant, and took the steam train up to Paignton.

Dover to Dartmouth

White Cliffs of Dover

Our new sails

It was so nice to be underway once again out of the Medway that I settled down for a snooze ... completely missing our friends on Supertaff who zoomed by under sail while we stinkily battled along under motor. We were completely impervious to the radio as we knew them as Neil and Mandy AND they cheekily addressed us as "Travesty"


Later on we were able to hoist our NEW sails ... made here in England by OneSails. They are absolutely perfect.

On reaching Dover, we spent a few pleasant hours with our friends Andrew and Lyn met whilst cruising the Antipodes on their boat Sentinel. They "got spliced" in Auckland, and we helped provide some wedding music with our piano and a trio comprised of Lyn (clarinet) and Linda (flute/voice) and myself.
We wanted to catch the easterly winds, so had very little time in Dover. Apart from enjoying Lyn's dinner and a brief tour to Tesco's to buy internet time and milk, we only have a few photos to show for the time spent there.

Wedding in Auckland February 2010

Dover Castle

Medway Benediction

Our final night here provided this stunning sunset!

Restful (?) Day

Happy Easter to all ... and thank you to the friends who came to see us off from St Katharines and especially the gifts of chocolate!

'Loon' & 'Alchemy' behind us in the lock

We were followed into the lock by friends on the American yacht 'Alchemy'  and the French yacht 'Loon'. We arrived here at Stangate Creek in the Medway after dark and were looking forward to a restful day today eating chocolate, decompressing from the city and learning to use the new computer and camera systems.

Quite early this morning I was surprised to hear a call of 'Pan Pan' (fairly high on the Distress Scale on its way up to SOS). It was from 'Loon'. A check on the AIS display (this relatively new boat gadget shows all nearby vessels similarly equipped) showed that Loon was only 1.2 miles away. She was trapped in a fairly shallow area with a failed engine and limited wind and range for sailing.
Larry realized we could help, and we called the Coast Guard and Loon to make that happen. Fortunately we have a heavy steel boat. Loon is a 10m boat (we are 14m) and she and her crew swung easily into position behind the towing bridle we'd constructed. An hour-long trip brought us within range of the Gillingham Yacht Club where a workboat was sent out to tow Loon into their lock. We set off back to our restful anchorage here. We hope that Loon and all the helpful members of the Gillingham Y.C., Police, Coast Guard and RNLI who came out enjoyed some chocolate as well!

When we got back here our restful day was cancelled when we discovered that our new faucet had developed a worsening leak. This was fixed by the Captain.

After that our new - still recalcitrant - computer had to be cajoled into accepting these photos by the Captain and hopefully this message will also agree to being helped off the vessel under his guidance.

Ipswich

Winter in London

Summer in Norway

While it is generally easy to find a day of settled weather in the North Sea, as we headed into September it was getting almost impossible to find the three days of suitable weather needed to get to England easily nonstop under sail.  We were looking for a wind not from the southwest (the usual direction here) and not too strong.  Since the alternative was a seemingly endless series of day trips through Denmark, Germany and Holland, we scurried to untie the lines when a frontal passage offered near gale northerlies.  It was a rough passage at first, but the wind soon faded to a perfect strength and the weather guessers promised it had the staying power to get us down to England.

Local sailboat on the River Orwell

Three days later, we were resting in the September warmth of Lowestoft, the furthest east point in England, roughly five months after the chilly day we had left the place northbound.

Now with a short distance left to our wintering spot in central London, all pressure is off.  Travel days are few and short and rest stops are long.  We now find ourselves in Ipswich after a crowded weekend sail up the River Orwell and here we'll bring our blog to a close for the year.  We feel no need to add our pictures and text to the libraries of comment available on London.  Everyone already has - or perhaps should have - their own experiences of that vibrant city.







We now look forward over the winter to socializing with the many British friends we've made and with friends at St. Katharine's Dock.  Mary Anne also looks forward to a harpsichord course over the winter and playing with musician friends.



Ipswich