End of the Vasco Da Gama Rally

Rants And Rucks

Too extreme for our 'Opinions' category, this collection of rants and rucks allow us to sound off about things that get up our nose. Also we document run-ins and...ahem... disagreements with people ;)




You Looking At Me?

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It’s been a while since I had a rant but today I’m ill, very tired and have a wet bum, so if you spit tobacco or talk incessantly on your phone on a night-train I’m going to get wound up. And should you stare at me, god-forbid, well…

12 Comments

Please Stop Watching Me Wee

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There’s a difference between a toilet cleaner and a toilet attendant. A toilet cleaner is someone whose job it is to clean toilets. A toilet attendant, however, is different. Their job is to lurk by the entrance to the convenience and guide you through, as if the ‘Toilet This Way’ sign was not obvious enough, and then point you to a cubical or urinal they believe is most suitable for your requirements. They’ll then mill around close by, putting you off going for a wee.

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In India It’s Always The Woman’s Fault

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Homepage of the BBC News website today: Indian actress banned from the Kannada Film Producers Association for having an affair with south India’s action hero actor, Darshan. Apparently she has spoiled “the domestic harmony of a fellow actor”.

Of course she has, she’s a woman. It’s always the woman’s fault when a man has an affair behind his wife’s back. Nikhita Thukral should be stoned. In fact she almost was…

6 Comments

Stand, Sit Or Squat? A Bottomological Dilemma

SquatToilet

For those fortunate not to have experienced a squatter toilet, you’re lucky: it’s a combination of yoga, swimming and ****ing through the eye of a needle. But what I don’t understand is how I am supposed to maintain a squatting position without getting cramp. And what is that bucket and jug combo for? I’m unsure. I do have a couple of theories though. Read on…

23 Comments

Fair Enough – The Shame Of The Indian Beauty Industry

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Like most countries Indian TV ads are a pile of crap. Here, though, it is the beauty industry that needs to hold its head in shame. Not only are the ads rubbish, many of them claim to make your skin lighter. We are told this by famous two-dimensional Indian actresses and beautiful, glamorous zombie-like models whose natural skin colour are near-white anyway.

5 Comments

The Sooner These Miserable Sods Leave, The Better

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A number of boats have turned up recently, heading west. Never before have I met such a miserable bunch of sailors. I thought it was just me but this morning a friend of ours who was cleaning her boat asked “What is it about these people?” They simply cannot bring themselves to say ‘hello’.” She is a cheery lady who could make even Scrooge smile. What do you think? Let us know.

9 Comments

A Festive Message From The Esper Gang

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Christmas is a’ coming and the nuns are out in force. Yep, you can tell it’s the festive season here in Cochin because the ladies in grey habits are running amok in the Christmas decoration shops. Clearly believing they have the blessing of The Lord Jesus Christ these little old ladies barge their way through the masses, desperate to purchase the most gaudy of decorations. There’s definitely some perverse pecking order going on in this predominantly Catholic part of India. Using their elbows as weapons these sinister old birds have complete disregard for the poor local children unfortunate enough to walk into their paths.

6 Comments

Boo Hoo! India Is So Expensive!

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I had one of the most ridiculous conversations with two yachties last week. The couple were complaining that India was really expensive. Incredulous I responded by arguing that food here is so cheap one can eat out at a restaurant for a quid. Quite frankly these Moaning Myrtles really get on my wick. Ready for a rant?

29 Comments

Mumbai: A Photographic Feast!

Liz and I have always romanticised with the idea of sailing into a city. Sydney and Vancouver are two such examples but we never thought we’d get a thrill from sailing into Mumbai, the state capital of the Maharashtra region of central India. This truly is a cosmopolitan city and if you have never been then don’t even begin to conjure up preconceptions of this place, they’ll come nowhere near to the real thing! Mumbai is an assault on the senses; it very quickly became one of my fave cities ever visited, proof of which are the many photographs featured in this extravaganza of a blog post. We have photographs galore! In a departure to the usual ‘inline’ photographs that illustrate my narrative, I have instead put together some slide-shows: the images are bigger and there are more of them! Prepare to be dazzled…

7 Comments

Welcome to India: T-bone Anyone?

