The cruising mindset I totally understand; the challenge of a passage made entirely in partnership with boat, tides, weather and your own skill satisfies the explorer in us all. It’s a shame the word ‘cruising’ has negative meanings to non-sailors – I’m not sure I dare add it to the list of tag words when I post this blog and recent events will no doubt cast a shadow over ‘cruising’ as in ‘holiday on an oversized floating shopping mall’. But to small boat sailors, cruising will always be the grand adventure even if it’s a jolly in fine weather round to the next bay.

The analogy of life as a voyage is universal and somehow reassuring; even those who have never set eyes on the sea will talk of going through stormy times, being taken aback, told not to rock the boat and advised to make a change of tack. I’ve just finished reading Jonathan Raban’s ‘Passage to Juneau’, a book that satisfies on many levels.  I won’t describe it, just recommend it, but Raban is the ultimate thinking man’s cruiser – if you haven’t read his book ‘Coasting’, add that to the list.

Racing, now – that’s the spirit of adventure taking a different turn. I was lucky enough to meet Val Howells recently, at a talk he was giving locally. Val is now the only surviving competitor from the five entries in the original OSTAR in 1960; the very first single handed transatlantic race arising from a challenge laid down by the great Blondie Haslar.  This was a race driven by the need to challenge the unknown, though it sowed the seeds for the multi-sponsored professionally skippered offshore races of today.  Haslar’s challenge was answered by a few kindred spirits, but only four others made it to the start line for that first race.  The establishment – particularly the yachting establishment – was deeply disapproving. Single handed sailing, by its nature, disobeys the most important rule in the collision regulations, keeping a good lookout at all times. To attempt such a race, said the experts, would end in disaster and bring the sport into disrepute.

Haslar and his fellow competitors, Francis Chichester, David Lewis, Val Howells and Frenchman Jean Lacombe, who set off after the start, were not the type of men to be swayed by public opinion.  Small boats, big men. Literally and figuratively – and at over six foot, it is mind boggling that Howells undertook the race in a 25′ folkboat – he must have had to fold himself in half to get into the cabin.  Haslar’s boat Jester was a folkboat too, modified to junk rig; the biggest boat in the fleet was Chichester’s 40′ Gipsy Moth.  No handicap system was applied to the race so to some extent it was not about beating each other, it was about completing the challenge which, being the men they were, they all did – most of them coming back for more in subsequent races.

As a committed wimp who finds sailing up a muddy creek excitement enough, I am always fascinated to read tales from the more intrepid end of the seafaring spectrum. So reading Val Howell’s book ‘Sailing into Solitude’ is something to look forward to by the fire on a cold January night…. with a glass of wine in hand of course, because armchair sailors never get seasick.

Novice sailors…… yes, that is me with the silly hat on.  Skipper John Watts thought the pipe would make him look more properly salty.

After surviving a few gale-blighted holidays we considered ourselves proper sailors and visited the London Boat Show each year to choose our charter yacht for the holiday to come. The game was to march up to a boat we liked the look of and pretend to be buyers, which fooled the bored salesmen not a bit but gave us immense pleasure. One year we looked over a bilge keel Moody 33 and decided that would be our boat of choice for the next holiday – a choice that backfired when taking the ground against the harbour wall in St Mary’s, Scilly Isles. The boat show model may have been twin keeled, but our charter boat was fin, a difference we discovered when the tide went out and the boat fell over.

Thirty years on and the London Boat Show continues, now in the echoing aisles of Excel, a shadow of the former bustle of Earls Court where the packed chandlery section resembled a Moroccan souk with wellies.  I don’t think you can blame the economy for the decline – sailors still sail, recession or no, especially at the cheap and muddy end of the boating business. I think the internet is partly to blame for the decline, as you no longer have to go in person to a show to buy your discount deckies and the latest gadget for picking up a tricky mooring. You can now do all that online, along with chatting to other like minded souls about whether the latest Mudhopper really can be towed behind a Fiat Panda and whether a Moody 33 sometimes has a fin keel instead of twin.

My son James and I visited the show on its opening day last week.  The main bustle was around the bookshops like the wonderful Kelvin Hughes, where it’s always good to catch up with salty authors Sam Llewellyn and Tom Cunliffe amongst others, and of course there was also a bit of a party going on amongst the wooden varnished boats on the Classic Boat stand.

