Before I start on Piriapolis, I have to say I often wonder who reads this! Sometimes I get random emails from people who come across the site after searching for something on the internet and other times I get friends who email and make a comment or say thanks for entertaining them through the winter. Its really nice to know others read it as often its like writing to this phantom audience who may exist or just as likely may not. While its as much a record for us, the fact that its public makes a big difference. Recently I've had an email from a travel site wanting to publish excerpts from the blog which is kinda cool.
Anyhow, when Kiwi Lawrence had invited us to go stay with him, we’d said that we’d be there in a few days time but there were no firm dates, plans or arrangements. We just caught the bus up the coast and walked to the marina hoping he’d be there. At least the marina is the easiest place we’ve had to find thus far! We knew the boats name (‘Gambo’) so just persuaded the marina security that we knew Lawrence and headed on in, preparing for a wait if he wasn’t around. Somewhat naively, we’d thought it would just be Lawrence there working away surrounded by empty boats but this was so far from the case it wasn’t funny. As it turned out, we spent the most fantastic three nights on the boat and met so many wonderful people that we didn’t want to leave. Seriously. Piriapolis turned out to be about people, not buildings, sights and museums – a very refreshing and welcome change.
The day we arrived was a scorcher and the beach at Piriapolis was heaving with people, reminding us of some of the European beaches in summer weekends.
Thankfully, Kiwi Lawrence was in the marina working on the boat and didn’t seem too surprised to see us. Lawrence has been living and working on Gambo (more on the boat later) along with Stephen from Shropshire in England, and they’re both working to get the boat ready for its next stint; sailing to Greenland. Funnily enough, a Professor at Aberystwyth University in Wales owns Gambo and this chap has sailed the boat to all sorts of places in the world. This is Gambo.
Within minutes of arriving we’d met Andrew and Abby from South Africa who, along with their 10 month old daughter Lucy, Abby's mum Jo and a sailor, Dael, are travelling around the world in their yacht. L to R is Jo, Andrew, Lawrence and Dale. Euan is in front
This is Abby and Lucy (who was the most gorgeous little girl out).
Andrew, Dael and two others had sailed the yacht from South Africa to Rio and Abby, Jo and Lucy had joined the boat there. Their yacht, ‘Josephine’ was in the water and they were only expecting to be there for a few weeks while a few repairs were carried out. Lucy had taken her first steps on board a week earlier but had remarkable balance. I think there is something to be said about taking your first steps ever on a moving boat!
Lucy took a liking to my jade pendant
and insisted on me eating it.
It was a gorgeous evening and we spent it on Abby and Andrews yacht, having a few beers and getting to know them. This is the best bottle opener we’ve ever seen – on the sole of a jandle! How cool is that?
That evening, I was about to climb the ladder onto Gambo when a chap approached me wearing a white plastic jump-suit (presumably for painting) and said in a very heavy accent with a very broad white smile “Vould yoo like to svap cloothes vit me?”. This was Werner from Bavaria, Germany
who, with his wife Emmy (I’m not sure about the spelling here),
have been sailing around the world on their yacht for nine years.
They arrived in Piriapolis and brought the boat out of the water to do some work on it. It costs about US$500 to get the boat in and out of the water (and about US$5/day to store it) so they’re planning to be here for a year to do all the repairs and do some land travelling at the same time. An absolute character of a couple.
We met Leonard, ex-Swedish Merchant Navy, who had been at sea for something like 47 years. He has been living on his own yacht sailing round the world for 18 years now but, after being caught in a particularly ferocious hurricane off the South American cape, he decided enough was enough and has been moored at Piriapolis for two years now.
He says that this is where he will stay and, when he is too old to live on his boat, he will sell up and buy a small cottage. This is Leonard telling Euan and Lawrence about his tattoos. He was great storyteller, a bit of a charmer (he bought Emmy and I roses that night - the first flowers I’ve had in years!) and a larger than life character.
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Photo: Stephen Bate
There was Lawrence from Ireland who is a boat designer and skipper. Thanks to my story about the sheep and Andrews’s sense of humour, the two L’s ended up being known as ‘Lawrence Potato’ and ‘Lawrence Sheep’.. Irish Lawrence is living in Piriapolis designing and overseeing the building of a boat from what we could make out but we didn’t meet his wife who is sailing their yacht back to the UK (solo) to start in a race from UK to the US. Clearly a legend in her own right!