Imagine our pride at having sailed over 4,000 miles, unassisted, without incident and without a scratch to Esper. I haven’t mentioned that our autopilot packed up early on in the Gulf of Aden, so many of the last 2,000 miles were hand-steered. That’s bloody hard work in case you didn’t know. Imagine, then, our horror when approaching the Indian coast, after our incident-free 4,000 miles, we were t-boned by the stupid dumb-ass Indian Navy!

10 Comments

Travelling 4,000 Miles For This

You understand why we are doing this whole trip, don’t you? We’ve left the rat-race and are off to discover new places. Places that inspire and excite. Really we are looking for that perfect idyllic sea where no man can be seen for miles around. So imagine sailing 4,000 miles, only to discover this…

10 Comments

Costing Oman And A Leg

Where the women are forced to wear black and their presence is absent from the streets. Welcome to Oman, a country that lives indoors in air conditioned buildings and drives around in air conditioned cars. Welcome to Oman, an expensive country boasting the most incredible beaches yet desperately lacking in soul. Read what I really think of this strange country…

6 Comments

Pirate Alley: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Collisions, fishing nets, narrow escapes, exhaustion, arguments and tantrums. And that was just the first day! Sailing in convoy with fourteen other boats through the most dangerous waters in the world is enough to turn any sane man into a quivering wreck, excuse the pun. For some of us more conscientious sailors the Pirate Alley convoy was a living hell!

11 Comments

Marina Wadiel Dome: Comedy Fun House

Once off the boat one then had to contend with the comedy pontoon, something taken straight out of the Fun House! Remember the moving staircase right by the Hall of Mirrors? That was our pontoon! As one walked down the pontoon so it tipped and dipped from side to side, and then there were the warps (lines) tied to the large motor boats that one had to climb over, further complicating the trip ashore.

1 Comment

I Spoke Too Soon!

In my email round-up yesterday I joked about our pilot not turning up. Well guess what? It is now 07:30, two and a half hours after we were supposed to have departed, and he’s still not here. Oh, everyone else has gone, it’s just ‘Rhumb Do’ and ‘Esper’ left on the bloody dock because they couldn’t get enough pilots. Our departure date has been set to 10:00 instead. Hmmmm…

6 Comments

Downtown Cairo

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So, you’ve just paid a small fortune to enter the the Royal Mummy room at the Egyptian Museum, where you are asked to be quiet and not take photos. Your camera has been left outside the museum in a secure place because you are not allowed to bring it in. What do you do? You take out your phone and flash away at these ancient mummified people, who are kept at carefully regulated moisture, temperature and lighting levels to stop them decomposing. You are an idiot.

1 Comment

Ungrateful Suez Canal Pilots

Fishermen on the canal

He ripped open the parcel, threw aside the t-shirt, scattered the other goods across the deck and tore open the envelope containing the money. The next half an hour was spent listening to this whinging, ungrateful shit complain about his present.

4 Comments

Bribing The Wrong Person

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A very angry Arabic marina manager started shouting in a way that only an angry Arabic-speaking official person can do. The pilot boat had to catch us up in order to drop off our pilot, Moussa, which is Egyptian for Moses. Biblical this man was not…

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Stop Asking For Presents!

B@$t@rd tanker!

Today is arrival day. Our predicted landfall is 1600 and I’m writing this as we motor across flat calm water towards Port Said, so we’ll see if my ETA is correct. Although we can’t see land the depth is only 20 metres, and we’ve passed a couple of oil rigs and been overtaken by a huge cargo ship. With the hazy sun the entire experience reminds me of the east coast of the UK. On a good day. Instead of familiar Turkish banter the VHF is now choca with angry-sounding Arabic fishermen.

6 Comments

The Crazy World Of The Boat Stig

Who is Boat Stig?

I’m compelled to send you this quick text I received from a friend of ours who is a delivery skipper (a vastly underpaid job whereby the skipper takes on a huge responsibility to safely dispatch a vessel from one location to another). We’ll call him The Boat Stig. The Boat Stig was given the task of delivering a yacht from France to Turkey. That’s a bit of a boot, and this was a delivery skipper’s worst nightmare: the owner was on board.

