Some boozy nautical terms

Quite a few of our everyday phrases have their origin in Naval usage (apart from those with which we have Will Shakes to thank for) I thought it may be fun to have a look at some of them:

Three sheets to the wind

Picture from www.ecogreece.com

In boating terminology 'sheet's does not as you may think refer to sails, but to ropes (or occasionally chains) which are used to hold the sails in place, if the ropes become loose and are blowing about in the wind this will cause the sails to flap and consequently the boat will lurch about on the sea like a drunken sailor.
(From www.phrases.org)

One over the eight

Picture from The Sun

 

An easy one, apparently it was thought that the average man could drink a gallon, being eight pints of beer without consequences, one pint more and he was One over the Eight - Three Sheets to the wind !
8 pints seems highly improbable to me !
(From www.phrases.org)

Splice the main brace

Picture from The Guardian

To fix (splice) the main brace of a sail which had broken - usually caused by bad weather, was a very hard and dangerous job for the sailors, some of the ropes (sheets!) could be up to 5inches in diameter in this situation it became typical to reward the sailor with an extra ration of grog (after the repairs had been completed !)  So having a drink becomes 'splicing the main brace'
(I couldn't find a picture of an old ship in bad weather having it's sails mended but I'm sure you get the idea)

(From Wiki Answers)

 

The sun is over the yardarm

Picture from www.docfutre.com

This one will give a meaning to another of our everyday words (well for us oldies anyway!) Yard is an old German word for pointed stick and is where we get the word for something that measures 3feet.
On a sailing boat yardarms refer to timbers/spars mounted on the masts, at certain times of the year from the deck it will seem that the sun is so high in the sky that it is above the topmost yardarm thus suggesting that we are into the afternoon which by custom was the time for the first rum of the day, therefore if  asking the question "can I have a drink yet?" after mid day, the answer would be "yes, the sun is over the yardarm"
(From The Urban Dictionary)

I'm sure that any Naval (ex Naval personnel will correct me - yes Roy I mean you !

The Stars of the Show

People we met and who helped us have a great holiday,

Buba, the driver who took us up to Georgetown - remember the Barra Ferry Disaster post?!!

In the hat - Famara our bird guide,

the one not holding the fish - Buba our usual taxi driver,

the one holding the fish. a young Mark Longster who owns the fishing boats - picture from African Angler website,

the guide at the San Ache farm 

Pax, the dance loving sleeping taxi driver 

Famara the original and current boat skipper, 

Kawsu, the bird guide from Pirang forest who found the owls

man at Sunshine bar who has just relieved me of about £7 in exchange for some necklaces

The fishmeister

and finally . . . . . 

the one who does the writing !

Eating & Drinking

There has become an increasing amount of hotels in Gambia which offer an "All Inclusive" package, while I can see this would be good for some, for us it is our idea of hell, only tour operators profit from this, no money goes to local businesses, with Gambia being a poor country and there being very little employment we try to put money into their economy - with the trips out and eating/drinking & taxis we usually hand over more than £1000.00 . 

We take breakfast in the hotel and usually the first evening we eat there too but for the rest of the holiday we go out and about. 

Breakfasts :  the hotel we stay in has a very good breakfast buffet which is served from 0730 until about 0930.  The buffet has hot and cold food - bacon, sausages, eggs, beans - this is usually Ken's selection, I usually have fruit.  Of course the one day I decided to have some toast the toaster broke and there was no butter so I ended up with jam on warm white bread !  Also on the breakfast buffet is tomatoes, cucumbers and slices of cheese & hams - I would rather have this for dinner but the Scandinavian guests seem to like it !!

Cape Point hotel picture from www.gambia.com

 

You can eat in (under the arches) or outside (under the umbrellas)

Previously we had had a good steak and chips for dinner here so we both had that on our first evening again - apart from a snack at the airport and the 'meal' on the plane we hadn't eaten since lunchtime the previous day, the steaks were as good as we remembered and the chips still hand made not frozen, a few Julbrew and glasses of wine were consumed too.

picture from www.theplantationgambia.com

 

Locally brewed, the bird on the label is a blue breasted kingfisher - we have seen a real one too!

 

 

 

The next day (don't worry I'm not going to list 14 days worth of meals) we decided to have our dinner at the Restaurante De La Mer - the restaurant in the Bakau Guest House, this is a 10 minute walk from our hotel, we like to get to the restaurant early we have a drink or two before ordering and then we are back at the hotel for a night cap, we prefer early starts to late evenings.

