Training in Gosport, UK

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” 
~ Andre Gide

 That's most of the stuff I'm packing. Yes meagre even by my standards. And the one bag, yes one bag, I'm taking weighs less than 20kgs. The largest item is my sleeping bag. If one of you sometime, somewhere decide to take this up, here's my packing list

1. quick dry towel (apna Indian pancha)
2. 4 dri fit t-shirts (2 with long sleeves)
3. 2 dri fit pants
4. 1 dri fit shorts (I feel cold very quickly so the England may have do with just a quick look see at my gorgeous long legs)
5. 2 regular everyday wear pants
6. 3 cotton t shirts
7. 2 polo t shirts
8. 1 fleece jacket
9. 1 raincoat (that the friend I borrowed it from, promises can protect me from cold upto 10 degrees)
10. 1 pair of deck shoes
11. 2 pairs of woollen socks 
12. 2 pairs of cotton socks
13. sleeping bag
14. a head torch (to light up every time I have a brain wave - seriously it has a red light for naughty thoughts and a white light for sheer terror thoughts. It will not light up for normal thoughts)
15. 1 balaclava (monkey cap)
16, 1 waterproof beanie (for when I'm not monkeying around, but still full of beans)
17. 1 pair of fishing gloves
18.  1 cap
19. water bottle
20. the usual cosmetics and strong deo, wet wipes (both recommended for the close quarter living), sunscreen, prickly heat powder
21. iPad
22. powerbank

Clipper provides the sailing gear, but I still need to buy a good pair of sailing shoes and a sailing knife, once I get there. Which is 3 days from today. The countdown has begun .

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Level 1 Clipper training

Image
Time flames like a paragon stove and what burns are the minutes I live ~ Irving Layton, The Selected Poems Day 1: The Importance of Attachments The first day of training was so reassuring. Felt just like home….rains on the first day of school. Dull dreary weather and the first look at your new school mates and class teacher. And just like school, I was exhausted by the end of the day. Of course it was a lot longer at 12 hours, from 8am to 8pm and crammed with information. I finally got to exercise the muscles in my head – Paul, our skipper, made sure of that. We learnt all kinds of knots, bowlines, clove hitches, figure of eights..he would be speaking with us while his fingers were busy tying knots..muscle memory he calls it! For the most part it was about safety. What can possibly go wrong with the boat, how to prevent it and what to do if there is an emergency, like a MOB. No not the one around celebrities, a Man Over Board. Which we practised with a dum
Keep reading

Level 2 Clipper Training

Image
Level 2 Day 1: Abandonment After a week spent learning how to rescue a man over board, we started this week with a day long exercise in figuring how to stuff the panic and get onto a life raft in case our boat has an accident. You know, if there's a fire, we crash into an ice berg or another boat, or the mast decides to part ways with us and we have to abandon the boat. A very sunny and happy day indeed. A morning classroom session was followed up by two hours in the local school swimming pool, learning how to step off the boat into the water, with our life jackets on, swim using just our arms, rescue an injured mate, inflate a life raft, and get into it from off a boat or after jumping into the water, alone and with all the crew. That was rounded off with an introduction to the new skipper and first mate. This time we have Andy for Skipper and Carl as First Mate. Carl’s grandfather worked with the Indian railways in Calcutta! Quite a waste of a beautiful summer day that c
Keep reading

Taking the Leap

Image
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied”                                      ~ John Masefield All my bags are packed and I’m raring to go. Round the world on a sailboat. Or at least as far as I can stretch my monies.  I’ve signed up for the Clipper Round the World Race 2017-18; a race that takes novices like me, trains them intensively, then puts 20 of us and a capable skipper on a 68 foot long boat to race against 11 other similar boats, all around the world. It all started when Dilip , the first Indian to sail solo around the world, nonchalantly said that anyone can sail around the world.  I was like, really!? Anyone!? Then he told me about Clipper . So, I promptly applied for this year’s race. A friendly chat with the race officials followed and I was offered a place in the Race. The way this works, Clipper puts everyone through a grueling four
Keep reading