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The Yin and Yang Of Sailing

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This of course puts us into emergency mode and the wind soon catches Esper and as the motors off without even so much as an apologetic glance back over his shoulder, we are left trying to steady our boat. We soon find ourselves sideways onto the pontoon, engine on with no wheel to steer ourselves away.

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Veggie Wars

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Pubs, beer and good paintbrushes vs good food, space and great climate. Which would you prefer? My extended trip back to the UK has been a real eye-opener but I frequently caught myself saying things like ‘it’s not like that in Turkey’. I can’t help it. I’ve made Turkey my temporary home but I’ve just spent a month back at my parents, in the bedroom I grew up in, and I quickly became British again. Now I’m returning to Turkey and I can’t help but compare and contrast. It’s an interesting exercise, but which is better? Turkey or England?

7 Comments

So When Are We Going To Go Somewhere?

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We bought Esper at the end of 2004 and now it’s February 2009. In that time all we’ve done is sailed from Bodrum to Fethiye. Big deal. Weren’t we supposed to be going round the world? Anyone else out there get similar remarks from armchair sailors and landlubbers? I heard that a lot on my last visit home to the UK and I bet Jamie’s hearing it right now. Funny how it’s only people without a boat who make these remarks… What non boat dwellers don’t understand is how long everything takes. Well, for those people who wonder what we ‘do all day’ and why we haven’t got very far, here are a few things to think about:

8 Comments

A Tale of Two Has(s)ans

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We decided to head next door to Hassan’s, where we were looking forward to meeting the owner. Oh boy, did we meet the owner. I’m not sure if he had got out of bed the wrong side, if he’d just had some terrible news, or if he’d taken an instant dislike to us but he was the most unpleasant man we have met in Turkey. The exchange went something like this…

1 Comment

On An Island…

Looking north: main harbour on the left and Mandraki anchorage on the right. Of course Esper is in the shot, extreme right on the centre-edge of the pic.

Other people are just a-holes though, like this tw@t of a French ar$e who screamed and shouted at us whilst hopping about from one foot to the other. After safely anchoring well away from him I spent the next hour raising my arms at him in a “so what’s your problem?” kind of way.

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Can Someone Please Turn The Oven Down?

Even the chairs were getting hot

We’ve been chilling out in some beautiful places though, taking in Kas, Kastelorizon, Kalkan and other places beginning with ‘K’, with plenty of pics to accompany stories of ancient Lycian tombs and angry French cons.

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Getting Creative On Gemiler Island

Gemiler Island is littered with Lycian antiquities

Actually, when I say busy I mean really busy. For an anchorage in the middle of nowhere there are rather a lot of vessels churning up this otherwise idyllic anchorage. Nothing bad, mind, apart from the twat on a jet-ski who needed a smack round the face…

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Escape From Eternity

My last weekend, however, was marred somewhat by a couple of idiots I met in the bar on Friday. New boat owners hailing from Essex and London they had nothing good to say about the sailing community. Or Turks for that matter. I sat and listened as they slagged off Turkish workers for being lazy, and yotties who help each other only for personal gain. Eh?

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Ancient Valletta & Sushi

Not only do the Maltese siesta for most of the day, Malta completely shuts down on a Sunday so they can spend seventeen hours in church worshipping some bird in a blue dress. This was the perfect opportunity to drive into Valletta and wander the ancient streets, though it was made a little frustrating what with every tourist site being closed for the day!

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The People’s Navy – What Happened Next

Macit, who wired the solar panel for free and donated a regulator, and Sam stand next to the solar panel mount, built and installed for cost by Demir Marine

Finally, after weeks of preparing his boat for a solo voyage down the Red Sea and into the Indian Ocean at a difficult time of the year, Sam recruited a new crew member! Poppy, of s/y ‘Free’, agreed to join Sam for the majority of the journey. Poppy writes beautifully and contributes to the progress log, as well as helping Sam through a difficult journey. As I write this they have passed through the Suez Canal and already sent a number of updates and pictures

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