Once upon a time, in a bar in Antigua, a man noticed that, every evening at 6 p.m., the bartender poured himself a measure of rum, muttered something and downed it in one gulp. Finally, he (Terry) asked the bartender (Mike) what he was doing.
Mike was ex-Royal Navy and he was maintaining a tradition which had actually been eliminated by the navy itself back in 1970. He was drinking his daily rum ration and toasting the Queen, God bless her. It was the beginning of great things. Today numbering some 500 members around the world, the Tot Club meets every day at one of two Antigua bars at 1800 hours to consume a half gill (pronounced like the woman's name, not like what fish have) or 1/8 of a pint of rum, preferably Pusser's Blue Label, which was the rum issued by the Royal Navy. A particularly virulent form of rum it is too.
Each day, each member pours their tot and takes a glass of water. The rum bosun (assigned each week) calls, "Clear your palates" and everyone takes a sip of water. (It is wise not to finish the glass as surviving the tot depends on getting a water chaser happening as soon as possible after.) Guests are then welcomed, announcements are made and there is the date's reading from This Day in Naval History. Then there is a toast, which varies depending on the day of the week but always ends with the lower deck's standing toast: To the Queen, God bless her.
In order to become a member, one must consume 7 tots in 14 days, read the Standard Operating Procedures, and, believe it or not, pass an oral examination. The examination material is drawn from the Tot Club crib sheet, given to initiates at their sixth tot. (I am pleased to announce that we were given ours at about our third tot. This is good since it is four single-spaced typed pages with a lot of dates. Lots and lots of dates.)
Some of the information was not completely clear to me so I have been surfing the Web to round out my knowledge of the battles of St. Vincent, Cape St. Vincent, Camperdown, Copenhagen, the Nile, the Glorious First and, of course, Trafalgar. I've pretty much mastered them...well, except for the damned dates.
The crib sheet also gives the officer's toasts (those that vary by day of the week) and the Queen one; the reasons for the existence of the Tot Club; what is meant by mismuster, black mass and fanny; and many other thrilling bits of trivia.
Last night we downed Tot 4. I have been receiving baby tots because I look like a lady...last night I foolishly wondered aloud why that might be. Mike gave me an evil look and measured me a full half gill of the deadly Pusser's Blue Label. We raised our glasses and, it being Thursday toasted: To a willing foe and sea room, and the Queen, God bless her! I threw back my tot and thought I would die. It was endless. I needed to come up for air but, more than that, I needed my water. Obviously I survived, but I think I'll shut up when they're pouring my tot from now on. If we pass the exam and become members, we are allowed to pour our own tot which can be "up to half a gill". One member who actually doesn't like rum just pours enough so it's visible. Sounds about right to me.
As members, we will be given t-shirts which, if worn to the Saturday muster, drop its price from $5 EC (Eastern Caribbean dollars or about $2 CDN) ot $3 EC (you do the math). We also earn the right to fly the white ensign of the Royal Navy from our starboard courtesy halyard.
The moneys collected pay for the rum and for various good works in the neighbourhood. The club has cleared a number of hiking trails in the area, one of which I hope we will walk today. And they provide entertainment and leisure activities for crew of any Royal Navy ship that might stray into the harbour.
All good fun and nicer bunch of sodden water rats may I never meet.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Getting Older
Monday was my birthday. We awoke to knocking on the hull. It was not a birthday telegram. It was in fact, one of our neighbours in their dinghy advising us that we were gently drifting into their zebra-striped vessel. They were extremely nice about it, particularly since their steel boat would have hurt Django a lot more than we'd have hurt her. We decided to go to the fuel dock for water and a few stores.
Boffo's outboard having all but packed it in, we left it to be repaired. Unfortunately, the chap we had been told about was away. We didn't realize it would be several days (Friday, in fact) before we could stop paddling. Island time. Don't ever have a deadline if you want to remain sane.
Back across the bay, we found a good spot, set the anchor and WW started work on sundry repairs. I donned snorkel, mask and flippers and went hull scraping.
Hull scraping is remarkably rewarding work when your boat has been sitting about for a while. Anything afloat is attractive to small things that grow...plants and animals alike. Once they've set up house, other things come along and feed off them, larger stuff grows. It all happens incredibly quickly. Hulls covered with crud slow a boat down, so crud must go. Armed with tough gloves (barnacles can slice you up badly) and a scraper, I went into deforestation mode. Plants up to eight inches long were anchored to her hull. The water was soon full of the displaced, homeless, rootless...and of fish who thought this was all pretty grand and what was I serving for dessert?
After an hour of hull scraping, I dressed for dinner, prepared our RPs after consumption of which we paddled ourselves to the nearest dock, then walked in to the Waterfront Bar for our first initiation tot. We'd been invited and agreed to become members of the Royal Navy Tot Club of Antigua and Barbuda.
