One of the pleasures of owning a sizeable
boat (although some would disagree with me) is the fact that we can accommodate
guests. We have heard a number of horror
stories from fellow ‘yachties’ involving their various family members, friends,
associates and other hangers-on who have descended upon the boat owners in
droves leading one friend of mine to bemoan that she spent the summer doing
laundry, shopping and cooking for a steady stream of visitors!
We have also read hysterically funny blogs
and Facebook posts from fellow sailors about the ridiculous situations that
guests have found themselves in and wondered whether the sea air affects some
people’s mental capacity!
Tad and I agreed that we would welcome
guests …with limitations. We would
consult each other before issuing invitations (so as to minimize welcoming
someone that one of us is not too keen on having around) and there would be a
time limit for each visitor (this would be a sliding scale according to the
visitor).
My youngest brother’s mother-in-law (who is
Dutch) has a philosophy that guests should not stay longer than fish remains
fresh (in her opinion about 3 days!).
Our first guest last year was Tad’s younger
son, Patrick, who was really not a guest at all. He was put to work on Bisou while we were still moored in La Rochelle, and basically spent
his entire three-week vacation working inside the boat! He was the ultimate good guest – he really
worked for his room and board!
Robin's Mum, Barbara, enjoying a beach in Majorca
Our second guest, my mother, who came to
visit us in Majorca for a week, was another ‘good’ guest. As my great-grandfather used to say, “A good
guest fits in with the host’s daily routine and makes themselves as invisible
as possible”. Mum was more than a great
guest as she not only fit in beautifully with our routine (which admittedly we
tried to make as comfortable as possible for her) but also treated us to a
couple of lovely meals at local restaurants.
Our only regret was that Mum hurt her back rather badly on her last
afternoon with us, which required her to be taken to the plane in a wheelchair! Not a nice situation but fortunately she only
had a short flight home and Dad was there to meet her at the airport.
Our final guest for the season was Tad’s
older son, Karl. He spent 10 days with us including crossing from Majorca to
Menorca, got fried (sunburned) on his first afternoon and I spent the next
couple of weeks vacuuming up pieces of his peeling flesh – YUCK! He was a great guest, however, as he brought
with him some extra Isagenix supplies that we badly needed to complete our
season afloat.
Are you seeing a theme here? Working/ bringing gifts/ dinners out are
great ‘bribes’ for being a good guest on a yacht (well in our books,
anyway). Of course, not sleeping until
noon, helping with dishes, etc. now and then, and not being seasick are also
helpful but not essential.
When accepting an invitation to join
friends on their yacht/boat, please remember that unless you have
multi-billionaire friends, their boat is their modest home with few luxuries.
Don’t expect cable tv, WiFi, endless supplies of fresh or hot water and being
waited on hand and foot. Our boat has a
TV which occasionally will receive a local channel, but we use it more to watch
movies from DVDs or a hard drive. We
have WiFi, also occasionally, but it’s usually expensive and we prefer guests
NOT trawl Facebook, watch You Tube videos and use huge amounts of data unless
they wish to purchase their own local SIM card and their own data plan. There are plenty of restaurants, cafes, and
bars ashore which offer free WiFi in return for the price of a cup of coffee or
a beer. Fresh water is a premium on a
boat and although we have a watermaker (desalinator) which produces our daily
needs, we don’t like to squander it. Likewise with the hot water – ours is
produced when we run the engines which we do not always do when at anchor. This
means you may need to be prepared to have a cold shower from time to time. As for being waited on – forget it! I am happy to prepare meals, do laundry and
most other chores but always welcome a helping hand!
This year we were hoping to see more
visitors and the season began with another visit from Patrick, this time with
his girlfriend Erika. They were treated
to four days in Tunisia followed by a crossing to Malta and almost two weeks
exploring some delightful anchorages around Malta, Comino and Gozo. We welcomed them not only because they were
family, but they came ‘armed’ (literally arms full) with peanut M&Ms – our favourite
and impossible to find in Tunisia!
Our latest guests, Vivienne Ellis (Tad’s
ex-sister-in-law) and her partner Peter Conroy have also been made
welcome. Bringing with them both peanut
and regular M&Ms, fixings for Margaritas AND treating us to a dinner out,
they have also been enthusiastic students of boating and sailing. After watching us anchor, raise and lower
sails as well as all the other ‘boating things’ they have learned a great deal
and have been wonderful ‘hands’ leaving me to write my blog, work on crosswords
and do chores. Heavenly! In return, we have taken them to pristine
anchorages with aqua waters, sandy bottoms and cute Greek Island towns – a fair
swap? We think so and hope that they do
as well!
Robin and Vivienne at an anchorage in Ithaca, Greece
One important consideration for guests is
where to join the yacht? From a boat-owner’s
perspective I’d like to point out that a ‘good’ guest ASKS where would be most
convenient for the skipper; to this end, we recommend people coming from
overseas should simply choose the dates they would like to come (after checking
with the skipper of course) and book their flights to a good European hub eg.
London, Paris, Frankfurt, etc. Most of
these cities have low-cost flights to a number of Mediterranean locations,
including Greek Islands, Malta, etc. and can be booked closer to the departure
date. This means, for example, that if
you are coming to Europe from Australia, and want to join a friend on their
yacht, find out which part of the Mediterranean they will be in (East or West)
and book your flights to the largest city for which you can obtain the
best-priced tickets. This should be a
return flight since you will be going back the same way even if the yacht
collects and drops you off in diff
Karl in Menorca
Depending on where you are collected, how
long you will be a guest and what the skipper’s plans are (remember this is
about being a ‘good’ guest and not about what YOU want to do!), you may be
departing from another port. Once you
have an idea of where that may be, you can start looking at possible
transportation options back to your hub in Europe. We usually can advise our guests as we have
already mapped out a route so as to best accommodate our guests’ return
flights, but sometimes we are sailing to destinations with which we are
unfamiliar and so have to play it by ear.
Google (when internet is available) is wonderful!
So who will be next? If you are reading this and plan to visit,
now you know the basic requirements, so please submit your request and we will
consider your application!
Tad with Patrick and Erika in Malta
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