 

The guest house is owned by an Egyptian Canadian the menu is very Arabic inspired.  We ate here several times during our holiday, I had some lovely lamb kebabs - Ken has since replicated these for us back home. Being situated above the fish market the fish/shellfish is always good too, however we decided to stay away from the "deep fried Aborigines" which we saw on their menu - we presume this was meant to be aubergines !

 

The outside eating area over looks the Bakau Fish Market so we spend time watching the local fishing boats landing their fish while having a drink waiting for our food.

 

 

It seems like total mayhem to us but they seem to know what they are doing !

 

Once the fish has been sorted it is up for sale,

 

 

 

http://www.bakauguesthouse.co.uk/african_art.html

 

The owner buys African carvings/sculptures which are displayed in the corridors or the guest house, mainly they are from Mali - Ken has ideas of buying some and selling them on once he's home - they will go in his case not mine !

 

After dinner the 10 minute walk back to the hotel seems too much of an effort so we sometimes get one of these :

 

picture from www.40before30.com

 

there is seating for 3 in the back  and it costs about .50p from Bakau down to our hotel - I wouldn't want to go much further in one !

 

 

Across the road from our hotel we found an Indian restaurant called Taj,

 

picture from Trip Advisor

 

On previous trips to Gambia we had eaten at The Clay Oven if we wanted Indian food, the food, service and setting were great but you paid well for it and a taxi was needed there and back which of course added again to the cost. So we were pleased to find this one and the food was of just as good a standard, we ate here a couple of times, I had some nice chicken with spinach which again Ken has replicated back here.

 

 

 

The local Gambian dishes are chicken/fish yassa (spicy) or benachin (spicy as well!)

 

 

 

 

fish yassa - we had this at Stala camp spicy fish with vegetables and rice,

picture from adventuresofjt.blogspot.com 

 

 

 

benachin, usually peanuts are added to the spice base,

picture from www.dinnerhealthyrecipies.com

 

 

 A short walk along the beach from the hotel we were staying at is a beach bar, The Sunshine Bar

We had only had a drink here before but one day we decided we would have lunch and very nice it was too, Ken had the fish of the day - you can see how close the sea is so it had to be fresh, I had prawns and salad, we have found that a lot of the restaurants have discovered Maggi gravy mix and seem to think that as Brits we want gravy with everything we try to ask for all our meals at bars such as this as "without sauce" the waiters understand English but sometimes this doesn't translate to the cooks in the kitchen and on more than one occasion we have had "sauce/gravy" over salads and fish dishes.  We were lucky here not a splash of gravy in sight.  A couple of glasses of wine/Julbrew and then it was a slow walk back along the beach to the hotel.

 

 

 

 Well, you will be pleased to know that this is the penultimate Gambia blog - and the last one is mainly pictures !!

 

 

 

Power and water

We’ve been holidaying in Gambia for over 10 years and are very much aware that the one thing you can guarantee is that at some point you may experience difficulties with power and water.  One hotel we stayed in back in 2004 used to switch off the electric and water after midnight and not re connect until about 7am the following morning, thankfully this is not so much the case nowadays, most hotels will have generators as back up for power cuts but I always carry a torch just in case (I wouldn't want to spill my wine!!), this came in handy at the bird camp in Georgetown for both walking back to the tent in the evenings and also for visiting the bathroom during the night, the room did have light bulbs but they were very low energy.  Most restaurants will have lamps to put on the tables during power cuts as was the case during one of our evening meals at the Bakau Guest House (Ken’s favourite), power was off for short periods of time during the day at the hotel we stayed in but it is really not a problem for us. 

 

Entrance to Bakau Guest House 

View from Bakau Guest House's outdoor restaurant

 

Readers may remember that I ended the blog of our journey back from Georgetown saying that the following day Ken went fishing & I spent the day under the shower, this is why :-
 

Water is a different matter, on our arrival at the bird camp in Georgetown the owner/manager? showed us the room and bathroom and I asked about water he pointed to the sink and shower area, so far so good I thought, however on trying to have a bit of a wash and clean teeth on our first night I found that there was no water available, we used bottled water and cleaned up as best we could hoping that the situation would be resolved the following morning – it wasn’t so again we did the best we could with bottled water and some hand wipes I had brought with me.  An employee of the camp apologised and explained that it was because the water relied on sunlight and there hadn’t been any the previous day (this explanation seemed highly unlikely but we decided to leave it be) unfortunately there was no water in any of the rooms for the duration of our stay at Georgetown, so no way of washing hair, by the time I had spent 3 days travelling/walking round scrub land in baking sun/been rained on/bitten by flies and spent 4 hours waiting for the ferry in the hell hole of Barra all I wanted was to stand under a shower for several days ! !

