Hot in Grenada

Monday 7th September 2009, day 325, 7,171 miles. 12° 01’.42 N, 061° 40’.69 W. Grenada Marine Boatyard, St David’s Bay, Grenada.

Lazy journalists (the Economist is the worst) occasionally refer to the “yacht-owning classes” as a synonym for the super-rich. Your correspondent, bare-facedly not just a yacht-owner, but a Caribbean yacht-owner, would like to tell you how the other half lives.

In keeping with all your expectations about bloated plutocrats, we have been scraping Tomia’s hull, priming and anti-fouling it, in temperatures up around 100° F with 85% humidity. Just in case a paparazzo should come past, we are dressed in the latest fashion: Anthony in bleached-out (from an attempt to remove barracuda blood) lime green check shorts, I in the top half of an old pair of striped cotton pajamas, and a pair of fish-patterned leggings left over from 1987, from which the lycra has completely evaporated, leaving the cling but not the corseting. We both wear fetching ankle socks under our flip-flops, to stop the fire-ants biting our toes, and complete the ensemble with head-scarves, face masks and green surgical gloves. From sun, humidity and saltwater, my hair has fashioned itself into a style which the most avant-garde of Mayfair crimpers would be unable to replicate.

When we have finished lounging outside in our tropical island paradise, we retreat into our charming home for a spot of rubbing down and varnishing. This takes place in a space 4’ by 2’, with minimal ventilation. Luckily, no long distance lens can find us in here, so we don’t need clothes, just a hanky to wipe away the drips before they can spoil the varnish work.

Today’s task was going up the mast to fix the halyards for our courtesy flags. Working up the mast is like sailing in a way: you’re trying to do normal things in a totally abnormal environment, being swung around, in some discomfort and a bit of danger, the sort of danger where nothing is going to go wrong, but if it does, you’re toast. But after the first few minutes, it all starts to seem quite normal, you work out which way to brace yourself, and how to hook a toe round the shrouds to leave both hands free to fiddle with a recalcitrant sheave. Taking the slow pains to ensure that nothing ends up crashing to the deck, and that ropes don’t get fouled round the standing rigging becomes just another part of the task. Anthony doesn’t know why I bother writing this down, as it is second nature to him, of course.

Tomia has had a mistressy fit, it’s the being ignored for three months that does it. She was grumbling about being lonely, so I reminded her that we’d arranged for a charming young man to visit every month to make sure she was ok, at which she adopted her Zsa Zsa Gabor tones and pouted that, dahling, once a month was hardly enough for someone like her. She perked up when another man came round to take her measurements for a bimini (quite like a bikini really, a small but vital and disproportionately expensive bit of cloth, which has to fit perfectly), and started saying that as he clearly understood her and her needs so well, perhaps he would like to make new cushions for her cockpit. I told her not to push her luck, at which point the starter battery for the engine, the pump to empty the shower, and another pump in the galley all mysteriously failed. At times I think a real-life mistress would have been cheaper.