The Adventures of Old Bean

The Adventure Begins

2009-10-20T13:20:00.000-07:00

And to think that it all happened because I decided to ask one more time...

7th December 2007

Well much has changed! I am now aboard the Soren Larsen which is very exciting. I never thought that they would say yes! Pity I just spent $5,500 on a car! Not to worry - who cares? I was ecstatic when they said thatI could volunteer for a bit - then thought - 'Shit what am I letting myself in for?'

The first day was certainly pretty strange. The new crew started about two weeks ago and have already gelled and I do feel like an outsider. I know that after a few days I will get to know everyone but just at the minute I have nothing to say to any of them! I find myself grinning and nodding all the time...'Alright?'...then grin a bit more - all the time thinking 'Do they think I am a grinning idiot?'

There was a Fo'csle party (That's the cupboard in the bow of the ship where all the crew sleep) - well I was just kind of there. It was a bit awkward but I thought to myself 'Just stay where you are Old Beaneo - better let people get used to seeing you.'

This is a very mixed bunch of people. some very friendly, others a bit more reserved. I get the sense that this sort of life suits very unconventional people - well I should fit in OK! We certainly look pretty shabby compared to 'Spirit of New Zealand' which is moored up just aft. A rag tag bunch of scruffs - much nicer!

.....Later on that day.....middle of the night

We just finished an evening charter - my first time at sea on Soren. We had to take turns on the helm, running the bar, galley duties, bow watch and - yes the delightful task of showing people how to use the heads, and then clean up when they forget how to use them...nice!

When we came back onto the pontoon, I had to throw the heaving line in front of loads of people. The last time I attempted the task when I was working for the council, I managed to throw the line directly behind me somehow - so in front of all those people my heart was in my mouth. I had been practising at lunch time and so when the moment came I swung with all my might and it just made it, clinging to the edge of the jetty. Phew - I was pretty pleased with that!

I am on watch now from 1am - 3am - which is dragging a bit to be honest. I have to 'maintain a presence on deck', which I do by tucking one arm inside my jumper and strutting up and down like Nelson, then I whip off and check the mooring lines. I also have to go below and check for odd smells - of which there are plenty.

All Aboard!

2009-10-10T08:47:00.000-07:00

They do say that the closer you get to giving up, the nearer you are to achieving your goal. Personally I have never gone in for Americanised wishy washy drivel like that. 'I feel your pain'...etc. Feel my pain; humph how about a thump in the face? - That's pain.

I remember once, some lifeguard mates, my brother and I had decided to run from Dawlish Warren to Dawlish and then swim back - a couple of miles. As we jogged barefoot along the sea wall in half unravelled wetsuits, we hooted with laughter as we tried to out do each other with cheesy quotations to describe our brave endeavour.

'A life not tried is a life not lived!' cried one.

We all snorted derisively.

'A ship is safe in harbour, yet a ship is built to be sailed,' came another.

Ha!

What a load of old nonsense.

Well anyway there is a point to this.

I tried several times to ring the Soren Larsen office to see whether there was a chance that I could volunteer to work on the ship. They always seemed too busy to speak to me properly. There was something about being caught up with repairs to the rudder but it sounded to me like the brush off.

I almost got on a bus heading north to Paihia - I have no idea why but everyone else at the hostel seemed to be doing that. Almost - but at the last minute I thought 'No, I'll give Soren Larsen one more try.'

I spoke to Steve the owner and before he could repeat that he was busy suggested that I could come down to the ship next time he was there. He wearily agreed. Actually Steve always sounds weary - softly spoken and unhurried, slighly hypnotic even. Don't be fooled. This is a man who considers carefully every word that comes out of his mouth, mulling it over to make sure it tastes right before letting it out.

Still - daft enough once you get to know him!

I wandered along the quay as Steve drew up in his metallic green Ute and nervously introduced myself.

'You've got five minutes to convince me.' He said in his quiet Auzzie drawl and opening the back of the truck, leant in and straightening, handed me a box. Looking behind me I could see that a human chain had arrived to ferry supplies into the ship. I handed boxes of wine to a scrawny, brown, bearded chap with tattoos up his arms and straggly blond hair (bleached I believe Old Bean ;-)), and tried to convince Steve to give me a job.

