Christmas with the International Yachting Crowd

Christmas with the international yachting crowd. Who are all these people, and where have they come from on their yachts—the ones who roasted a ram on a spit on Christmas night in La Restinga Marina on El Hierro? The captain’s notes. The ram was roasted, and the party was a success! Most of those celebrating Christmas in La Restinga Marina on El Hierro were French. Many of them speak only their native language, so with just a couple of French phrases in my arsenal, I didn’t manage to get to know them very well. Four French people around thirty—three guys and a girl—are heading on a steel boat, like most of those gathered here, to Cape Verde and then onwards across the Atlantic. At the moment, they’re living ashore next to me. They’ve also hauled their boat out for painting. It’s always fun with them. When they’re not busy working on the boat, they play the guitar, flute and violin. There was also a Frenchman with his Chinese wife. He doesn’t speak Chinese, and she doesn’t speak French. Love and domestic life are conducted in English. The wife is gradually mastering the language of Molière, while the husband has given up on Chinese for now: it’s far too complicated. 🙂 Sea Feminism A Frenchwoman named Nelly lives aboard her yellow boat, which she jokingly calls “my yellow submarine.” The submarine has hull damage and no engine. Nelly was entering the harbour on a windy day using an old outboard; it stalled and... she had to berth by ear. Help arrived, but the hull is now being patched with fibreglass cloth and epoxy. The owner bought a new outboard, while local yachtsmen with a knack for repairs brought the old one back to life, giving Nelly hope that she might sell it in Cape Verde. Maria, a Spanish woman, is a skipper with 20 years’ experience. On her 47-foot yacht, she is escorting the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge, a transatlantic rowing race sponsored by Talisker whisky. She has a commercial crew of two Danes and a Hungarian aboard. She dreams of earning money from transatlantic charters and then continuing into the Pacific, but alone. For now, they have deliberately fallen behind the rowers so that they don’t arrive in the Caribbean before them. The host of the party—that is, the man in charge of buying the ram, which is how the whole thing started—was a Frenchman named Arnaud. He has been cruising for more than 15 years with his wife Rebecca and their two sons, aged 13 and 9. He spent six years building his 14-metre steel boat himself. He said, “Never again will I get myself into anything like that!” Everyone brought a dish of their own and something to drink. The mulled wine was especially popular, brewed right there by Federico, a Swede travelling alone on his 6.5-metre boat 🙂 He cruises for six months, leaves the boat, returns to Sweden to earn some money, and then flies back to the yacht to continue his journey. On El Hierro, Federico is waiting for weather that will allow him to sail to Cape Verde and then onwards across the Atlantic. The tastiest dessert was the Christmas cake made by an Englishman named Miles. It—the cake, that is—was polished off in a matter of minutes. Miles himself didn’t even taste his creation because he is allergic to sugar(!) But the fact that he and I have been spending quite a lot of time together lately meant that his wife Alice and I, without the slightest hesitation, happily devoured his share as well :). Miles and Alice sold their house in England five years ago, having decided to live and travel aboard their boat. The Final Chord Christmas evening ended with an international musical mix-jam. It featured two guitars, two African drums, a violin, a flute and anyone who felt like making some sort of rhythmic noise. The Christmas orchestra at the ocean’s edge got the whole gathering of about 40 people dancing. The children fell asleep right there on the sand, lovingly tucked under blankets and sleeping bags, despite all the noise the adults were making. We broke up around four in the morning. Or rather, I went to bed, while the hardiest were still finishing off the wine, sprawled on the sand beneath the stars. Merry Christmas! Russia was represented—worthily!—by a reduced complement of our Lady Mary, in the person of her captain, who, as usual, dazzled everyone with his culinary and musical talents :))).