I did spend money – not on cheap deck shoes or a nifty boat hook, but on a giant blue bean bag.  Not an item to be found on many, or indeed any, boats, but just the job for James’ chair-less room at university.  There was no difficulty carrying it to the hotel, which was across the road from Excel (yes, we really did get a cheap laterooms booking just before coming down – another sign of the times).  The problem began when both of us, along with bean bag, tried to get into the small hotel lift. The lift doors were closing as I shoved and James pulled, but we made it in the end.  I seem to remember that one year ‘The Big Blue’ was the theme for the show, but I don’t think it was bean bags the organisers had in mind!

The beanbag was from www.bigboy.com by the way – very comfortable it is too!

It’s shameful, I know, to be wasting food at all and most of the time it’s not that chaotic.  But there are so many more interesting things to do in life than clear out the fridge – like attending a watercolour workshop on tuesday with Elizabeth Haines, who has an inspirational studio in the Preseli hills and a profound understanding of how art works (http://www.elizabethhaines.co.uk/). She is particularly good at getting students to try new ways of working, experiment and see where the painting wants to go.  I had a thoroughly enjoyable day, playing with paint in ways that I don’t often let myself do at home when I’m focussing on drawing or painting whatever pays the bills.

It’s good to take the pressure off sometimes and lay paint on the page without any pre-thought about how it’s going to end up.  It’s very freeing, and nothing you do is ever wasted; everything experimental feeds the creative furnace which is often in danger of spluttering to a halt.

I often tell my students that if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you always got.  Sometimes it’s good to take my own advice!

So what else has conspired to turn my fridge into bacteria heaven?  We’ve also been exhibiting at Beale Park Boat Show, an annual event in Pangbourne, on a lake by the river Thames.  It’s a small, friendly show, a celebration of the quirky and enthusiastic small boat scene with a refreshing absence of flashiness, big budget boats and pretentiousness. You’ll find everything from the home made and unlikely (a paddle wheel canoe, for example) to highly polished and professional boatbuilders like Henwood and Dean (http://www.henwoodanddean.co.uk/#).  The first two days were great; the third rained and rained, and then rained some more.  We all packed up early; it’s slightly surreal struggling to dismantle a sodden marquee in the driving rain while a steel band plays ‘Island in the Sun’ at high volume and with no trace of irony.

Beale Park Boat Show is over for another year, but life is still a bit hectic – I’m off to Greece on friday to spend a week falling in the water. It’s work, honest. I was expecting the call at some stage, as I’ve been asked to write RYA Go Windsurfing and having made my feelings on the subject of falling into chilly UK water very plain, Neilson holidays have stepped in and are sending me to one of their beach activity centres to go through the beginner’s syllabus and find out everything I need to know to write the book. Given that my last research trip was three days in the rain on a canal in the Midlands, perhaps my career is looking up after all!

Do you think I’d better clean the fridge before I go?

Then there was the time one summer when we had a houseful, including some good friends visiting from Essex.  My friends (you know who you are!) were worried about sleeping in beds that could be earning us money, so when a posh car pulled up in the drive and a well dressed couple knocked on the door asking for a room, they didn’t want me to turn the business down.   The guests had been told we were full and were just stepping back into their car when my friends ran past me shrieking,  ”It’s ok, please stay! Have my room!  I’ll sleep on the sofa!”  That was the first and probably the last time we have ever had a BMW in our drive, and it made a very fast exit.

Over the years, the guests we liked have far outnumbered the guests we didn’t like, but given that social instincts are usually wired to sniff out kindred spirits with similar views to your own,  it’s good to be made to deal with a wide mix of people. You learn to listen, avoid making judgements, celebrate diversity and reinforce your belief that with a few exceptions people are a) basically decent and b) have a story to tell.

The days of drive-by b&b guests are long gone now; everyone books online, and most prefer our self contained bungalow, which is better – more space for them and fewer breakfasts to cook.  It’s hard work doing one and two nighters, but that’s usually what people want.  Adapt and survive…..

A spacious room with character and plenty of fresh air……. no, seriously that’s the castle down the road – every village in Wales has one.  The holiday let looks like this….

