For the last week I have been taking in the night draped vistas of Saint Barths reveling in the abundant moonlight and red cyclops glare from the multitude of Sailboats. Sailboats have a red light at the top of the mast when they are at anchor. When there are a lot of them they sway in unison almost hypnotically……….. zzzz

Ooops where was I? ah yes the regatta, being the first regatta that I have attended I was quite interested to see what was going on. Given that I was awake throughout the night I did not get to see much racing other than tenders going to and from bars and boats. We stood out like a sore thumb being one of the few and very noticeable motor yachts. Quite why our boss likes to come here year after year is a bit of a mystery other than the social aspects. Maybe he enjoys knowing he has a jacuzzi and three jet skis on board. Most sail boats struggle to have running water(sorry James).

After the coffee incident I fell into a comfortable routine and after about three nights I was quite convinced I could do this for months, years even. After day five my body started to exhibit strange behavior. Upon rising for my 13 hour shift at nine pm I felt positively creaky. 5 strong espresso were required to elicit any kind of conversation from me. I also noticed my legs did not feel wholly my own. Being scientific I decided to use a pedometer for an evening. I charted 13,000 steps on an average night. This is over four floors and at times carrying large bulky items. This is considerable amount of effort at an odd time of the night when ones body should be asleep. It didn’t feel this bad last year. But I am 34 now, maybe age is more than a number.

Part of our duties included taking the bosses son into town with his two friends so they could court the favour of young ladies(pull). Now you would think having a large multi million dollar yacht, servants and oodles of money would be quite enough to attract attention. It appears not. The problem with attending a prestigious regatta is that everyone has a large multi million dollar yacht, servants and oodles of money.

I enacted revenge upon our chef for the decaf coffee. He likes to go for a swim each morning. He also likes to throw egg shells and limes at us when we are off the boat. Inspired by the cricket world cup I looked in galley and found a cricket ball sized onion. Then, using a stair well for a run up I threw the onion approximately 30 meters across a 1-2 foot swell and hit our chef in the head. It was incredible and I do not think I could replicate it if I tried.

The next night I did something very regrettable, stupid and not at all cool. New Zealand was playing South Africa at cricket in the world cup. If there is one thing Yachting teaches you, it is that South African yachties are a plague and must be vanquished at all costs. If any opportunity arises when you can beat them then take it . Anyway I was sneaking looks at the commentary on cricinfo.com on my iPhone. New Zealand were out for a modest score and there were yaapies crowing the world over. I kept the faith, checking at regular intervals . It was on the swim platform that the catastrophe occurred. I waas casually throwing cushions into our tender and the very last one got caught by a gust, missed the tender and promptly started sinking. Scrambling over the tender I removed my radio and dived in heroically to save the cushion. I must have been quite a sight. My head had broken the surface when I realised my iPhone had come for a swim as well.

It looks like people water damage phones all of the time. Various pages exist on stories of how water damaged phones have been bought back to life. Boats are full of wonderful items for resussiatating water damaged equipment. My method has used denatured alcohol to remove excess water and an exhaust fan from the engine room to dry it. I then had to swallow some pride and ask the chef for some rice with which to leave my phone in for a couple of days. I will let you know how this goes. The upshot to all of this was that New Zealand had a marvelous victory that I was able to dreamily savour as I watched cricinfo from my bed. Sacrificing my phone at such a critical time during the match was surely a noble and just cause.

There are many morals in this story. Take one which best suits your day.

If you don’t see sunlight for 7 days you will start making rash costly decisions
If you throw onions be prepared to swallow one
Don’t go for a swim with your phone unless there is a big game riding on it

I’m on day watch now. Can you tell? Life is better. We are heading back across the Atlantic in a couple of weeks. Probably to sunny England. Fancy that.