MESSIN' ABOUT ON BOATS...

Clive King, Rear Commodore USA West

(In his covering note Clive explained that `Jeremy's request for a biographical note for the newsletter ... just got out of hand. If you feel this deserves space in Flying Fish I will be honoured'. His PS, endorsed by us all, is `and just like mother, tell all travelling members "don't forget to write".')

`If you want to learn how to sail', the crusty Naval Officer told the eager and green at the Cruising Association in London, `you can attend my talks or set to sea in a small boat'. Until then I hadn't known there was a choice. This astonishing enlightenment prompted me to push off to France and Spain early the next summer.

Now this was back in 1974, just one season after I had bought Spur of the Moment, learnt a few rudiments, and sailed to Cherbourg to stock up on le duty-free. Our Ericson 35 was barely equipped for a weekend, let alone ocean passages. She lacked many creature comforts -- no shower, no hot water, and carried but some 20 gallons of water and absolutely none of the toys so common today.

There is a great advantage in naivety, ignorance if you will, it's how worlds get discovered. The advent of a labour government in the UK was the final push and the next summer saw Spur of the Moment headed for France, Spain and Portugal. Bouncing off Finisterre with the winds pirouetting allegro con moto and the BBC duly detailing `an anticyclonic variable off Finisterre', we learn it means they've no idea what's up and the reality of self-reliance hits home.

`If we don't see land in a day or so I think we should turn left' -- such was the confidence of my wife and companion in my sextant ability. But Mary Blewitt's great little book came through, together with the mountains above La Coru¤a where they should be and when, signalling the southern shores of the Bay of Biscay. So there we were, through fog-bound Anse Chastenet, across the Bay of Biscay, past the massive chariots of the Tall Ships at anchor in Coru¤a and headed into the warmer waters of Bayona, Lisbon, and thence to Vilamoura in the Algarve.

Spur of the Moment stayed three months in Vilamoura through the revolution -- remember that one -- and grilled sardines and recharged batteries awaited our return that December. Christmas in Gibraltar was all Naval pomp and dirty submarine pens, and our first big provisioning. Then to Ceuta, Spain's city state in North Africa, for fresh vegetables (Gibraltar was in those days effectively an island economy and vegetables, eggs and the like rather sad and soggy).

Few yachts, indeed few people, have spent less time exploring Africa than us -- one day, and then on to Tenerife. Clustered in the fishing boat harbour, all fish oil and foul, yachts to one side and rust-bucket Korean tuna boats to the other, we passed the days waiting until it was `right', each yacht on its own calendar.

Twenty-one days of muddling across the Atlantic with not a plumber, sailmaker, mechanic, or electrician in sight until, three weeks later, a new plumber, amateur sailmaker, adept mechanic and sparks caught their first senses in the air of Barbados. There was a rather pressing need to find some funds, so day chartering at Mustique kept us in rum, with an insight into the eclectic rich whose domain Mustique remains.

We joined the charter fleet, sucked up to the charter agents as they swept down from the States, and eventually wound up in Charlotte Amalie, US Virgin Islands, back n'forthing around the Virgins. I am a Chartered Surveyor by profession, there was a need in the USVI for a real estate professional -- someone with letters after his name -- so I got a day job, applied for the coveted `Green Card', and my wife and I got a flat ashore. Suzie, our German Shorthaired Pointer, flew in from the UK and, along with ship's cat Nutmeg (whose mother was chief ratter at the Grenada Yacht Club), we slowly became absorbed into the culture. Spur of the Moment continued in day charters, and `Spur of the Moment Charters' grew as our modest enterprise in St Thomas.

Two years, two Green Cards, and one sold boat and business later we moved to San Francisco. Hardly a year onwards and Bruce Roberts had sold another set of plans for a 53ft steel ketch, we'd moved to the country, bought a seven acre patch and heavy industry was taking place on a corner of the land. Life moved on, so did my wife, and four years later Sonoma of the Isles was ready to launch. Doesn't time fly.

Expo'86 was Vancouver's World Fair and Sonoma's rite of passage. Do not sail north, let me repeat, DO NOT SAIL NORTH, from San Francisco. All the winds from the Pacific meet and hurtle down the Californian coast each summer. I am not macho, I do not like the cold, I hate feeling damp and clammy, I do get very queasy, but we battled north, suffered, ate well and made it. Do not attempt this at home, it is not fun. But Vancouver, the Gulf Islands and Desolation Sound are truly beautiful, the warm summer evenings are long, and the oysters and crabs wait to be collected by the bucketful. Sometimes it all seemed worthwh... Oh no, uh-uh, there is a lot of water, a lot of islands and a lot of beautiful anchorages between 25N and 25°S, and that is where cruising yachts belong.

The South Pacific, the Marquesas, the Tuamotus, the Society Islands, the Cook Islands, Tonga, Fiji, New Zealand -- shall I go on? It is a long way, a very long way, from America to the next dot on the map west. It is a month of sailing, and it is truly worth it. I suppose I must 'fess up, I probably don't really like sailing. I'm a homebody, I simply like to get somewhere and have my nest with me. Yet there are moments cruising, mostly of an early evening, when the sheer beauty of the peacefulness, the sense of fulfillment, the harmony, all are in rhythm (and a deep freeze full of tuna helps).

For the next three years, 1988 to 1991, Sonoma of the Isles took me through Polynesia and Melanesia. Each year a new crew and each year some months aboard and some in the office. Cook, Stevenson, Gauguin, London, how they all wrote, painted and told fine tales of the islands. And little has changed. So Tahiti now has an air-conditioned shopping mall, Camembert-avion arrives twice weekly fresh from Normandy, and the general French silliness of rushing around pervades. But stevedores still put a flower in their hair each morning, and that tells it all.

1991 was the long haul back from Fiji to American Samoa to Hawaii and home to San Francisco. My wife Bonnie (whom I met in 1990, herself a Pacific sailor) and I settled down to life as life gets lived ... for almost a year and a half.

In 1993 Sonoma of the Isles was again restless, so we closed up shop and sailed to Mexico and then back to French Polynesia. Again we climbed the tropic hills of the Marquesas, wandered the lagoons of the Tuamotus (home of the black pearls), dined and danced with men of thunderous girth and swam in the shadow of Moorea. Once more we were scared as winds came from nowhere and made crowded anchorages untenable, were challenged from within and without, sobered by the reality of daily drudge, charmed by native culture, warmed by new friendships. But, as ever, there comes a time to move on. So we did.

Sonoma of the Isles now lies a-slip in Sausalito, a `For Sale' sign hanging from her bow. But somehow, somewhere, sometime, we recognize we can become masters of our own destiny, that there is a choice, that choice has a price, and that few actions are final or forever.

(1354 words)