Thankfully our room at Cape Point Hotel had hot water in abundance! ! 

At this rate I'll still be blogging about this years holiday when next years comes round - YES we're going back again !!

Change of subject

I decided that in an effort to do something with my fingers that didn't involve drinking wine I would take up knitting again, this coincided nicely with someone in the family announcing that they were expecting a baby in May.

During various house moves I had lost my collection of patterns, needles and accessories, Roy kindly gave me his late wife's needles but I still needed patterns, now I'm not a miserly person but I didn't really want to spend a huge amount of money in case I got fed up or my old fingers couldn't do it any more, so I went on to EBay and found a  collection of over 500 varying patterns on a Buy It Now for about £3.00 incl postage, I loaded the disc on to the computer and started trawling through them.  I decided that as it was my first attempt in many many years I would go for something plain and simple with not too much pattern or shaping. I decided on this one :-

but not in this colour.

One of the first obstacles was  because the patterns I bought were so old a lot of them - including this one - had the needle sizes in imperial, some of the needles I acquired were imperial some were metric so firstly I spent some time matching them all up and separating into those I'd be using and those that I'll be using on later projects. This one used size 3.25mm for the ribbing and 4mm for the main parts which is pretty standard when knitting in double knit wool, I bought 2 balls x 100g in one colour and another 2 balls in different colour. I then commenced the project and realised that the problem I had thought would be my fingers was in fact my eyes - I have to take my specs off to knit the stitches and back on again to read the patter - note to self = admit you are getting old and buy varifocals !  As with most knitting patterns I did the back first and because I had decided on the first size it didn't take too long to finish, then I did the two fronts but forgot what sex I'm knitting for so apologies, on this occasion the buttons are on the wrong side I'm sure the baby won't know but I was annoyed with myself for not realising what I was doing and blindly following the pattern.  Sleeves were next and are knitted without increasing stitches and are set in not raglan so they took a little while longer, then it was all finished except the button hole band and my least favourite part the stitching up.  As I didn't have a sewing needle suitable for wool I put the pieces into my (newly purchased) work bag thus :-

it has 3 compartments at the front for feeding wool through although I don't use it that way, one large compartment at the back and the zip on the top can store needles, scissors etc.

The finished article, I was somewhat concerned that it is very small, but the baby's mum sent me a picture of him wearing it!

Then it was on to the next project :

 

This one (jacket only) I decided to knit in the second size and as it is a coat not cardigan it was a heck of a lot bigger, but again there is not much pattern only knit and purl stitches. The back was finished in a couple of nights and I started on the first front piece, the first 50 rows are in the border patter of 4 rows stocking stitch and then 6 rows knit, then it is all stocking stitch but with the first 3 stitches on the purl row knitted instead making an integrated buttonhole band. I think that the pattern instructions were a bit incorrect because it doesn't mention this after shaping for the shoulders but I did it anyway so any errors are mine not the pattern.  Feeling pleased with myself for finishing one front side in just one and a bit evenings I started the next and was even more impressed when this proved to be taking far less time I must be getting quicker however I was less impressed when I got to the shoulder shaping and had far too many stitches left and realised I'd missed out all bar the first 2 rows of the armhole shaping ! I tried to unpick back to the row concerned but was losing stitches so had no option but to unravel it all and start again - 2nd note to self - read the pattern fully.
Sleeves were easy to do one per night and the first part of the collar only took half an hour being 27 rows knit only.  Now I have to do the border for the collar which involves picking up stitches and knitting across, something I'm not too sure about but TONIGHT's the night.
I managed to do the 'Pick up and Knit' and the end result (minus buttons) is below, the colour is lavender not as light as the picture.

It took me quite some time to work out how to attach the collar but I'm quite pleased with the end result, I think as a first attempt for many years the raglan sleeves look ok. I hope the recipient doesn't think the colour is too girly, it is quite a bit darker than the photo suggests.  I have knitted this one twice the second one being in white and I decided to go back to the first size.

