I think it’s safe to say that adventures of the more daring kind are often hatched during enthusiastic exchanges fuelled by the romantic powers of the wine bottle. This little sojourn was no different.
A drunken sailor is part of folklore and on this particular night, I was a born-again landlubber turned pirate encouraged by the delights of the fermented grape.
Why did I say yes? You may well ask. But say Yes I did, and it began a journey that I will recount over the coming weeks. A journey that began in a conversation with a few friends.
Although the Wanderlust II crossed the Atlantic in 1984, this account essentially deals with its passage through the canals in France en route to the Mediterranean. However, a brief history is needed to familiarise the reader with how the yacht came to be in Paris.
When John, the owner of Wanderlust II, a 40 foot Morgan Out-Islander, planned to sail his yacht from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, across the Atlantic to England, I was chosen as a crew member because of my experience in matters mechanical, ocean sailing, cooking and general bon vivant.
Much hype had been "leaked" to the media of this ‘daring' adventure, which, to the uninformed journalists, were necessarily paralleled to the perils of a Kon-Tiki expedition. However, matters of radar, satellite navigation, refrigeration, air-conditioning, movies and other on-board luxuries installed on the Wanderlust II were omitted before the media hustlers.
On the 2nd of June, a crew of five, three of whom I had met on one occasion only in a Montreal bar two weeks before, preceded the owner to Florida to prepare the yacht.
Gabby, a restaurateur and a seasoned sailor, was to make the Bermuda leg. Steve and Janice, a brother and sister team with navigation and racing experience were to do the entire voyage. Pierre, a university student with no sailing experience who quit in Bermuda unable to tolerate the brother and sister team. Myself, who left the yacht in the Portuguese Azores after six weeks and John who, of course, captained the entire journey.
John had assured us, rather volubly, that goodly sums of money had put his yacht in a fine state of sea-worthiness and there would be little else to do but provision and refuel her.
Given that knowledge, I was mightily surprised when I first saw Wanderlust II in a Fort Lauderdale canal. She lay with all the grief of a pirate's wreck, keeled over and sitting on the bottom in about five feet of water for she had sunk.
All batteries were dead; the forward cabin was jammed to the deck with surfboards, sailboards, diving equipment, a vacuum cleaner and, it seemed, a lifetime collection of everything else. The galley was a mess of rotting fruit with an attendant swarm of winged beasts.
John's last minute change of plan to arrive a few days later than us became understandable, to my mind, at least.
Twelve months after Wanderlust ll’s arrival in England, both masts were removed, secured along the deck and the hard work commenced. None of which required my Bon Vivant, so I returned to Montreal.
Finally, the yacht motored across the English Channel to France. Canal travel requires the masts to be down as the many road bridges leave scant clearance between boat and bridge.
Wanderlust II's berth for the next year was beside the Bastille in Paris where it became the floating residence of John's friend Adrian and other friends who visited Paris.
I arrived in Paris in early May and found the yacht among the many berths in the Canal St. Martin. This was in preparation for the canal journey as there was a reported " minor" problem with the yacht's engine.
It was there I learned from John that during the previous summer, somebody had accidentally (it always is) filled the diesel fuel tank with about 600 litres of water. This was discovered when the motor conked out in the middle of the river Seine while entertaining visiting Canadians on a balmy Sunday afternoon.
As it happened, the water had contaminated the entire fuel system including all the buffer filters and separators and made its way into the fuel pump, fuel distributor and finally the injectors where it sat for the better part of a year working its very expensive corrosion.
The damage was extensive and the pump had to be rebuilt. After checking Paris prices it proved cheaper and faster to undertake this in Montreal.
I returned to France a week later, cleaned the tanks, fitted the pump and made ready for our journey to the South of France via the network of inland waterways.
The Atlantic crossing that followed was a story unto itself and certainly not without event. However, that's another story for another time.
Join me for Part 2 next week.
Chaucer
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