Mouth of the Dart
A friend recently pointed out an annoying habit many people have of starting their sentences with the word “So”. He’s right. It’s odd how things like this catch on so quickly and I blame it on The Internet in the same way as my parents blamed everything on all those atom bombs they kept letting off.
So, I did Dartmouth Week regatta last week. Boat towed down on Monday. Cork 1720. Test run Tuesday. Gale and torrential rain on Wednesday so skipped the Brixham passage race. Instead two of us rose early and walked through the rain to the boat getting thoroughly saturated then spent hours with clothes in front of heaters trying to dry out. Ah, Summertime in England.
For lunch, to a pub named The Cherub. Old. Tudor. Flowers. Two pints of “Yotter” and a baked potato with cheese. After; home for a snooze then out again for more beer and dinner before bed. My type of day really.
Lancaster over Dartmouth
Raced for the rest of the week. First race we led our class for a bit then jinxed it by considering crossing the finish line first before we’d even hit the first mark. This set the trend. Optimistic starts followed by reasonably skilled sailing then awful cockups before becoming resigned to coming in well down but having had a great day and only hit one other boat. Good to hit one boat on the first day, we reasoned, to make sure the rest of them stay clear. Sportsboat class taken by a J70. New J-Boat with a lifting keel. Evenings spent consuming pints of bitter and watching loud air displays. No British celebration complete without a war reference so a Lancaster, a Hurricane and a Spitfire. Then, next day, the Red Arrows. Prefer Dartmouth to Cowes these days as cheaper, fewer tossers and less crowded so possible to get into the pubs and restaurants. Dartmouth is also a great natural harbour. A smallish river but just round the corner and you’re out into open sea. Great castle like structures at the entrance to the river too.
Jenga 8 – (J70)
Fantastic Art Photography
Art Photography
Tis but an infinite stroke of eternity’s brush, this stretch of beach, this stick of Thai and thy, m’dear
Tags: #crowdedworld, crowded world, Fat Freddy's Cat, Freak Brothers, globalisation, Ko Phi Phi, Paradise, Phineas Phreak, Thailand, Travel
Sta Travel
Travel broadens the mind. Travel is good. I love travel. There is nothing like that feeling you get when you arrive in a new city on the other side of the world. Everyone should travel.
But…….is it too easy these days?
I saw this travel shop in North Street, Brighton. The picture is of Ko Phi Phi, an island off the coast of Thailand. Ko Phi Phi has to be very close to paradise yet now we can gawp at it as we trudge through the sludge of an English winter. We can enter the shop, buy a ticket and queue up along with thousands of others to sit alone on the top of the hill and gaze out at this natural wonder.
Elan Adventurer, Ko Phi Phi, 1991
I visited Ko Phi Phi in 1991 when I arrived as part of the Europa 92 round the world yacht rally. I was asleep in my bunk when we arrived and was awoken by what I assumed was a tractor engine. I imagined we’d arrived in some horrendous industrial port but when I popped up my head I saw this fantastic tropical island. The noise was from the enormous engines that the locals attached to their canoes. Later, I was chatting to an English sales rep from a marine engine company. He told me that they sold the engines with silencers but that the Thai’s removed them as they loved the noise.
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The kids would run up and hang off the side of the local canoes.
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Does anyone remember the The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers?
There was a story where, I think it was Phineas, liked to go hiking on his own and commune with nature. He discovered a wonderful patch of Marijuana and he would sit there crossed legged, smoking a joint and watching the sun set.
Then, one day as he arrived he saw 3 other lone hikers all approaching from different directions. Each had thought that he alone knew of the secret marijuana patch. They all ran for the marijuana and grabbed a much of it as they could and ran off. And the last line of the story is “…and that was the end of the secret marijuana patch”.
One of the Fat Freddy Cat stories is also apposite. As Fat Freddy says: ‘Tis but an infinite stroke of eternity’s brush this stretch of beach, this stick of Thai and they, m’dear!
One Fine Day At The Beach
St Malo Beach
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