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Nicky

...like a duck to water


We did not expect to find dolphins in St Aubin's Bay the very first time I went out sailing with Nigel, but there they were. It was quite a windy day and somehow he had persuaded me to steer. We tacked back and forth quite close to the rocks in-shore of Elizabeth Castle. There were three bottle-nose dolphins about 3 meters long jumping and swimming within 50 meters of us. They had a youngster with them, perhaps half their size, and we were enthralled by the sight of this family group.
Nicky afloat.

On the Sea

My first experiences on the water had been with the local rowing club a few years earlier. I had helmed one of the boats on some of their training trips but, quite frankly, they did not seem to have the time or patience for a beginner to learn to fit in. Rowing is a highly competitive sport and I wasn't very interested in their level of aggression.

Life Afloat

When I met him, Nigel was living on Rusalka Mist in St Helier Harbour, which involved rowing ashore in the morning before getting into the car to drive to work. He was full of stories about sailing away and living a life afloat in distant lands. Our first trip around the bay was a great success, with dolphins and all, but he did seem to enjoy going out into the roughest sea and winds which made the boat heel over alarmingly.
Nicky Backpacking

Competent Crew

Before that day I had never been on a yacht under sail and I had some learning to do if I was to join in this ridiculous and romantic, pie-in-the-sky dream. We bought me a copy of Competent Crew - An Introduction to Practical Sailing and I began learning knots and the names of all the things you find on a boat. We sailed at every opportunity and soon I was hoisting and furling sails, jumping ashore with a mooring rope and even steering us into marina berths with Nigel alongside me, nervously trying to sound calm and tweak the throttle at the same time.

Longer Trips

He wanted me to get used to the idea of longer trips and there was one rough day when he decided to sail us from Guernsey (North of Jersey) to St Malo (South of Jersey), about 60 miles away, without stopping. It was not until months later that we admitted to each other that we would both have given anything to turn left at the Corbiere lighthouse as we watched it go by, and get quietly into our own berth back in Jersey. We laughed then, but at the time we had both felt tired and cold yet neither of us dared suggest giving up the plan.
Tea in the dark

Opinionated Tales

I graduated from the Competent Crew book onto the next in the series, Day Skipper - including Pilotage and Navigation. Evening classes followed in which baffling mathematical puzzles were interspersed with salty, opinionated tales from the local sea-dog who was teaching us. He seemed to regard me as the only true mariner there as most of my class-mates were motor-boat owners, and I was under sail. This did not always help as then I was nervous of letting down this high esteem with, what might be, a silly question about the basics.

Women Only!

Eventually the time came for me to take a practical course and to try and get my RYA Day Skipper certificate. This is a story in itself. Unknown to me, the local sailing school had had a number of women applicants for practical courses that Spring and had decided to lay on a women-only boat with a female instructor (what a yawn). The problem was that the instructor had had to cry off at the last minute due to illness. The sailing school had to find a replacement for her very quickly. The ex-Royal Navy submariner they had found was male. Worse than that it turned out in the course of the first night that he did not approve of women on boats at all. A woman's place was in the home and at sea they brought nothing but trouble and bad luck. This does not sound a auspicious start and it was not. By the end of the week I had my Day Skipper ticket but we had all had enough of him and the rather dodgy boat with its overheating engine and other problems (that's yet another story). It's raining out here...

Forever Budding

Well now I am the budding sailor, firmly keeping myself below, making cups of tea and sandwiches and calling out those loving words, 'Are we there yet?'

Watch this space for further comments from the Galley!

Click here to find a few comments from the Galley. I will try to extent the new Women Only section further if I can get Nigel off the computer for long enough.