I sounded unconvincing to my own ears, yet I talked myself into a tour of the ship and a brief audience with Captain George. Steve and George looked through my sheaf of references in silence as I fretted and fidgeted. When you are not a sailor and surrounded by sailors, how do you arrange your limbs? My instinct would be to lean on something - but how do you know whether the thing you lean on is the right thing to lean on? What if it isn't? What if by leaning on that thing you move something you shouldn't and at best reveal what an ignorant land lubber you are and at worst - kill someone!

Finally Steve asked George if he would be happy to have me aboard for a few days. George , shrugging, agreed. There was plenty of work to do and they could always do with another pair of hands. I was stunned. I never thought that they would say yes....shit - what was I letting myself in for.

I was told that I could move my kit in on the Thursday.

'Now this,' I thought to myself as I stumbled back up the ramp to the wharf, 'is more like it!'

Slacker!

2009-10-07T07:32:00.000-07:00

Sorry for being slack and not putting on more posts but I have just started an MA in Multimedia Broadcast Journalism down in Falmouth. Don't worry though, there will be more posts in the next few days.

Wanderer

2009-09-25T10:58:00.000-07:00

I have never known what to do. As a school kid trying to decide which GCSE subjects to take, I opted for the biggest range I could - 'Keeping my options open' - and that is exactly what I have continued to do. The more you go on in life though, the more this addiction to procrastination becomes a problem. Other people begin to make your mind up for you by closing the door on you.

So for me the key to the 'Why?' of being in New Zealand lay in seizing a rare chance to be different. To not hang back trying to make up my mind but to leap forward and go for things! As we shall see - I faff around as much now as I ever did. Leopards don't change their spots after all - however, by just occasionally acting out of character you can direct your life's flow down some pretty cool rapids.

28th November

It was really hot today. Honestly you can't go outside without slapping on trowel loads of sun block otherwise your skin burns in seconds. I was wandering along the water front in Auckland - I say wandering, marching. Its massive. I made it all the way to Mission Bay which is three or four miles from Queen Street - Auckland's main shopping street.

I have made friends with some of the people in the hostel. A few of us have been down to the library this morning to register for a free internet account. How exciting - here we are on the other side of the world for an adventure of a lifetime - and all that we can think of doing is emailing our friends and relations back home. Ha! That's living the dream!

The girl in my dorm room thinks that she has bed bugs! Great. I'm steering clear of her. I do wonder though how holding my breath whenever I walk past her is really going to help...

I wouldn't mind doing some sailing. There are more boats here than you can shake a stick at. Last year I went on a Tall Ship for a week - it was brilliant thanks again to the Poles - there are a couple of traditional ships down in the harbour basin in town. Spirit of New Zealand and one other called Soren Larsen - white but a bit knackered looking - like a slightly faded Jaguar XJS - seen a fair few owners and a hell of a lot of miles - but there's still a gleam about it - that of a car born to race - or a ship to cruise the Ocean perhaps - I liked her I could see right into the deck from where I was standing. Some of the crew - a right rabble with nothing on their feet - some covered from head to toe in tattoos were smoking and laughing and lounging around drinking tea and listening to some very funky music. The maritime museum also has a ship - although it's pretty ugly looking. A scow it's called - flat bottomed for landing on beaches - I went out on it for an hour long trip and got talking to the skipper. He let me steer for a bit and then afterwards let me help move another of the museum's boats 'Breeze', from one pontoon to another which was cool. I have some forms to fill in to be a volunteer at the museum. I also went into the offices of the Spirit of New Zealand - it's a sail training ship for the youth of New Zealand. The woman was not particularly helpful - she made me feel a bit like an unwanted immigrant which perhaps I am...

This evening I rang up the number for the Soren Larsen on the off chance there was still someone there. I spoke to a chap called Ian - he seemed quite friendly although he didn't hold out much hope. He said that they already have a full crew - but he would look at my CV if I sent it in. I have their email address but I can't send it at the minute because the hostel computer is being hogged by a German girl using Skype - do all Germans talk so loud?

Why the Hell am I here?

2009-09-24T06:11:00.000-07:00

Here is the first entry from my diary.

21st November 2007

Well Hello. What to say, what to say? Errr, I am in New Zealand. Not too sure what for or why. I changed my mind about coming here about fifty times and drove most of my friends insane - discussing my dilemma with them. Should I bother to come or not? In the end I decided that I might as well. Not an auspicious start.

