IT'LL JUST BE ONE LONG HOLIDAY!

Hazel Sneath

(Dave and Hazel Sneath are currently in the Pacific, circumnavigating aboard Mon Tour, their 35ft French-built Chassiron RF.)

`That's nice dear, you deserve a rest. It'll just be one long holiday,' said my maiden aunt fondly, when she heard of our prospective voyage. `Nice' certainly, but an understatement, and such a bland word to describe our voyage. ~`Rest'? Well, even after amputating a few digits, you'd still have enough fingers left to count the `rests'. And as my sister put it so succinctly once after a wet week's canal holiday with the children: `Call it a b..... holiday?'

Others just shook my hand and looked at me knowingly. Some asked if we'd heard of aeroplanes, and were we mad? Friends (adventurers and sailors) visited the boat whilst we beavered away on her evenings and weekends, and were so excited for us. They discussed our plans and pored over charts longingly. No light thing to sell up the home and pack in the jobs after twenty years, though I felt quite blas' about it towards the end -- a purging feeling. We all collect a clutter of things around us in this life. It was either boat or house.

As usual on these occasions we were late leaving -- so much to organise, so many people to thank and say farewell to. We left North Wales in mid-October 1994 in the last spell of calm weather, with mixed emotions. We felt quite choked as we left the Straits over Caernarfon Bar. We love North Wales, its people, our friends and the mountains.

However we turned our backs and got on with the night passage down the Irish Sea, hoping we'd get the last slot in the autumn weather across Biscay. We reached Bayona in the nick of time and were gale-bound for a week. A good place to complete the unfinished jobs and also enlist the help of Alfredo Lagos in Vigo with a boom crutch.

It was a long haul to Madeira, mainly on the nose, but on arrival we basked in the sunshine and rested our weary bodies. Isla la Palma in the Canaries was quiet, very Spanish, and a haven for fruit and vegetables, most of which lasted long after the Atlantic crossing. There was much harbour work going on, with excavations and pipelines for cement, and yachts had no option but to grin and bear it. We were most impressed by our neighbours, a retired Finnish couple on their third circumnavigation! (They were actually the first Finns to sail around the world). Modest folk, but very competent and so calm.

I knew little sailing other than the wet and windy kind, so thought I was having my leg pulled on being told it would be, well, nice! And so it was. What a treat. After the first week of strong winds and big seas it was typical trade wind sailing -- downhill all the way. I'd only read about it before, but now it was reality. Routine and rhythm, watch and watch about. Twin headsails and lurching from side to side. The cuisine improved, even down to bread, scones and pancakes on the less lurchy days. Himself was impressed -- it was years since I'd baked. I felt rather like a magician producing white rabbits from a hat. `Just call me Floyd', I thought. (I wonder if he can cook balanced on a wobble-board without his glass of wine to hand?).

A birthday, a wedding anniversary and Christmas Day at sea, and all good excuses to crack open the `medicinal supplies'.

Twenty-six days to Barbados. We pottered, mended and scrubbed barnacles before nipping down to Grenada, collecting friends and touring the Grenadines for two months. We were patient, polite and careful -- and we loved it. We snorkelled for miles over clear coral reefs, explored coves and islands, met and chatted with folk. Ah yes, this was the `holiday' bit. Wonderful. At Bequia we met up with OCC members Georgie and Gavin McLaren in Margaret Wroughton. They are friendly, organised, experienced liveaboards and we exchanged tales.

Next came the `work' bit, and up to Rodney Bay in St Lucia to lift out, machine and refit the prop shaft etc. Ted Bull lived up to his reputation and the boatyard could not have been more helpful. We did what we could ourselves and paid for what we could not. We worked solidly for two weeks -- the `etc' took longer than the prop shaft! At sundown each day we had a beer with the yard gang at their little snackbar, and then we showered and fed ourselves. The bill was surprisingly reasonable and, as we found out later, compared favourably with Trinidad where most folk seem to head for a lift-out.

In Rodney Bay we briefly met Angela and Hugh Farrant in Spring Gold II. Dave had last seen them in 1990 during the Two-handed Transatlantic Race. We were most impressed with Angela's agility following recent bilateral knee replacements!