Afterward, the day's travails having somewhat fatigued us, we went back to the pizzeria and had a delicious dinner. We were given a glass of pineapple rum (gross) in honour of my birthday. Sadly, we were simply unable to finish it.
Boffo's outboard having all but packed it in, we left it to be repaired. Unfortunately, the chap we had been told about was away. We didn't realize it would be several days (Friday, in fact) before we could stop paddling. Island time. Don't ever have a deadline if you want to remain sane.
Back across the bay, we found a good spot, set the anchor and WW started work on sundry repairs. I donned snorkel, mask and flippers and went hull scraping.
Hull scraping is remarkably rewarding work when your boat has been sitting about for a while. Anything afloat is attractive to small things that grow...plants and animals alike. Once they've set up house, other things come along and feed off them, larger stuff grows. It all happens incredibly quickly. Hulls covered with crud slow a boat down, so crud must go. Armed with tough gloves (barnacles can slice you up badly) and a scraper, I went into deforestation mode. Plants up to eight inches long were anchored to her hull. The water was soon full of the displaced, homeless, rootless...and of fish who thought this was all pretty grand and what was I serving for dessert?
After an hour of hull scraping, I dressed for dinner, prepared our RPs after consumption of which we paddled ourselves to the nearest dock, then walked in to the Waterfront Bar for our first initiation tot. We'd been invited and agreed to become members of the Royal Navy Tot Club of Antigua and Barbuda.
Afterward, the day's travails having somewhat fatigued us, we went back to the pizzeria and had a delicious dinner. We were given a glass of pineapple rum (gross) in honour of my birthday. Sadly, we were simply unable to finish it.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Return to Django
So here we are. I haven't posted since our arrival because it has been rather busy, but here's some of what's been going on.
We arose at 4 a.m. on Saturday, in Montreal and, 12 hours later, we were on the Nelson Dockyard pier being greeted by the amiable Terry who loaded us into his dinghy and ferried us over to Django. He cared for her in our absence and she looked remarkably well, snuggled into the mangroves with a litany of anchors to keep her safe.
Once on board, of course, we discovered all the stuff that needed to be fixed. We launched Boffo from the foredeck where she had been sheeted down to keep her safe in the event of a blow. As we had no gas for her outboard, we paddled her over to the refuelling dock, but everything was closed. WW called on his intrepid genes and loaded Lady (or Tramp) with a very small gas can and proceeded to kayak off into the distance. He reappeared soon after with a very small amount of gas. Still, more than enough till Monday when the shops would open. And plenty for establishing that Boffo's outboard was poorly -- coughing, wheezing, near-death experiences.
We had been invited to a meeting of the Royal Navy Tot Club of Antigua and Barbuda but, due to early boat prep and gasping outboard (and first mate's getting the time wrong) we were too late. We did however join the members still at the bar in Life Bar and Grill, just down the road. We left soon after for dinner at a very nice place called Trappa's where we had his and hers grouper (his: grilled, hers: fried). It is lovely to be back in the land of the grouper...an admirable fish!
Sunday morning we headed into English Harbour to see if we could pick up a few provisions. The off-season is still going, so we found things that will be open all the time all winter are still in a semi-dormant state. The grocery store will open on Sundays starting in a week's time. Naturally. We did stop in at a very typical tiny shop selling the essentials...bottled water, mayonnaise, a limited selection of fresh fruit (we got tomatoes, limes, grapefruit, bananas), and bags of in-the-shell roasted peanuts which turned out to be tiny and very delicious.
On our return to the boat, WW started rigging the jib. This always requires a bit of doing and redoing. It goes onto a furler so it has to be wound up and unwound and it is absolutely critical the he do some section of the work backwards. He really outdid himself in that we had the jib up and furled before he realized he had it reversed and we had to take the whole mess down and start over from scratch.
In other joyful news, the head is being a trial. It sits sullenly in its little compartment and suffers from a severe reflux condition. This has resulted in WW saying "feck" a lot and trying to think of ways to avoid taking the whole thing apart. His latest idea was to find a giant stopper and just cork the bugger. I said I was not looking forward to the midnight explosion that might result. He said, "Feck."
Tucked in among the mangroves is a very nice safe place to be during hurricane season, but it is hot, buggy and airless. It was time to move. Two of Django's anchors were so firmly embedded in the muck that we decided to put a buoy on their chains and come back for them later.
We headed across the harbour to a very nice anchorage with a good bottom. Now, just a few details about how our anchor works. It hangs from the middle of the bar that connects our two bows and its chain feeds back over the windlass, through a small hole, into the chain locker. By slacking off on the windlass, I can tip the anchor into the water and, in theory, the chain rattles out after it. Unless the chain has sat, moistly, rusting happily for several months. Then little nuggets of rusted-together links arrive at the small hole, grin impishly and have a little palaver. These need to be dealt with firmly. A hammer does wonders. However, it does slow the anchor dropping down, not to mention making a foul mess of the foredeck which gets coated with rust shards. So we drifted. The anchorage being somewhat crowded, this wasn't really good. So WW finally decided we should pull up our anchor and try again in a slightly different spot. As we weighed anchor and started to move to the new position, we heard frantic shouting and saw we had managed to pick up another boat's anchor chain and were pulling the boat along behind us. Fortunately, a fellow heading past in a dinghy stopped and cleared the foul, but not before the other boat had been dragged well out of its original position.
