We have been paying a day worker for the past few weeks to come and help on wash-down days. The skipper and I are not on a really big boat, but with 72 feet either side and a bit at the back, it’s still a lot for just two of us to manage several times a week.
Skipper and I are proud of our garage. The boat may not be a super yacht but she has a sizeable boot in the stern. It’s bigger than our cabin next door – a lot bigger. Sometimes we dream about knocking through.
This is how it was in April when we first moved on board. A pristine palace for the jet ski and all the other toys yet to come.
Since then Skipper has thought up some modifications to accommodate the rapidly accumulating purchases. And to house all those useful things that can’t be thrown away because they might come in handy one day. Amongst which are:
It’s exactly a year ago yesterday since this bad boy was responsible for breaking my fingers.
Ok, I accept that some of the responsibility was my own for having my fingers in the wrong place at the wrong time, during a fast tack in strong gusts.
The owners of our boat have brought their maid to join us for the summer. This is great for me because there are differences between galley girls and ladies’ maids. Galley girls don’t lay out clothes and ladies’ maids don’t winch anchors, for one. Galley girls know where everything on the boat is stored and maids know what to do with it all. While I have been trusted to store our umpteen different sets of table linen, the choice is determined by the maid. This pretty dinner for two was arranged a few nights ago by her as a surprise to celebrate the owners’ wedding anniversary.
With the owners dispatched to the shore on a ruse thought up by their daughter, the maid had twenty minutes to arrange the table, sneak the flowers up from her bathroom where she had managed to have them smuggled to during the day, prepare bowls of nuts and fruits on beds of ice, frost the champagne glasses, light the candles and scatter shells across the tablecloth. (Shells because it was a subtle sea-sidey theme – as you might guess.)
Skipper and I gave an extra polish to the glass and chrome, retrieved the poshest champagne ice bucket from under the floor, put the smoochy french music in the CD player and waited on the swimming platform to help the owners on board when they arrived in the tender.
The skipper and I have just returned from a couple of days sailing with friends.
On our first night away we stopped at a little place called Orhaniye on the Bozburun Peninsular, near Marmaris, where we made our way to the bar for a beer or two. I was impressed with the dedication of this lady who was on a sailing holiday with her family, studying for her Day Skipper qualification at the same time.
The Skipper and I have been enjoying a couple of days off from work. Our owners (and I know we sound like faithful Labradors here) have left us on our own for a week. Repairs completed, all chores done, boat washed down, chrome polished and the laundry lists completed and dispatched, we are free to discover a little of Turkey, so we have joined friends from England for a few days of coastal sailing on their Beneteau 45’ yacht.
Need your windscreen replacing? On a 70′ powerboat?
Easy! You just need one of these.
The skipper and I really weren’t sure about this. Especially not about offering the owner’s two million pound boat up for a guinea pig trial of this sputnik style baby crane. That’s quite a responsibility. Could those four sucker pads really lift and swing 110kg of glass off the boat and onto the wharf without dropping it through the deck?
We’re back in port for works on the boat after a great few days cruising. The lovely owners of the boat have left while we get on with managing the schedule of repairs.
Each of these two pieces of glass in the windscreen weighs 110 kg. The marina yard is supplying a crane to lift off the old glass and deposit it on the dock. Then the new glass will be lifted into position. It’s a lifting technique achieved with giant suckers that has never been used before in this marina.
First off, two chaps from the UK have arrived to carry out and supervise the work. It’s over 45 degrees up there while they loosen the old glass. Hot work.
Tomorrow we move the boat to the boat haul wharf where the crane will be set up to lift the glass. Wish us luck!
Is there a better way to start a day?
The Skipper and I were up at 0600 this morning to up anchor and cruise our leisurely way back to Bodrum. Before we left our owner joined us on the swimming platform for an early morning dip in cool turquoise waters.
We’ll be dropping anchor and stopping at a fish restaurant at lunchtime, but until then, it’s 25 knots all the way.
Under a Bodrum Moon
There are moments in a galley girl’s life when time stands still and she dreams of romance and glamour, of dashing pirates and swashbuckling captains, and the chivalry of old fashioned manners. Johnny Depp, of course, is responsible for a lot of that.
However, unlike Captain Jack Sparrow and his amoureuse, I don’t live on a galleon. This season the skipper and I are on a motor yacht – a big 70′ power boat – in Turkey. Despite the modern concept of a life afloat with the aid of 5,000 hp engines, last night I almost had one of those romance and glamour moments. Continue reading “Galley Girl: A Woman of the Sea”
Lying on deck under the stars in a remote anchorage, while a warm and balmy breeze kisses your skin and the sea gently cradles you, in the knowledge that you can up anchor and roam the seas whenever the fancy takes you, is surely the greatest expression of freedom.
Galley Girl Tales 