I am not even that fussed about travelling – what do I want to go travelling for? I think perhaps that seeing as I am here I ought to – might as well, but couldn’t give a stuff really. How ridiculous!

The last few months are a bit of a haze really. I hated my job for so long – I sat in an office surrounded by these people who were my colleagues and spent more time with them than anyone else. I liked them as it happens but may not have had that much in common with many of them, yet I sat there day after day. My precious life tick-tocking away.

You become accustomed to your lot I suppose. There is comfort in the routine of a dead end job and as days turn into weeks and the weeks into months -whole years go by. After a time, the outside world begins to look pretty scary. Stay as you are and you don’t have to try anything too new – don’t have to risk anything, you can’t fail...even though you can’t succeed either. But it’s no good is it?

Once a year I would take boxes of paper work to the archiving room. I used to put hand written notes in the top of each one – I can’t remember exactly what I wrote but it went something like this:

If you have opened this box then you must have a shitty boring job.
Take my advice and drop whatever bundle of paper you have in your hand
And run. RUN FROM THIS PLACE!
AND NEVER COME BACK!
Alas for those who have gone before you, it is too late.
For you there is still time. Act now. For the love of God...GO!

Finally I took my own advice. It is easy really. You just write a quick note to the effect that you are leaving, hand it in, wait 28 days and BOOM! You are out of there and into the big wide world – or in my case to City Garden Lodge, Auckland, NZ. A traveller who can’t be arsed!
It’s quite nice here I suppose. The weather is good, the birds in the trees sound different so it feels pretty exotic! The hostel is OK I guess – how the hell would I know? It is a bit ‘New Age’ here. There is a yoga tent in the garden. Perhaps I should do a spot of yoga tomorrow...the yogi is a weird little Chilean chap who has by all accounts a large aura! Well! He looks like a small but very keen dog with a tail that is intended to be bushy but came out a bit straggly.
There is also some sort of shrine in the garden – Buddhist? And something to do with the Mayan calendar is written on the white board in the dining room. It reads ‘Yellow electric human’. What the fuck does that mean?!

Like the salmon

2009-09-21T08:22:00.000-07:00

Absolutely knackered.

Saturday was the Dawlish Warren Lifesaving Club sponsored swim from Teignmouth to Dawlish Warren - five miles.

Everyone did really well. Fishcake, Gareth and I did the whole thing. Fishcake and I were swimming for 3 hrs 16 minutes - Gareth for 5 hours. Everyone else did the course as a relay and pulled off some pretty good swims too. We hardly did anything yesterday - just looked for crabs and then cooked and ate them - well I cooked them and picked them and then the others ate them!

I feel even more clapped out today - some clever person will no doubt know why that is - why would you be sorer and more weary two days after a massive amount of exercise that the day after? I can barely control my own fingers as I type this.

I also have a massive wet suit rub on my neck. I look like I made a botched suicide attempt.

Anyway this blog was supposed to be about going to New Zealand...

Take my advice. Long haul air travel is bad enough without adding to the discomfort by trying not to fart. You can't not pass wind for twenty four hours - t'aint natural....as I discovered.

I fell asleep and then farted so deeply and so loudly that not only did I wake myself up but also everyone around me. Best off reassuring yourself that all airline seats have carbon filters fitted as standard and fart at will really...

Rescue, Rescue, Rescue

2009-09-18T05:22:00.000-07:00

What a load of bollocks me saying that this is the safest beach in the world.

Five minutes after I wrote that last post my mate Fishcake and I had to go and rescue two people who got into serious difficulties - and they were nice people and not even fat...

We have had waves at Warren for the last week and a couple were messing around on a double kayak thing. They fell off and were swiftly washed out to sea. Sarah, who works for the council happened to be out surfing during her lunch hour, managed get them to the life saving club training buoy - about 200 metres off the beach, leaving them clinging to it while she went to get help.

Fishcake and I saw the Coastguard truck appear and went to investigate. The couple were hanging onto the buoy and large waves were bursting over their heads. We ran for our rescue boards.

We blasted our way out through the surf, loaded the people onto the front of our boards and then paddled out to sea, away from the breaking waves and there waited for the lifeboat to turn up - which it did a few minutes later. The inshore lifeboat took them back to the beach where we met them and having made sure that the poeple we rescued were physically OK - we took them to the Club House and made them a cup of tea.