Most business comes our way via the excellent Laterooms.com (we’re in as Ty Bach, near Narberth), but some direct via www.tegfanhouse.co.uk  It does mean that I spend too much time at the ironing board and not enough time at keyboard or drawing board, but that’s life.  We’ve spent the morning clearing up after five cheerful young Welsh lads on a bit of wedding spree (how many empties???), so it’s not all fun, but spilt beer mops up from laminated flooring quickly enough and it’s all part of life’s rich something or other.

If you want somewhere peaceful to be creative, Pembrokeshire’s a good place – bring your sketch book and/or writing book and we’ll promise to try and avoid the Fawlty Towers moments.

And on the plus side, if I want to learn to write stories, there’s a wealth of material right under my nose.  This is a potential opening line for a story about smugglers and shipwrecks…

“Anna had the feeling it was going to be one of those days when Mrs Henderson came into the kitchen holding up a pair of pink knickers”……..

“I wish they’d hurry up and invent gps…..”

What is not so well known is the story of how Columbus’ famous flagship piled up onto a reef.

Whilst spending time exploring Cuba and Hispaniola (now Haiti) and trying to find signs of wealthy civilisation, Columbus had to do a lot of socialising. All the locals wanted to have a look over the strange ship and Columbus, in the name of PR and possible future wealth, was happy to oblige, especially if they came bearing gifts of gold. When the Santa Maria finally set sail from Hispaniola everyone was exhausted from days and nights of hectic entertaining. The wind was light and at nightfall Columbus went below for a well deserved nap, leaving Juan de la Cosa as officer of the watch.  Juan was the owner of the Santa Maria, but he was as exhausted as his Admiral and, lulled by the calm conditions, he nodded off in a corner of the deck. This left a small boy in sole charge, steering the course he’d been ordered to steer. He could see nothing from his position behind the wheel and had no way of knowing that the current was setting the ship onto a reef. It was a calm night so there would have been no warning before Columbus was awoken by the sound of coral ripping timber.  Attempts to lighten ship and pull her free of the reef failed, and the crew finally took to the boats and were rescued by the Nina.

As far as I know, the wreck was never found.  History prefers to dwell on Columbus’ successes rather than his failures, particularly the all too human error that lost him his ship.  You certainly can’t blame the ship’s boy who at a guess would have been about 10-12 years old, and I rather fancy the idea of rewriting the story from his point of view.  I’ll put that one on the list for my sea stories project.

Meanwhile, I have been drawing as well as reading, honest.  There have been a lot of black and white drawings coming off my drawing board recently, quite a few of them commissioned by Sam Llewellyn for his excellent new journal Marine Quarterly.  The first issue was out on 1st March  - have a look at www.themarinequarterly.com.  Described as ‘a rich and varied feast’, it just goes to show that reading about the sea is as enjoyable as sailing on it.  As well as being considerably drier!

His boat is called ‘Clodia’ by the way – a good name, say I.  Shame about the spelling!

Eight children sit on cushions on the floor of the museum, looking up at a teacher and at the painting of a ship under sail in a glass cabinet in front of them.  It is 18^th March, so most have round red noses attached to their face; one of the girls is wearing a bright red tutu.  Sparkly red baubles wobble from headbands as the children nod or raise their arms to answer a question.

The Waterfront Museum in Swansea is modern, stark and dark, a spotlight on each exhibit.  There are buttons to press and drawers to open; disembodied voices tell you about the artefacts with the sound of seagulls in the background.  The painting in the cabinet is of a large steel barque heeling in a rough sea.  This is the Afon Cefni, which set sail from Swansea on 13th October 1894 with a crew of 28 and was never seen again.  A painting of a ship is just a painting of a ship; you glance at it, admire the skill of the artist, the curl of the waves and the curve of the sails, then you move on.  How do you breathe life into these static displays?  How do you unlock them and learn from them? Chris Stephens, teacher and trainer of teachers, has the knack.  He gives the children a few minutes to find the names of five other ships on display.  The red tutu flashes amongst the plinths and cabinets as the children hurry around the room looking at paintings or models.  Chris then reads them his poem featuring all the ships they’ve found, pausing at each rhyme for them to fill in the missing word.  There’s something joyful about rhymes. They soon know the chorus off by heart:

Wrap it up in seawater, wrap it up at sea

Museum paintings tell the tale of Wales’ history

Their next task is to make a collective poem about the Afon Cefni.  The brief description on the cabinet is read aloud and questions are asked – where was the ship sailing to?  What cargo did she carry? Where was she when the storm struck? What happened to the sailors – did they all drown?  The right words are hunted down and Chris weaves them together to make a poem about a fatal storm off Cape Horn that took the ship and all her crew to the bottom of the ocean – by this time the children are keen not to let the facts get in the way of a good story, especially one in rhyme.  The painting has come alive; it’s no longer something to be glanced at before moving on.