Blush.
We finally decided to cross to another anchorage with not so good a bottom. It took a couple of tries to get the anchor set but at last we could relax, have a nice RP and head over to Life for our first ever tot with the Tot Club. (Don't worry, I'll be providing details later.)
We dined at a truly wonderful pizzeria, complete with wood-burning oven. Thin crusts, yummy choices and excellent spicy oil. Then it was back to Django to collapse in preparation for exigencies yet to come.
We arose at 4 a.m. on Saturday, in Montreal and, 12 hours later, we were on the Nelson Dockyard pier being greeted by the amiable Terry who loaded us into his dinghy and ferried us over to Django. He cared for her in our absence and she looked remarkably well, snuggled into the mangroves with a litany of anchors to keep her safe.
Once on board, of course, we discovered all the stuff that needed to be fixed. We launched Boffo from the foredeck where she had been sheeted down to keep her safe in the event of a blow. As we had no gas for her outboard, we paddled her over to the refuelling dock, but everything was closed. WW called on his intrepid genes and loaded Lady (or Tramp) with a very small gas can and proceeded to kayak off into the distance. He reappeared soon after with a very small amount of gas. Still, more than enough till Monday when the shops would open. And plenty for establishing that Boffo's outboard was poorly -- coughing, wheezing, near-death experiences.
We had been invited to a meeting of the Royal Navy Tot Club of Antigua and Barbuda but, due to early boat prep and gasping outboard (and first mate's getting the time wrong) we were too late. We did however join the members still at the bar in Life Bar and Grill, just down the road. We left soon after for dinner at a very nice place called Trappa's where we had his and hers grouper (his: grilled, hers: fried). It is lovely to be back in the land of the grouper...an admirable fish!
Sunday morning we headed into English Harbour to see if we could pick up a few provisions. The off-season is still going, so we found things that will be open all the time all winter are still in a semi-dormant state. The grocery store will open on Sundays starting in a week's time. Naturally. We did stop in at a very typical tiny shop selling the essentials...bottled water, mayonnaise, a limited selection of fresh fruit (we got tomatoes, limes, grapefruit, bananas), and bags of in-the-shell roasted peanuts which turned out to be tiny and very delicious.
On our return to the boat, WW started rigging the jib. This always requires a bit of doing and redoing. It goes onto a furler so it has to be wound up and unwound and it is absolutely critical the he do some section of the work backwards. He really outdid himself in that we had the jib up and furled before he realized he had it reversed and we had to take the whole mess down and start over from scratch.
In other joyful news, the head is being a trial. It sits sullenly in its little compartment and suffers from a severe reflux condition. This has resulted in WW saying "feck" a lot and trying to think of ways to avoid taking the whole thing apart. His latest idea was to find a giant stopper and just cork the bugger. I said I was not looking forward to the midnight explosion that might result. He said, "Feck."
Tucked in among the mangroves is a very nice safe place to be during hurricane season, but it is hot, buggy and airless. It was time to move. Two of Django's anchors were so firmly embedded in the muck that we decided to put a buoy on their chains and come back for them later.
We headed across the harbour to a very nice anchorage with a good bottom. Now, just a few details about how our anchor works. It hangs from the middle of the bar that connects our two bows and its chain feeds back over the windlass, through a small hole, into the chain locker. By slacking off on the windlass, I can tip the anchor into the water and, in theory, the chain rattles out after it. Unless the chain has sat, moistly, rusting happily for several months. Then little nuggets of rusted-together links arrive at the small hole, grin impishly and have a little palaver. These need to be dealt with firmly. A hammer does wonders. However, it does slow the anchor dropping down, not to mention making a foul mess of the foredeck which gets coated with rust shards. So we drifted. The anchorage being somewhat crowded, this wasn't really good. So WW finally decided we should pull up our anchor and try again in a slightly different spot. As we weighed anchor and started to move to the new position, we heard frantic shouting and saw we had managed to pick up another boat's anchor chain and were pulling the boat along behind us. Fortunately, a fellow heading past in a dinghy stopped and cleared the foul, but not before the other boat had been dragged well out of its original position.
Blush.
We finally decided to cross to another anchorage with not so good a bottom. It took a couple of tries to get the anchor set but at last we could relax, have a nice RP and head over to Life for our first ever tot with the Tot Club. (Don't worry, I'll be providing details later.)
We dined at a truly wonderful pizzeria, complete with wood-burning oven. Thin crusts, yummy choices and excellent spicy oil. Then it was back to Django to collapse in preparation for exigencies yet to come.
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