That's the thing about lifeguarding - you can do nothing for weeks then suddenly it all happens and you have to react like greased lightening - which is why we are always training.

And another thing - we are not RNLI lifeguards - we are Dawlish Warren Life Saving Club guards - we are always here even in the middle of winter. We don't have the flashy kit that the paid guards have, or the well oiled publicity machine that provides a fanfare for every action performed - we've got good skills that we pass on - and that is all you really need isn't it?

Check out our website. www.dwlsc.co.uk

Saviours of the Surf!

2009-09-17T04:42:00.000-07:00

Dawlish Warren is a must visit destination for fat people and scum - they wonder around the place every summer - the men shirtless, covered in tattoos - Tattoos are great but not theirs. Why do people insist on tattooing the names of their children along their fore arms - is it because they are too thick to remember who their equally fat offspring are?

The women wallow along in tight tops with slogans like 'Bitch' or 'You wish', their flabby dewlaps forcing the stretched material up to reveal acres of wobbling lard filled flesh and they sway as they waddle, their inner thighs rubbing together. They adorn their bodies with bright belly button rings and they wear thongs - THONGS! Like a cheese wire through a beach ball sized lump of edam. As they make their slow meandering progress towards the builders' rubble that passes for 'Golden Sands' here at the Warren, they graze on chips and slurp diet coke, belching loudly and yelling obsenities at their revolting children.

Us lifeguards sit in the tiny cramped tower and wait for them to attempt to drown as they enter the sea fully clothed, or to flake out with heart failure as they consume one burger too many. Its a tough job, why the hell do we do it?

The clientelle not withstanding, the Warren is probably the safest beach in the world. You'd really have to march up to the far end of the beach to where the sand spit meets the estuary and the currents are strong to be in any danger - and lets face it most of our bathers would either expire or get lost long before then. There are occasional rescues to do but most of the day is taken up with applying plasters and trying to find lost children or lost parents. Glamourous it is not...but it is fun.

If you like drinking tea, eating ginger biscuits and thinking up bizarre challanges to keep you occupied then perhaps lifeguarding could be for you.

Still there is Dawlish Warren Life Saving Club - a collection of wonderfully insane people, united by a love of salt water and always willing to help out.

Got to go chaps - more about this later...

Poles Apart

2009-09-16T04:49:00.001-07:00

A word about the Poles.

I owe it all to them. They paid my mortgage for me while I sold my flat and then they bought my plan ticket.

It all happened because I happened to be in the boozer one night and Chris the then assistant manager mentioned that there was a problem finding accommodation for the twenty or so Polish students that would be arriving to work at the Pub and it's surrounding enterprises, over the summer. A quick bit of mental arithmatic had me perspiring with greed. Money, money, money! I licked my lips and thought hard.

'No problem', said I , 'I'll have some' - and so I did.

The first two to arrive - Monica and Sylvia, wore bikinis on their days off and matching pyjama hot pants every evening. When the others arrived I was as reluctant to leave this visual feast as a bearded traveller squatting in the mock tudor home of an M&S executive. Finally, I was forced to evict myself, wailing into the street.

I spent the summer living in the back of my ex Post Office van and gleefully collecting the rent.

The next year, they came back and brought some of their friends - which was cool because they were really nice guys. The only thing was that I was having a bit of van trouble. The clutch mechanism kept spewing its guts all over the road. As I was driving to the bus station to pick them up, there was a crunch from somewhere below the gearstick and - I was stuck thereafter in second gear.

I could see a certain apprehension in the faces of these new Polish girls, as I led them from the bus station to my seedy, clapped out old van. There they exchanged confused glances. Was this safe? And who was I any way? I shut them in, having to slam the door twice to get it to shut, and they frowned. Then I bump started 'the beast' and trundled off, reving away in second gear. It was horrible. Ten miles in second gear, trying to placate four increasingly panic stricken girls.

'M'am Na' eemia Robin!' I kept yelling above the screech of the engine.

The vibrating air was full of diesel fumes and terror as I nodded and smiled ....like a people trafficer about to sell them into prositution.

Then the engine overheated and I was forced to stop while it cooled down. I was sweating by now as we sat, the hideously awkward silence broken only by the cracking and tinking of the knackered motor. One of the girls rummaged in her bag. Was she reaching for a rape alarm? Oh Fuck!

Half an hour later I delivered the girls, pale and shaking into the arms of their mates and beat a hasty retreat.