According to Chris, the idea of using a museum as a place to trigger creative writing comes from a teaching resource book called ‘Location Writing’ by Caroline Davey and Brian Moses.  What wonderful possibilities – a bit like sketching  in words…. anyway, I digress.  The day at the museum was a workshop for teachers, using maritime history as a theme.  More importantly it was about how to use history, creative play, games and artefacts to improve literacy, understanding and the spirit of enquiry.  I don’t teach children, but I found it fascinating, and it made me wonder why children get all the fun stuff.  Some of the exercises Chris showed us for the classroom would be considered too childish for adult learners, but we all thoroughly enjoyed them and in the context were not afraid to admit it.

Perhaps the most valuable thing we can hang onto as adults is the spirit of enquiry, and finding ways to unlock the story in everything. It would certainly stop us wandering round museums, or through life, in the way that many of us do; skimming the surface, acquiring and instantly forgetting facts.

Facts are not bland and boring; facts are stories.  They are doorways that look dull until you open them. Facts – and artefacts – lead to all kinds of discoveries in time or space, but only if you open the door, ask the questions, engage the imagination.  Next time you’re in a museum, if you see someone gazing at an exhibit and muttering inane poetry, it’s probably me.  I’ll pass on the red tutu, though, even on Red Nose Day.

And the Afon Cefni?  She was a steel ship, nearly 300′ long and quite capable of weathering the storms of Cape Horn.  She went down closer to home,  somewhere off the Isles of Scilly.  A teak name board and ship’s lifeboat with the remains of her name on were washed up ashore at St Agnes, but the reason for her sinking remains a mystery.    Four masted barques are, sadly, a rare sight in the 21st century, but the photo is of Sedov, similar in size and rig to the Afon Cefni.  She’ll have a few tales to tell too, no doubt.

Whether books or boats, the anticipation of the launch keeps you going during the long hard months of writing and planning, or, in the case of boats, sanding, scraping and varnishing.  But the reality is not always the crowning jewel of achievement that you imagine.  When we finally launched our wooden cutter ‘Torhilda’ after rescuing her from the chainsaw and spending six years and all our savings on a keel-up rebuild, we were exhausted, broke and it rained all day. We didn’t exactly sail off into the sunset; for a start it took another five months to get the mast and spars sorted, but it was still a milestone and the fizz tasted good.  I think we all need to mark our achievements in some way, even if just to prove to ourselves and our friends that we really can see a project through.

January 2004, Maldon town quay.  Looking stressed because the crane was just about to pick ‘Torhilda’ up…

Eight tons of boat safely landed.  Do you think we had enough fenders out??

My first book launch was a huge buzz.  Being a niche market has its advantages – small fish, small pond, which means plenty of friendly faces and hopefully no sharks.  ’Go Sailing’ was launched at the 2005 Southampton Boat Show in style; local tv and radio, the Olympic team, lots of interviews and a queue of face painted children to sign copies for. Cakes, tea shirts, balloons and of course, fizz.  Isn’t it funny how half an hour of sheer pleasure can balance out a year or so of long solitary hours, frustration, struggle, endless editing and redrawing.

I couldn’t find any photos anywhere of the launch of Go Sailing, so this is the follow up, Go Cruising, September 2006.  Tom Cunliffe really is an impossibly tall person and yes, that cake was shaped like a boat.

Not all launches have gone quite to plan.  I’ll gloss over the one where a tv presenter was drafted in to present the book and did such a good job that my presence wasn’t needed at all – I had to elbow through the crowd to get my half glass of fizz.  Or the one at an outdoor event where it rained and all I remember is a lot of mud, a cup of lukewarm pimms and one book signed.

It doesn’t do to be precious about these things; life rarely turns out as expected.  If it did, there would be nothing interesting to blog about!

