Skeleton crew

Bosun Bird’s skipper often likes to rail against professionally organised cruising rallies, overlooking the fact that participating in such events is how a number of our friends began bluewater sailing in the first place. “Surely,” he will say in a superior manner, “the point of cruising is to do it all yourself, not pay somebody else to smooth your way... Even the paperwork is part of the fun...”

This, while the otherwise-loyal crew tries to catch his eye. “It wasn’t fun when we left South Africa, was it?” she will ask, after our guests have left.

We’d spent nearly two years fitting out and sailing Bosun Bird at a small marina-cum-fishing harbour north of Cape Town, after buying her at Richard’s Bay, on South Africa’s Indian Ocean coast, and trucking her cross-country on a flatbed. When, in early spring, it came time to check out of the country – bound for Namibia, St Helena and Brazil – we indulged in all the usual procrastination and hesitation to which we are prone before long passages,