They would become friends - but they didn't know it then. They would invite me to dinner, an invitation that I eagerly accepted. What Polish fare I wondered would there be?

I turned up starving, and found three of them gathered around the toaster - cooking my dinner. Two slices of white bread with salmon paste - and a vat of Polish Vodka. That is why in the dead of night as I lay 20 yards from the Amusement Arcade - I never heard a ram raid and the theft of an entire cash machine - the Police didn't look like they believed me...

The Gathering Storm

2009-09-15T05:05:00.000-07:00

It would be easy to rant on about how much I hated my boss and rave about what tools my colleagues were - but I didn't and they weren't.

We were just a bunch of people sharing a ridiculously cramped and stuffy office. We got on pretty well most of the time. There were fights and moans, rivalries and bad tempers - but there were also some hilarious discussions, mostly - if my boss was around - about toilets and filth.

You can always laugh about poo - it unites us all. Imagine if politicians adopted it as a strategy for peace talks. 'The leaders of Israel and Palestine unable to agree a deal 'Stooled for time'...'

Anyway as computer jobs go it wasn't bad - it was terrible and I hated it!

Finally after six long years I began to realise that perhaps I was in the wrong job. Then one of my colleagues kept banging her leg on the corner of my desk as she walked to the photocopier. The idea was mooted that I should turn my desk around so that it faced the wall rather than looking out accross the room towards the window and escape. The thought of having to go through the next thirty years not only being bored shitless, but also having nothing to stare longingly at than the wall - made me sick.

And everyone can see when you are messing about on the internet instead of working...

So I refused - and the more I refused the more I was told to do as I was told - which I have never liked.

It happened that I went to see the doctor about a blinding pulsating pain behind my left eyeball. He told me that I had 'Stress' and speaking in the kind gentle voice that you would use when stroking the long velvety ears of a nervous rabbit, he explained that I needed 'Counciling to address my work related issues'.

'Fuck Off!' I cried my nostrils aquiver.

I had no need for counselling - the fogginess cleared. No, what I needed was a flow chart.

That very night I went down to Dawlish Warren Life saving Club, in whose club house I was camping on account of having rented my flat out to Polish immigrants. There we have a huge white board and on that board I plotted my destiny in blue ink.

It is easy really - if you can't decide what to do use a white board. You put down all the possible decisions you can make and all the various possible consequences of those possible decisions and then rub out the ones you don't want - Hey Presto! You have made some big decisions very quickly.

I followed up with a 'SWOT' analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) for good measure and somehow came up with this:

Leave your job
Sell everything
Go to New Zealand

The very next day I handed in my notice and the headache cleared up - I was off to New Zealand and the flat was, after a bit of a quandry as to whether to rent it out or flog it - up for sale.

So I knew what I was about - I was off down under - but first I got pissed quite a lot, managed not to hear the amusement arcade next door being broken into and the whole cash machine removed - thanks to an overdose of Polish Vodka and worked on the beach for the summer lifeguarding - and that is where I will start my story...

So what is this all about then?

2009-09-14T08:15:00.000-07:00

This is the tale of how I chucked it all in, sold virtually all my belongings including my home and went to New Zealand. It is the story of how I ended up a sailer on a Nineteenth Century Rigged Tall ship and Sailed across the Southern Ocean and then into the Tropics. Its crazy - sometimes I find it hard to believe myself.

For a lot of the time that I was at sea, I was away from all means of communication so this story is not told in 'Real time'. I kept diaries all the way through my adventures and it is upon these that story to follow is based.

It all began when my boss told me to turn my desk around so that it faced the wall. And I wouldn't do it!

What was to follow was the greatest adventure of my life - the most testing, the most bone numbingly scary experience imaginable. The abyss that is the southern Ocean in all its Terror and Spendor lay in wait, but I did not know it then...I was just an office boy with soft hands and dreams of freedom.

Resign - Go on you know you want to!

2009-09-12T02:46:00.000-07:00

Well maybe you don't want to. Fair enough.

This Blog is for people who might want to tell their boss to get stuffed, or who might just want to day dream about sliding their chair back, standing up and walking out, or putting their tools down and sodding off.

This is what happened to me when I did just that.

Loads of people leave their jobs - that is just the first step. It is what happens next that is the important thing. Does the world stop turning just because you the worm have turned? No it does not.

Read on and see what happened to this worm...