This blog has lost its way a little – so I’ve signed up for some book-blog-tours on books I’ve read that I’d like to share with you. (All via Rukia Publishing).
I’m branching out into some new genres and the authors of those books will share excerpts and their writing experiences.
One tour will be my own story – with fun, hilarious, and scary stories from This Is It. Like “Shark Encounter” – “So This is What Being Kidnapped Feels Like” – “What Travelling The World Taught Me” – “Mexican Dramas” – “‘Where’s that water coming from?’ – a mid-ocean panic!”
That will start soon, in the meantime if you want to know more about my latest – here’s a wonderful (and descriptive) review from a truly great sailing magazine – Afloat.
Three difficult weeks at sea, living on a tilting vessel!
Here of course….. sailing along the NSW coast in Australia, on our way to our next adventure.
Sailing in my slippers! And Writing – this was the beginning of Of Foreign Build… Note the bikes (bike wheels upside down outside the stanchions), the outboard is under the blue canvas by my head. We were on our way!
Perhaps in a TSR (Travelling Stock Route) on the BNT (Bicentennial National Trail) with 5 horses and a tent…
Somewhere nearby there are five very happy horses, gallavanting, galloping, and rolling in the creek! Meanwhile, notes on the horse trekking book A Standard Journey started here….
What about on a 1920s Dutch barge in France? Not bad, but we were (and still are) renovating – it’s a noisy, dusty, and messy place to live and work.
Magdalena Bay, Mexico – the cafe was closed but wifi was on!
We’d recently purchased Pyewacket in San Francisco and were on our way to La Paz… but plans changed rapidly. We spent two years sailing back to Australia via Pitcairn and Easter Island, etc…. a tough journey – detail of which in my next book This Is It, out January 2016.
On a barrel in the boat yard in Panama?
Well at least I got to stay relatively clean!
Puttering along the Intracoastal Waterway of America. Near South Carolina on our 10 metre sailing boat Mariah II.
Flat water sailing – yippee!
I’m a travel writer – literally. If you want to travel and work you can – you just have to make it happen.
Where’s your favourite office? Where’s the most exotic, fun, extreme place you’ve worked?
I don’t usually deface books or magazines, but the other day I did – out of desperation.
I should apologise to Motor Boat Monthly Magazine. But the magazine in question was several years old, ten I think, and it had been read several times, by us both – AND, they went out of print last year (according to Wikipedia).
Instead of throwing out the magazine we became inspired. Most people, who live the nomadic life (especially on boats) learn this knack, everything has at least two uses. We certainly had a use for the stiff folds of paper.
Saving your sanity
So, what can you make with an old Motor Boat Magazine, coloured tape, paper, scissors and string?
You can make something to save your sanity – that’s what!
Freedom at a price
Mooring on the French canals is a wonderful freedom. At many places, most times, you can stop for the night or even a day or two.
Currently, shade is our top priority. Fortunately, we have found great shady spots, safe depths and tied up safely on a straight stretch. (Why oh why do so many boats tie up on a blind bend?)
Slow down
It’s here, tied blissfully to a quiet spot we are hounded by hire boats that insist on racing alongside with total disregard of the ‘rules of the road’ – you must pass all moored vessels at no more than 3 kms/hr.
What happens?
As the water is sucked and pushed alongside a speeding boats’ hull, we shift forwards then backwards and our mooring pegs, that have been driven into the bank, are literally pulled out.
When we see a boat approach and ask them to slow – most do. Some look at us as if we are mad!
So, we made a sign, that’s reinforced with Motor Boats Monthly magazine. It is nowhere near big enough, it’s a little amateurish (hastily cobbled together in desperation and fear of being set adrift!), but it’s a start. I am already planning Mark 2.
What creative ideas have you developed to improve your life on the road?
Well? Tell me? Yes, yes, they are probably more sensible and have NOT come to the Canal du Midi in peak season.
Peak season? I thought we were safe after August. How little do we know! But we have not seen ONE OTHER barge on the move (except a hotel barge).
We travelled through a system of 6 locks with these two boats. We let them over-take us on the canal – then they wouldn’t let us in the next lock!
There are mobs and mobs of hire boats, a whole gaggle of them. Great, lovely….. some of them are. Others are rude, obnoxious, block the locks and worse have NO IDEA where a boat’s pivot point is!
At the helm , they assume they are in a car, so astern propulsion (yes, astern propulsion, not reverse)…. is incredibly exciting to watch and completely terrifying if you are any-where near the ‘helms-person.’
The wash keeps boats apart.
I know, the old hands here (less of the old please!) will have heard and suffered this before. But for us it is an eye opener. Thirteen years ago I don’t remember having this trouble, I thought people had less money for holidays now, not more.
Oh, I know, it is the Midi. Someone wrote a book once about sailing the Red Sea, they called it, ‘Once Is Enough.’ I may do a 5th book, (yes there are more to come), about The Midi, as beautiful as it is, ‘Once is Enough!’
Yesterday as we puttered alongside the paprika sprinkled hills showing their Autumn change, we decided it was time to start anchoring each evening.
Paprika coloured leaves showing the on-set on Autumn.
While sailing we spent ninety-five percent of our time anchoring at each port. While traversing the Great Loop in America we had vast, stunning bays all to ourselves, as everyone went into marinas. Thirteen years ago, in France on our sailboat, we anchored most of the time.
I love the rituals that go with anchoring, where we both concentre on the sounder, our position and the best place; the finite control to stop the boat just where we want her, before applying astern propulsion so the chain is laid out nicely in a line.
Noel ‘coaxing’ the windlass back into action.
The boat easing to a gentle stop with the anchor dug in and the chain straight then slack, restful. The anchor light set up for when nature’s light slinks off behind the horizon, and raising the black ball. The noting of position using bearings to know whether we’ve dragged.
A novel idea for an anchor light pole.
On anchor it is softer, there are no lines to pull in one direction then another as the boat shifts. Rouge Corsair is held steady by the catenary in the chain, acting as a soft spring. She moves with the water, everything is so much gentler, while we watch the slowly shifting view.
Not a bad view from our ‘island’
The new solar panels earn their keep and make it all worthwhile, as now we have our own private island with no neighbours – bliss!
We are where the circle is, off the main channel. The green line is our route line.
Jackie Parry - author 