“Watch out down below…..tacking” came booming down the companionway, prompting me to grab all the charts, pencils, plotters and dividers I’d been using and vainly try to hang onto them while the boat lurched from a port to a starboard tack – an incline change down below of what felt like 40 degrees. One minute all I could see blue sky and fluffy clouds out of the porthole while the next it was full-on sea horses on a rolling, boiling sea and the stove on its gimbals was at yet another crazy angle. This was becoming the norm on this particular leg of the journey where we were fielding gusts of up to 30 knots and, despite 3 reefs in the Main, we were racing along at 7 knots. Once I’d retrieved the items that had inevitably escaped, I got back to work on my course to steer, as the boat still needed one despite the ridiculous angle of the nav station. Why not use a GPS? Well, that would be too easy and wouldn’t teach us how to revert to the “old fashioned” way of doing things in the event of equipment failure – I was here to learn and that I was certainly doing!

And just what was I learning?! Well, halfway through my big European road trip, I had decided to spend a couple of months doing something that had always been on my bucket list – a Yachtmaster’s course. Not only did I want to become a better sailor, but with the aviation industry in shreds due to the pandemic, it seemed like a good time to get requalified in a different industry…….particularly as I had seen how my daughter had managed to land such a plum job on a Superyacht for the summer (see jobseeking). Of course, the day I booked the course up was the exact same day that Virgin called me back to work – you couldn’t make it up! Fortunately, they gave me a couple of months notice which was exactly what I needed to make it happen.

I chose to do the course in Gibraltar for a number of reasons – it’s tidal, has generally good weather, has a high shipping density due to the Straits of Gibraltar giving plenty of experience……and is also somewhere I’d never been! I found an excellent RYA school there called Allabroad who were very helpful in tailoring the course to my requirements – fortunately, my time on the water meant that I didn’t have to do the full 15 weeks, but could complete it in under half that time. For the first week, I was still living in Gloria with the “Waterboys” (see waterboys) and we had the extraordinary experience of biking over the runway to Gibraltar morning and evening as the (excellent!) motorhome parking was in a marina in the Spanish town of La Linea…..talk about combining my three loves of aviation, sailing and road tripping all in one week!

This first week was for our Commercial endorsement and entailed exploits such as climbing into a dinghy sporting an enormous immersion suit in a freezing cold salt water pool at night. Then there was a packed day fighting full-blown fires in a rig whilst wearing proper breathing apparatus at Gibraltar airport along with learning how to roll out and attach the huge hoses. In comparison, the First Aid and safety training, along with the Human Factors training sounds tame, but it was just as valuable. This was similar to training that I complete annually with the airline but with a different focus and it was good to see how the safety training compared.

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Following this was a week of sail training mainly within the Bay, but with one trip further afield to Ceuta – a city on the continent of Africa but still part of Spain. It is also the southern “Pillar of Hercules” (Gibraltar being the northern one) and has a fascinating and convoluted history, so was really worth seeing.

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After my week on the water, I then had a couple of weeks off to plough through the online Yachtmaster Theory course – there was a huge amount to absorb if I was going to stand a chance of passing my test at the end, so I parked Gloria on a deserted beach in Southern Spain and worked my way through it. I couldn’t have asked for a better view while studying – and, of course, swimming, walking and surfing on the beach was the perfect antidote to all that studying!

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I did have a slight reprieve from the books, as I flew back to England for a day in order to pick up my car – and another very quick roadtrip followed. The ferry to Bilbao was uneventful and, before long, my “Toy car” and I were unloaded and hurtling southwards. The cool drizzle dissipated as I headed south and, before long, the top down was down, the tunes were on full volume and I was pulling into Salamanca for a leg stretch – yet another beautiful and captivating city. The journey continued through the stunning wild, rolling hills of central Spain – in fact, I enjoyed the drive so much that I decided to press on and made it all the way back to the Southern tip of Spain in one go – a solid 10 hours on the road, definitely a “shift and a half”!!

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My theory exam complete, I had one more logistical exercise to complete before returning to the yacht in Gibraltar – I had to find somewhere to park Gloria long term. After plenty of internet searching, I decided on a facility in Seville and she is now having a well earned rest for the winter!

So, back to the sailing and a 12 day “mile builder”, sailing from Gib to Lagos on the southwestern tip of Portugal. We left at 2am, as there were still reports of orcas ramming sailing boats (extremely odd behaviour….read about it here orca), so we wanted to pass Trafalgar Point in daylight. Our trip wasn’t just a straight line, as there were plenty of ports along the way where we just ‘poked our noses in’ for the practice in navigation and close-quarters manoeuvring, so we ended up having 4 nights at sea to reach the furthest point. It was lovely to be back in Portugal where I introduced the crew to the delights of the traditional ‘Pastel de nata”, although it has to be said that the marina shower was almost as big a treat! We then worked our way back along the Algarve coast and stopped for an hour in Vilamoura where my great friend Wilza baked us all a cake 😋

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Needless to say, we learnt a huge amount on this trip – not only on the navigation side of things, but also doing endless man overboard and ‘pontoon bashing’ exercises. Finally, we were ready for our “prep” week, where we were drilled on all the different elements that we could expect in our exam – and, at last, all the lights and sound signals were becoming engrained, as we could be tested on any aspect of seamanship and were expected to know everything from knots to flags to reasonably in-depth workings of the diesel engine. Every evening, we were completing a “passage plan” that we had been assigned to show the examiner to demonstrate our understanding of concepts such as tidal streams, time zones and calculating a course to steer.

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Exam day was finally upon us – the examiner arrived at 11am and didn’t leave until midnight, so it was a long and gruelling 13 hours of being under test. The examiner did his best to put us at our ease and there were no big surprises – we just had to demonstrate our abilities and answer questions on anything at any time. My biggest task was to sail alongside a pontoon with simulated engine failure – while having to negotiate a rowing race too – I mean, I practice engine failures in the simulator, but at least the aircraft has brakes!! Once I had successfully moored up, I could at last appreciate the most stunning sunset and cheekily asked the examiner to take a photo of us!

Now, as a qualified Yachtmaster Offshore, there’s a chance that I may never even use my new qualification, but I have put myself on various yacht delivery websites and am hoping that friends may want a Skipper to take them sailing occasionally 🤞😁 But, with Gloria safely parked in her home in Seville, it’s time to change the sailing chip to a flying one, as I’ve got to get my head around getting back into the skies after my extraordinary time on furlough. It was great fun swapping my wheels for a keel, but now it’s time to swap the keel for a pair of wings!

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