The first night we were there a storm set in and it didn’t stop. The rain and wind were unbelievable (we wondered if Gambo might tip off her stays?) and this bucket filled up between 0600 and 1400. It might not look like much but believe me, it was a lot of water.
.jpg)
Photo: Stephen Bate
We were soaked within seconds of leaving the cabin and the wind nearly blew us over. It really was rather extreme and the wind whistling through the masts was quite a wonderful sound. Andrew, Abby and Jo bravely invited us over and we ended up spending most of the day sitting with them drinking coffee, eating pastries, nattering and playing cards. We all ventured out later in the day, even Lucy in her little pink coat
Lucy even had her own tiny life-jacket and harness – the latter being an essential item as Lucy clambered over that boat with remarkable ease and was only going to get faster! What better toys can a kid need than shackels and rope! I'm serious - a boat is a real kids playground I reckon.
In town there was water everywhere and gale force winds were forecast for that night so there was more in store.
We didn’t know anything about Gambo when we arrived but it turns out she’s a rather famous boat! She’s done expeditions way down around the bottom of the world to Antarctic and around the waters of NZ and she’s been pitch-poled (capsizing end-over-end – imagine it?!) off the south cape of Chile – an event that left the crew silent with shock for days apparently. Miraculously no one was seriously injured. Before being repainted she had a huge Welsh dragon on one side of the bow and a Canadian Maple leaf on the other, so fairly distinctive and while we were there a chap came to ask if it was the same boat that was on the cover of some international yachting magazine five years ago.
The second day we were there the weather cleared so we went up the hill to check out the views. This is Lawrence, Euan and I.
There was a good view of the marina (Gambo is to the immediate right of the crane).
About one in every four men we’ve seen in Uruguay carry a gourd of maté, some sort of tea that’s sucked up through a metal straw designed to filter out the leaves and twigs.
Its huge here and guys often carry round a thermos of hot water to top up the tea when it dries out. The hard core drinkers carry round a big leather bag that looks like an over-sized binocular case, inside which is a couple of thermoses and extra tea. The gourds themselves look quite scungy and most were nearly full of dried up tealeaves.
We spent a lot of time just sitting around talking and there were so many interesting stories to hear and we thought it was miles more interesting than looking at buildings or other sights! L to R is Irish Lawrence, South African Dael, Kiwi Lawrence, Welsh/English Stephen and Can’t-see Euan (because his hair is too long! His £1 haircut has expired well and truly).
Lawrence was out in the pouring rain that morning, hanging out all the wet weather gear for a wash then dry. Then he went up the mast to do some measurement. Seemed to me like not such a good plan given the wind at the time.
I tell you what, getting up and down this ladder after a few beers was a bit of a mission. To make matters worse, the marina toilets were locked at midnight. Fine for the guys but for the girls it was pretty awful!
This is Lucy who was meant to be going to sleep but kept peeking out from under the cover.
It was such a lovely evening and, to make us even more reluctant to leave, we’d been invited by the Germans to a dinner. Emmy and Werner set up a makeshift table, complete with tablecloth, and made us all dinner – a traditional Brazilian dish (for the life of me I can’t remember the name) of slow-cooked beans and meat with rice. It tasted so good and the setting, in between two boats, was second to none.
This was the morning we left. The boys had been out and not returned until dawn but I’m not sure they’d have noticed how still the water was (I’d baled out just after midnight so was feeling fine).
Euan and Lawrence were first back at 6am, followed by Stephen at 8am and Dael crawled in at 8.30am. We had to be up at 8am and gone by 8.30am and Euan, on less than two hours sleep, was moving pretty slowly. Jo, Lucy, Abby and Andrew were up to say goodbye and Andrew came with us to the bus station. Lucy was also quite taken with my sheep luggage label.
There was no waking Lawrence to say goodbye so we wrote him a note and while Stephen woke I don’t think he’ll remember a thing! As for Euan, well, I had a very sleepy, dopey, stinky bus companion all the way to Colonia, where we were catching the ferry back to BA.
