I am steadily drifting towards an almighty crash. The engine is off, I’m
swinging the tiller wildly from side to side, but our course is set straight
for the hull of a 40ft gin palace. Fenders are thrown overboard, insults
exchanged, anchors heaved up (ours by hand, theirs by button). Just when I
think we are heading for a mammoth shipyard bill... we stop.
“You’ve made us look like amateurs,” my boyfriend hisses.
“But we are amateurs,” I wail. Welcome to life at sea with two sailing
virgins.
Until yesterday, our only experience with boats was a bit of dinghy-sailing
during far-off schooldays (him), and sunbathing on them (me). Yet here we
are, 24 hours in, not only sailing unaided on the open sea, but attempting
to anchor alongside the nautical glitterati in a sun-drenched cove in the
north Ionian. We fail miserably, fire up our engine and chug off to a
quieter cove, where we can hone our stopping technique away from the
indignant gaze of “proper” sailors.
We are on a flotilla trip with Sailing Holidays, a company that offers even
rank novices like us the chance to be sailors.
Rolling up to begin our adventure in Plataria, on the west coast of Greece, we
assumed that all the vessels in our flotilla would follow the lead boat like
a line of eager ducklings — which would be nice and safe, wouldn’t it?
Instead, we were given just 40 minutes of instruction before being cast
adrift to flap about for ourselves — setting sail not in synch with the
other boats, but as and when we pleased.
The briefing (emphasis on the brief) consisted of a route explanation and a
primer on how to follow bearings, what to do in an emergency and how to use
the loo. Oh, and details about when the group meals would happen. Ben, the
flotilla leader, said he’d decided our course based on weather conditions,
but we were free to go off track so long as we moored up by the specified
time.
Next, we squeezed onto a 30-year-old Jaguar 27, our home for the week ahead,
and were shown the ropes. Sailing Holidays has modified its boats to make
them beginner-friendly, so ropes are colour-coded and the compass is basic
and easy to understand. It’s still pretty intimidating, though, and we got
off to a bad start. As soon as we left the harbour I realised that I didn’t
know how to use the tiller. (If I swing it to the left, will the boat go
left? No, it will go right, apparently.) Our panic subsided once we got out
to sea. Even with the engine running, it was bliss to be so utterly alone —
and free from the tangle of complicated rules that we’d assumed would knot
together this kind of holiday. The Ionian has no tides, nor any significant
swell, so it’s the kindest possible environment for learning to sail.
I stayed on the tiller — I felt I’d mastered the left-right thing by now —
while Will scuttled about, winding the winches and letting out the sails.
They flapped like a giant pair of baggy knickers, but I turned the boat
slightly and they snapped taut, catching the wind.
I turned off the engine and we were sailing, listening to nothing but the
rhythmic slap of wave against hull. Away we went, following our bearing
obsessively — no need to get too cocky just yet. Next stop, northern Corfu.
PARKING the damned thing wasn’t quite so easy. Ben and his crew had already
reached harbour, ready to guide in the rest of the flotilla. We radioed to
alert him to our arrival, and he was waiting on the quay with a space for us
to moor. Unfortunately, we didn’t allow ourselves sufficient run-up, and
there was general panic as the neighbouring boats raised all hands on deck
to try to avoid a bashing.
“Just remember to keep it really slow,” Ben said calmly. His nerves must be
shot to bits, doing this for eight months of the year.
That evening, we joined the communal meal: not mandatory, but we thought it
would be rather mean-spirited to decline. After all, we were in this
together. Many in our party were newbie sailors, but others had years of
experience — they said that they choose flotilla holidays to dodge the
stress of boat hire and course-plotting. They also like having a safety net
— Ben and co, ever on call.
We met two sisters with their respective families, two women in their early
fifties on a girls’ getaway, a couple in their twenties. We noticed that one
couple was missing — the people who’d failed to take notes at the morning
briefing, insisting that despite never having sailed before, they’d be
“grand”.
“Yeah, they ended up at a port two miles down the coast from here,” Ben
chuckled. Apparently, it’s no big deal if you lose someone en route; they
simply rejoin the next day.
There was no shower on our boat, which supposedly slept six, but felt cramped
for two, so we showered in tavernas before our daily briefings. From Corfu,
we sailed south to Paxos, and the chic, bustling harbour village of Gaios.
Well, I say sailed... The wind failed to pick up — a common problem here in
summer, but again not such a disaster for learners. So we kept the engine
running and pottered along the coast, taking it in turns to steer while the
other read and sunbathed. We stopped off at quiet coves where we could drop
anchor and swim. And we found anchoring fine, strangely enough, so long as
there were no other boats around.
We arrived at Gaios first, so we were able to moor away from the thumping bars
and restaurants that would keep the rest of our group awake that night. We
stopped congratulating ourselves, however, when we realised that our German
neighbours were on a booze-fuelled lads’ holiday, enlivened by europop
blasting from Bose speakers. As we motored out of the harbour at 11 o’clock
next morning, shattered, the boys still lay collapsed on deck, the detritus
from the previous evening strewn around them.
From Gaios, we sailed on to Emerald Bay, on Anti Paxos, scene of our ill-fated
attempt at mooring with the big boys. We reckon we didn’t miss much, though
— beautiful as the cove was, it was teeming with tourists by 11.30am.
Instead, we found a bay that was a little less postcard-perfect, but
blissfully deserted. Over the radio, we heard the other members of our party
recommend beautiful beaches and arrange lunch get-togethers. It was up to us
whether we joined in.
In fact, the whole setup felt beautifully casual. There was the merest
semblance of a group itinerary: we could be as social or antisocial as we
chose. As Ben kept stressing, this was a holiday, not a sailing school, and
the idea was to learn just enough to get you started. It certainly seems to
give people the bug: apparently, one couple went home from a Sailing
Holidays trip and immediately bought themselves a £600,000 Oyster yacht.
As we motored back to Plataria on our final day, we saw another flotilla
leaving harbour, each boat timidly following the other, every crew hoisting
their sails in sequence. It looked like a very different holiday from the
one we’d just had: they were learning by numbers, dragooned and safe in
their neat school file.
For all my initial panic, I think I’d rather do it our way. Humiliation’s a
small price to pay for freedom.
Travel brief
The holidays: Sailing Holidays (020 8459 8787,
www.sailingholidays.com) runs flotilla holidays in Greece and Croatia, on
yachts between 27ft and 44ft in length. The Jaguar 27 is recommended for
beginners and couples; larger boats have a dinghy with an outboard motor, so
you can explore caves along the coast. One week, sailing from Plataria,
starts at £1,590 for two people, including flights from Gatwick to Preveza,
and transfers. Other operators include Sunsail (023 9222 2222,
www.sunsail.co.uk) and Sunvil (020 8568 4499, www.sunvil.co.uk).
How much experience do I need? It depends who you ask.
Sailing Holidays takes a relatively relaxed attitude — “Our philosophy is,
if you feel you can do it, you can!”. Beginners are welcome, but the
flotilla leaders will size you up before letting you off on your own, and
will stay in constant radio contact. Other companies, such as Sunsail,
insist that you have yachting qualifications or experience, but offer
skippered yachts for beginners.
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