The reason launches are on my mind is that there’s a bit of a party for ‘Go Green’ next Saturday (5th March) at the Dinghy Show in London.  I know I’ve mentioned it already, but I’m hoping this is going to be one of the more enjoyable ones.  The RYA marketing team are rallying round, fizz  is promised, and at least there’s no mud in Ally Pally.  There will be hordes of over-excited children, cleverly orchestrated by the dulcet tones of presenter Tracy Clarke. Mike Golding, awesome sailor and staunch supporter of the Green Blue, will be on hand too.   There’s a rumour that Chris Packham, tv’s wildlife expert, may well be around during the day too. So if you’re going to the show, come and say hello.

If you had fizz every day, it would stop being special and high points in life are only high because of all the day to day stuff inbetween.  I’ll try and remember that when I’m knee deep in the next book and spend all my blog posts complaining about it!

So why don’t we play?  Perhaps as adults we’re expected to be competent, and we don’t like feeling silly.  Playing to learn can look silly, and it doesn’t always lead to perfect results.  We like to get things wrong in a discreet and dignified way.

I decided long ago that if I was afraid of looking silly, I’d never dare do anything at all.    But learning to play with silver is particularly challenging because I’m not used to messing with something that’s so expensive to waste!  I’m making progress, but the cost of silver is inhibiting and I’ve got a pot of failed unfired pieces to chop up and reconstitute if I can.

This was the result of playing with string, silicon, resin and silver clay.  Uncharted territory for me, so the first attempt failed but I was happier with this one.  It’s interesting to work with new materials, learning the craft (how to handle the materials) as well as the art (design elements).

Me, an artist?  Nah, I’m just playing at it!

Only three weeks to go until the Dinghy Show at Alexander Palace – always a nice family show.  There’s a bit of a party on to launch my book on the Saturday afternoon so I hope there’s a bottle or two of fizz involved.  The struggle of working all day every day on ‘Go Green’ seems a long time ago now, but the anticipation of that glass of fizz and a bit of a buzz kept me going when I was struggling with how to draw sea squirts and write about sea defences in a fun, fascinating way.

Hope to see you there!

There are also a couple of activity sheets I’ve done for the Wildlife Trust website.  The Trust have been good enough to recommend my ‘Go Green’ book and wanted to add to their range of children’s downloads to tie in with the marine conservation theme.  If there’s nothing on tv and you secretly still like colouring in, you can download them on http://wildlifewatch.org.uk/Wordsearches.  There’s nothing wrong with colouring in – I do it for a living!

The trouble with having lots of ideas on the go is that starting things is much easier than finishing them.  On the drawing board is a half finished painting of some blocks and deadeyes spotted at a recent visit to SS Great Britain – well worth a visit, if ever you’re in Bristol.  I loved the shapes, the colours and the spaces inbetween…..

I’ll try and remember to photo this when it’s finished.    Shouldn’t be painting watercolours really, as it’s hard to sell paintings at the moment, but sometimes I just really fancy it.  After a few weeks of drawing to commission, it’s nice just to splash a bit of paint around for fun.

At the laptop end of the table I’m playing with some writing projects, including my ongoing research of sea stories, currently the self imposed marooning of Alexander Selkirk.  I was reminded recently of the ‘three by three’ rule to summarise a story – I’ve come across it several times and it’s a good way to check if a story has a beginning, a middle and an end.  My challenge is to turn my collection  into proper ’stories’rather than simply narrative accounts of something that happened.   All you writers out there will have the three by three rule hot wired into your brains, but for the rest of you, take a story and reduce it to three statements of three words each.  It works with fiction (though you can try War & Peace if you’re feeling brave!) so I wanted to see if it works on my non-fiction….

Yes it does.  The story of Selkirk,  the ‘real’ Robinson Crusoe’ can be reduced to:

1.  Selkirk stays behind.

2.  Selkirk regrets it.

3. Selkirk gets rescued.

I like this – it works!   Let’s try it on Christopher Columbus:

1.  Columbus looks for China

2. Sailors nearly mutiny

3. Columbus finds Cuba

You get the drift.   Time to finish this post…… and I do need to practise finishing things.  Starting them is so much more fun.  If you don’t believe me, try it on a glass of wine!