Anyhow, when Kiwi Lawrence had invited us to go stay with him, we’d said that we’d be there in a few days time but there were no firm dates, plans or arrangements. We just caught the bus up the coast and walked to the marina hoping he’d be there. At least the marina is the easiest place we’ve had to find thus far! We knew the boats name (‘Gambo’) so just persuaded the marina security that we knew Lawrence and headed on in, preparing for a wait if he wasn’t around. Somewhat naively, we’d thought it would just be Lawrence there working away surrounded by empty boats but this was so far from the case it wasn’t funny. As it turned out, we spent the most fantastic three nights on the boat and met so many wonderful people that we didn’t want to leave. Seriously. Piriapolis turned out to be about people, not buildings, sights and museums – a very refreshing and welcome change.
The day we arrived was a scorcher and the beach at Piriapolis was heaving with people, reminding us of some of the European beaches in summer weekends.
Thankfully, Kiwi Lawrence was in the marina working on the boat and didn’t seem too surprised to see us. Lawrence has been living and working on Gambo (more on the boat later) along with Stephen from Shropshire in England, and they’re both working to get the boat ready for its next stint; sailing to Greenland. Funnily enough, a Professor at Aberystwyth University in Wales owns Gambo and this chap has sailed the boat to all sorts of places in the world. This is Gambo.
Within minutes of arriving we’d met Andrew and Abby from South Africa who, along with their 10 month old daughter Lucy, Abby's mum Jo and a sailor, Dael, are travelling around the world in their yacht. L to R is Jo, Andrew, Lawrence and Dale. Euan is in front
This is Abby and Lucy (who was the most gorgeous little girl out).
Andrew, Dael and two others had sailed the yacht from South Africa to Rio and Abby, Jo and Lucy had joined the boat there. Their yacht, ‘Josephine’ was in the water and they were only expecting to be there for a few weeks while a few repairs were carried out. Lucy had taken her first steps on board a week earlier but had remarkable balance. I think there is something to be said about taking your first steps ever on a moving boat!
Lucy took a liking to my jade pendant
and insisted on me eating it.
It was a gorgeous evening and we spent it on Abby and Andrews yacht, having a few beers and getting to know them. This is the best bottle opener we’ve ever seen – on the sole of a jandle! How cool is that?
That evening, I was about to climb the ladder onto Gambo when a chap approached me wearing a white plastic jump-suit (presumably for painting) and said in a very heavy accent with a very broad white smile “Vould yoo like to svap cloothes vit me?”. This was Werner from Bavaria, Germany
who, with his wife Emmy (I’m not sure about the spelling here),
have been sailing around the world on their yacht for nine years.
They arrived in Piriapolis and brought the boat out of the water to do some work on it. It costs about US$500 to get the boat in and out of the water (and about US$5/day to store it) so they’re planning to be here for a year to do all the repairs and do some land travelling at the same time. An absolute character of a couple.
We met Leonard, ex-Swedish Merchant Navy, who had been at sea for something like 47 years. He has been living on his own yacht sailing round the world for 18 years now but, after being caught in a particularly ferocious hurricane off the South American cape, he decided enough was enough and has been moored at Piriapolis for two years now.
He says that this is where he will stay and, when he is too old to live on his boat, he will sell up and buy a small cottage. This is Leonard telling Euan and Lawrence about his tattoos. He was great storyteller, a bit of a charmer (he bought Emmy and I roses that night - the first flowers I’ve had in years!) and a larger than life character.
.jpg)
Photo: Stephen Bate
There was Lawrence from Ireland who is a boat designer and skipper. Thanks to my story about the sheep and Andrews’s sense of humour, the two L’s ended up being known as ‘Lawrence Potato’ and ‘Lawrence Sheep’.. Irish Lawrence is living in Piriapolis designing and overseeing the building of a boat from what we could make out but we didn’t meet his wife who is sailing their yacht back to the UK (solo) to start in a race from UK to the US. Clearly a legend in her own right!
The first night we were there a storm set in and it didn’t stop. The rain and wind were unbelievable (we wondered if Gambo might tip off her stays?) and this bucket filled up between 0600 and 1400. It might not look like much but believe me, it was a lot of water.
