FOURTH TIME'S A CHARM

Having started on three previous occasions, in 1985 and 1986, and again in 1987, to cruise from the French Cote d’Azur to Yugoslavia, we set sail again this year with some trepidation. Perhaps this trip was jinxed and not supposed to happen at all. On each of the earlier attempts HALCYON had been betrayed by our Volvo engine, which simply quit on us; and true to Murphy’s Law in the worst places and at the worst possible times! Twice it was a burnt-up fresh-water cooling system pump, and the third time a kin to it: a ruptured salt-water heat exchanger. In each case we were somewhere in Italian waters, where it was necessary to cool our heels for a considerable time while the replacement parts were flown in from Stockholm by way of Milano, thence to Messina, Reggio Calabria, Porto Cervo, Ischia, or God knows where. At least for our pains we got acquainted with the back streets of old Napoli, where we had to locate the Volvo distributor. We don’t recommend that experience!

Naturally, in every case with the exception of Porto Cervo, we had to make the repairs and new parts installations ourselves, since there was simply no mechanic available who was able to do the job! In Porto Cervo, of course, there’s a first class Cantieri Navale, since that place is the primary yachting center of the whole Mediterranean.

While awaiting completion of our repairs there a couple of years ago, we were fortunate enough to get one of the seven rooms at the very elegant Yacht Club di Costa Smeralda in which to luxuriate: one of the benefits of flying a New York Yacht Club burgee!

“You’re a slow learner!” Suzanne told me.

She had plenty of justification, for it had taken me those three miserable experiences before junking that old Volvo diesel and replacing it with a brand new Perkins. Once that was accomplished last year at the Chantier Naval White Rose Mediterranee in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, we had plenty of time in which to run it in and be sure all the systems were working perfectly. At the same time as the new engine, we intsalled a new electric refrigeration system, which is a dream. So we should have been ready for our adventures this year with a minimum of fuss and feathers. In retrospect, that’s exactly what we had.

We arrived back at Beaulieu-sur-Mer, HALCYON’S French home port on the 10th of June, to find that Jay White had preceded us by a week and had everything on board in apple-pie order. What a great idea that was!

We were hardly settled in for a day at Beaulieu, when Natalie and Patrick arrived with one-year-old Jenny Eloise in tow. We picked them up at the Nice airport after an initial fear that we had lost them forever. Their baggage arrived right on schedule, but they were nowhere to be seen. It seems Natalie had gone in the wrong door and they ended up in the departure lounge for a flight to Germany! Then they had the devil’s own time convincing some one they were arriving in Nice, not leaving!

Trying to break in our guests as easily as possible -- after all, neither Jenny nor her daddy has ever been to sea before -- we drove to Antibes for supplies and sight-seeing. Among other things we bought a stand-by electric sea-water pump for the fridge system just in case. Our new pump had thoughtfully conked out on us while we were lunching at anchor off Paloma Beach, thus reminding us how vulnerable we are without spare parts. By the time we left we had two spare fridge sea-water pumps; and, of course, the old one is still going strong. All it needed was to have its brushes cleaned.

But by far the most important purchase was a chair for Jenny to sit in while she ate. We looked all over for one of those little canvas seats with a wooden apron and clamps that enable you to fix it to the dining table; but no luck. After we had scoured the Cap Trois Mille Hypermarche for an hour, one of the clerks sent us to a maternity shop across the arcade. There we found a very attractive printed cloth back pack seat for a baby, complete with a sunshade.

Ahab figured we could stand it up on the settee by the table and use the webbing straps to fasten it in the cabinet above the bunk. It worked perfectly, and whenever it was necessary to feed Jenny or to immobilize her down below, we could merely put her in her little private chair. It remains on board for the next comer!

While on the subject, every one asks, “What do you do with a one-year-old on board? Aren’t you terrified she’ll fall overboard?”

Well, of course not. In the first place she can’t get up the ladders, so the whole below decks became a giant play pen where she could not get in any trouble. In fact, she only tripped over the bulkhead between the galley and the aft cabin once. Thereafter she climbed over it like a veteran salt.

We rigged a bunk canvas on the starboard settee in the main cabin and that became her crib. She slept in it well, and when she awoke she would stand and hold onto the top of the canvas. She never even thought of falling out and didn’t even try to climb out.

She was never on deck without her ma and pa, and always dressed in a little life jacket to which was affixed a safety line that was either made fast or was held by Nat or Pat. We put the lexan hatch board in the aft companionway, which turned the whole cockpit into a playpen for her. She always tried