Proceeds from so much sail repair work in Gustavia and the fees from filming on Camelot meant Jon could afford a trip back to Blighty the first time in two years. I flew back with the boys directly from Antigua. Jon wanted to take Camelot to the BVI to be safely hauled out for the hurricane season. Three friends from Tortola who had been crewing in Race Week helped him sail the 220 miles back to Virgin Gorda.
Doing watches of fours hours on/four off in pairs they completed the journey on a broad reach over two days and nights without incident. Camelot was hauled out at Virgin Gorda Yacht Harbour, which was better value than Nanny Cay. She was listed for sale there so prospective buyers could go on board with the broker.
Back to England June 82
Oliver was fourteen months old by then and walking. My father was highly amused by the fact that he staggered about always holding on to something. Because he had learned to walk whilst we were underway he was used to maintain his balance on a moving platform by seeking hand holds. In fact he could swim before he could walk.
“What shall we do with a drunken sailor,” my father would sing to him.
Jon had joined us in Norfolk in early June, which is a lovely time to visit England with those very long daylight hours. In the Caribbean there are about twelve hours of daylight all the year round. As we planned to stay for more than two months it would have been expensive to hire a car. Jon found an old Vauxhall Viva for sale in Norfolk with plenty of Road tax and an MOT so we bought it.
After catching up with our friends and family in Shotesham we drove up to Cheshire to see my family. In Derbyshire we noticed a sign to a place called Alsop En Le Dale, spelt the same way as us. We took a detour and looked at some possible ancestors’ graves in the pretty churchyard. Jon had agreed to crew for his brother Dan in the Merlin Rocket National Championships in Abersoch for a week. That satisfied his dinghy sailing yearnings.
When we did eventually sell Camelot Jon wanted to set up a new sail loft. He worked out that by staying a one man business, he could keep the turnover under the VAT threshold. That 25% sales tax on sails which had scuppered work back in 1980 was the main reason we had chosen to live on a boat in the first place.
Dartmouth and Salcombe
After visiting more old friends around the country we drove down to look at Dartmouth and Salcombe in Devon. There was a sail loft in Dartmouth, but none on the other side of the river in Kingswear where there was a huge new marina and boatyard. We looked at houses there too and were pleased to find we could afford a Victorian terraced house near the school there.
Molly Alsop’s uncle lived in Salcombe. As a child Jon had fond memories of holidays in this beautiful area and of sailing a Salcombe Yawl which his father hired. We wandered around the narrow streets of that town and up Fore Street to the gardens in front of the Yacht Club. It was a Saturday in July and afternoon racing was underway. We stood next to the Watch House watching Solos and Salcombe Yawls racing. Hiring a dinghy with an outboard from from Whitestrand we explored the whole estuary, following the dinghy racing. This was a class he could imagine competing in himself. Furthermore there was no sailmaker in Salcombe.
Time came when we needed to return to the BVI. We stayed in a small hotel in Crawley before our flight from Gatwick. There Jon was chatting to the hotel porter about possibly selling the Viva which still had three months each of Road tax and MOT. “I will give you £50 for it,” said the porter. And the deal was done! The log book was handed over.
The transatlantic flight back was only half full. Oliver was now walking well and had ample opportunity to stretch his legs. We took it in turns to walk him around until he was tired enough to sleep in a sky cot for a couple of hours. Jethro disappeared up forwards and was gone a long time. I went to look for him. There he was sitting in a first class window seat chatting away to a beautiful stewardess who was serving him pretzels and apple juice! She offered to take him up to the flight deck to watch the pilots.
The tiny Twin Otter plane from San Juan flew so low over the Virgin Islands that Jethro could see the palm tree with the tyre outside Stanley’s bar at Cane Garden Bay. The landing strip on Virgin Gorda was just grass running parallel with the beach on the northern shore. The pilot swooped, then changed his mind and went round again to land second time.
Back to the Virgin Islands
We went by taxi to the Yacht Harbour yard and there was Camelot with long grass growing through the chocks and spider webs in the netting. The broker told us he had one seriously interested customer, a French Canadian with two children wanting to take a two year sabbatical from his job as an Environmental Scientist. He came along two days running took lots of photographs and went off to phone his wife. Presumably La Femme said “Non!” as we never heard from him again.
The anti fouling needed touching up again before re-launch, but as soon as that was done Camelot was lifted back into the water and we motor sailed to Road Harbour to charge the batteries. We were coming to the conclusion that wooden boats really did not sell well in the Islands, and that to get a better chance of a sale we would have to take Camelot up to New England. In the meantime we should enjoy the sailing, remembering that John Lennon quote,
“Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.”
After anchoring between the two Wickhams keys again, Jon went ashore to exchange our empty propane gas for a full one. He bumped into Manassa from the sail loft.
“How are things going at work? “ he asked.
“It is chaos, Man,” came the reply. “Denroy and Leroy have left. The new English Production Manager Jeremy crashed his motorbike into the sea and is in hospital. We got eight weeks work on new sails in hand and Bill is tearing his hair out!”
We would anchor Camelot by the little island between Village Cay and The Moorings in 1980’s
Back to Hoods l
Using the need for some canvas waterproofing paint as an excuse, Jon strolled into the Hood Loft the following day. He came away with the promise of a new work permit, immigration clearance for another three months and an agreement to work on new sails only for a much higher hourly rate than he had been on before. He could still take unpaid time off whenever it was convenient. This was a perfect solution.
The first new sail for Jon to make was a multi purpose spinnaker with a 57 foot luff, 47 foot leech and a 41 foot Foot in all the colours of the rainbow. After cutting the cloth, he taped the seams together then fed the rolled sail into the five step machine set into the floor which no one else in the loft knew how to use. Instead of two parallel rows of stitching in each seam, this machine needed only one row as the needle moved three stitches one way then two back.
This was a welcome change from working on old damaged sails. Not only was he in his element making new sails again, but he no longer had the unpopular task of supervising everyone else. I wished I had a fancy camera to take a picture of that rainbow spinnaker sailing off across the Francis Drake Channel towards St John.
And back to school
Jethro went back to school at the Passea Kindergarden glad to rejoin his circle of friends. He sat next to James and these two were given homework, usually a dozen spellings and sometimes a poem to learn. I had also brought back with us the Ladybird ABC and 123 teaching books to help him on board. Instead of bedtime stories we did at least half an hour on simple words and number skills. He would soon be six.
St Ursula’s Day at the end of October was a public holiday Monday in the BVI so a long weekend away for us on Camelot. We went over to our favourite anchorage on Peter Island. At Deadman’s Bay an 18-30 package holiday crowd had a beach barbecue most Sundays. Jethro liked to swim ashore and join in the queue for a burger! They were kind to him even though he was outside their age range. Jon and I took it in turns to apply more Deks Olje to the topsides while the other looked after Oliver.