Next it was off to Venezuela, for which we obtained visas at œ20 each. We called at Islas los Testigos for a snorkel and overnight stop, a delightful, isolated anchorage with a handful of fisherfolk ashore. Isla Marguerita was next, at Porlamar, where we paid an agent to clear for us. This is strongly advised, as to do it yourself is much hassle, can take all day and may, in fact, cost you more. It cost us œ30 for six months, easily renewed. It's advisable to check out at the same time and to name a far destination in Venezuela, as then you can cruise in between. Otherwise you're supposed to check in and out at each place you stop.

There is duty-free shopping at Porlamar, and we joined the droves of mainlanders who flock over and went on an immediate supermarket expedition. We staggered along the jetty afterwards, our bodies festooned with rucksacks and bags, bottles clinking and knees buckling. But at œ1.50 for a bottle of spirits... It was a long row out through wind and waves back to Mon Tour. We hauled the cargo aboard and stashed it, sweat dripping. Dave, who has a bad back anyway, declared it was painful and promptly lay down. So not only is he (we) going to corrode his liver by consuming all these goodies, but he's probably succeeded in putting his back out as well. Heigh ho, the ways of mankind are strange indeed.

Later, to cool off, we dived overboard, our bodies sizzling as they hit the water. We had been most abstemious the previous six months, mainly because we hadn't been carrying any liquor. Now we reckoned we could lapse into bad habits -- starting that evening! We sat in the cockpit with sundowners, watching the huge red sun sink rapidly below the horizon AND seeing the green flash! Pelicans were dive-bombing for fish all around us. On an adjacent boat, an Irishman toasted our health in some Guinness he'd just discovered. His words were unintelligible, but we got the gist.

We headed south-west to explore the islands off the mainland coast. Mochima National Park is a beautiful, vast fjordland area, with only a few fishing camps. We found Chris Doyle's new Guide to Venezuela very helpful (as indeed, are his updated Caribbean ones). We refuelled -- at 15p per gallon! -- and pushed on overnight to Isla Tortuga and a deserted anchorage with just a fishing camp behind the reef. A sobering sight as we approached was the not-so-old wreck of a yacht on the coral, the waves pounding it. We were alone until the afternoon when a British yacht came in, and we met up that evening. So began a friendship which has lasted ever since.

The ABC islands were next -- Bonair, Curacao and Aruba, part of the Netherlands Antilles.

Bonaire was a small paradise on earth for snorkelling and diving. Environmentally conscious since the '50s, the seas surrounding it are dramatically clear and clean. Ashore the wildlife abounds with pink flamingos and other birds. The only anchorage is on a narrow shelf, which can be exciting if the wind goes round (on average only four times a year, we were told), when the small marina allows you in free of charge!

Spanish Water on Curacao was a busy haven of shelter in two weeks of strong winds. Sam Fundy's marina, small, laid-back and friendly, offers all the services you could wish within an area the size of your backyard. Low profile, but efficient and reasonable. Bussing it to Willemstad, the industrial capital and oil terminal in its huge natural harbour, was easy. We gaped at the famous floating swing bridge, then wandered around the very Dutch streets.

A slot in the weather provided six excellent days' sailing to Panama, with large seas and following winds, so we flew past Aruba. We had hoped to visit Cartagena and then the San Blas Islands to see the beautiful embroidered molas of the Kuna Indians, but time was pressing. One cannot go everywhere.

So we began the transit of the Canal, a long story, ending in a smashed self-steering for our friends but with a solvable, happy outcome. At Colon the yacht club was excellent and even at Balboa it was fine, despite some of the stories one hears. If you observe certain rules and are sensible, both here and in Venezuela, you have no problems. However the poverty level is high and theft is common, and yachts and their gear act as a magnet. One lives accordingly and is careful.

The Pacific, our second ocean and a large one at that. Certainly the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (doldrums to me) was as fickle as we'd heard. Calms and squalls, rain and shine. At the beginning of May it was mostly wind on the nose and a lumpy sea. I half expected to see the Holyhead-Dublin ferry cross our bows! In fact a fair amount of shipping seems to charge up and down the 80th meridian, so one must keep a good watch.

One night the dolphins came at midnight -- spot on. They were not so much playful as purposeful and swift, and larger than any we'd previously seen. I saw huge streaks of phosphorescence, like fire in the water, and then heard their resonant squeaking. It was a dramatic setting and they stayed a long time. All night there was dry, forked lightning and distant thunder, lighting up the large tankers travelling across the black night towards Panama as if on a stage set. In front was a mass of black clouds and our boat being led along a corridor of fire by the dolphins. An eerie introduction to the Pacific.