.jpg)
Photo: Stephen Bate
We were soaked within seconds of leaving the cabin and the wind nearly blew us over. It really was rather extreme and the wind whistling through the masts was quite a wonderful sound. Andrew, Abby and Jo bravely invited us over and we ended up spending most of the day sitting with them drinking coffee, eating pastries, nattering and playing cards. We all ventured out later in the day, even Lucy in her little pink coat
Lucy even had her own tiny life-jacket and harness – the latter being an essential item as Lucy clambered over that boat with remarkable ease and was only going to get faster! What better toys can a kid need than shackels and rope! I'm serious - a boat is a real kids playground I reckon.
In town there was water everywhere and gale force winds were forecast for that night so there was more in store.
We didn’t know anything about Gambo when we arrived but it turns out she’s a rather famous boat! She’s done expeditions way down around the bottom of the world to Antarctic and around the waters of NZ and she’s been pitch-poled (capsizing end-over-end – imagine it?!) off the south cape of Chile – an event that left the crew silent with shock for days apparently. Miraculously no one was seriously injured. Before being repainted she had a huge Welsh dragon on one side of the bow and a Canadian Maple leaf on the other, so fairly distinctive and while we were there a chap came to ask if it was the same boat that was on the cover of some international yachting magazine five years ago.
The second day we were there the weather cleared so we went up the hill to check out the views. This is Lawrence, Euan and I.
There was a good view of the marina (Gambo is to the immediate right of the crane).
About one in every four men we’ve seen in Uruguay carry a gourd of maté, some sort of tea that’s sucked up through a metal straw designed to filter out the leaves and twigs.
Its huge here and guys often carry round a thermos of hot water to top up the tea when it dries out. The hard core drinkers carry round a big leather bag that looks like an over-sized binocular case, inside which is a couple of thermoses and extra tea. The gourds themselves look quite scungy and most were nearly full of dried up tealeaves.
We spent a lot of time just sitting around talking and there were so many interesting stories to hear and we thought it was miles more interesting than looking at buildings or other sights! L to R is Irish Lawrence, South African Dael, Kiwi Lawrence, Welsh/English Stephen and Can’t-see Euan (because his hair is too long! His £1 haircut has expired well and truly).
Lawrence was out in the pouring rain that morning, hanging out all the wet weather gear for a wash then dry. Then he went up the mast to do some measurement. Seemed to me like not such a good plan given the wind at the time.
I tell you what, getting up and down this ladder after a few beers was a bit of a mission. To make matters worse, the marina toilets were locked at midnight. Fine for the guys but for the girls it was pretty awful!
This is Lucy who was meant to be going to sleep but kept peeking out from under the cover.
It was such a lovely evening and, to make us even more reluctant to leave, we’d been invited by the Germans to a dinner. Emmy and Werner set up a makeshift table, complete with tablecloth, and made us all dinner – a traditional Brazilian dish (for the life of me I can’t remember the name) of slow-cooked beans and meat with rice. It tasted so good and the setting, in between two boats, was second to none.
This was the morning we left. The boys had been out and not returned until dawn but I’m not sure they’d have noticed how still the water was (I’d baled out just after midnight so was feeling fine).
Euan and Lawrence were first back at 6am, followed by Stephen at 8am and Dael crawled in at 8.30am. We had to be up at 8am and gone by 8.30am and Euan, on less than two hours sleep, was moving pretty slowly. Jo, Lucy, Abby and Andrew were up to say goodbye and Andrew came with us to the bus station. Lucy was also quite taken with my sheep luggage label.
There was no waking Lawrence to say goodbye so we wrote him a note and while Stephen woke I don’t think he’ll remember a thing! As for Euan, well, I had a very sleepy, dopey, stinky bus companion all the way to Colonia, where we were catching the ferry back to BA.
1 comment:
As for who's reading, an old Africa friend. :) I spotted the link on Charlotte's wall and thought I'd have a gander.
Can't believe you're still going - it's awesome! :D
Seeing all your travels makes me very jealous - sitting in rainy England doing my homework is a world away from Africa. :S
Take care, stay safe and have fun :) xxxx
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