Next project was another jacket:

As you can see the main parts are rib & stocking stitch, I liked the idea of the collar and pockets (what do babies keep in their pockets??!!) doing this I learnt a new stitch pattern, the pattern is double rib for 2 rows then for the 3rd row knit 1 purl 1 then knit 2 together but bring the needle back through the first of the 'knit together' stitches before slipping off the needle - this keeps the number of stitches correct and also 'twists' the second stitch making the cable effect, then purl 2 and repeat the knit together stitch, the 4th row is knit and then repeat rows 1-4.  A couple of rows of knit 1 purl 1 rib finish the pockets.  The collar is made using the same pattern with shaping of casting off 6 stitches for the last 6 rows and no rib, I think the toggle type buttons give a nice effect.  I actually got a 'that looks nice' comment from Ken for this one and a request that I knit one for him too - don't hold your breath ! !

The last one another jacket,

Again I had decided to knit the second size, this is a pastel green colour, knitted in stocking stitch but with a moss rib and integrated buttonhole band again in moss stitch, making the buttonholes was easy enough but I had a mental blockage at how to cast on the stitches on the following row so I consulted my new purchase :

and worked out how to do it, however the holes were bigger than the buttons I had already bought so I tightened them up with a little stitch.  As well as knitting techniques the book shows how to make various lace, cable, intarsia and various other stitch patterns, I shall have a go at working some of them into my next project.

 

 

That's all for now, but I have a little bit more Gambia to report !

 

 

 

Fishing & a story about a hat

As this blog started off as a diary of Ken's fishing business it will probably come as no surprise that there is a post about fishing.  In fact fishing was the reason we first went to Gambia for holiday back in 2001.  We had been talking about taking an off the beaten track holiday and were at the Chatsworth Country Show when we found a stall promoting fishing holidays to Gambia when asked what there was to to for the non-fisherman or in this case woman the chap said birdwatching, we took the brochure away with us and had a good look through, for me this would have been the most exotic place I'd visited and I quite liked the look of it. We have since heard people say of Gambia that you either love it or hate it, as this last trip out there was our 8th you can tell which camp we fall into.

From that first trip (with a couple of exceptions) Ken has always booked his fishing trips through the same people, Mark and Tracy Longster, who are English based in Gambia, some of you may think the price of £140.00 per trip is a bit steep and indeed it probably is, however during the year we don't do much apart from the occasional visit to see Big Al - my nickname for the landlord of our village pub - so when we are on holiday we like to spend money on doing things we enjoy.

The price includes boat hire and boat man's wages, bait, and cold drinks and taxi to pick up at the hotel and drop back off after fishing,  tackle is also provided but Ken sometimes takes his own stuff - something I don't add to The List I let him sort that out himself. So an exchange of emails from here to Gambia and the first trip was booked for the Wednesday after our arrival.  The price is for booking the boat if you have more than one person obviously you share the cost but Ken likes to be on his own, I could go if I wanted but I'm more than happy to stay by the pool reading or take a walk on the beach.

The fishing trips depart from Dentons Bridge which is not too far from our hotel, the taxi picks up at 0915,

The boat is loaded up and then off out of the creek on to the Gambia River, depending on what sort of days fishing, the first stop is usually to buy live bait which is used for catching (can't remember what species and if I ask him again he'll get stroppy!!).  Mostly the fishing is over the reef down at Bakau and the target species are captain fish, grouper, snapper, but as any fishermen reading this will testify 'fishing' and 'catching' are two very different words ! The following pictures were all taken during one of our many holidays I'll identify which are from the current trip,

this was from our most recent trip,

The first time back in 2001 the captain of the boat was a very nice man called Famara ( not to be confused with our bird guide who is also Famara) he then left Mark's employ and was not seen for several years as he was doing his own thing so it was a pleasant surprise that he was back skippering this year 

Famara and a fish -this looks like it was in the creeks so I think it will be a  barracuda  will edit once The Expert has confirmed !

Theoretically the fish that is caught belongs to the person who paid for the boat however 99% of the time Ken always gives the fish to the boat skipper, they can then sell them in the fish market, or sometimes the people at Dentons bridge buy them, there have been a couple of times when we have taken one or two of the fish - always making sure the boat skipper has the best - we have then taken them to a beach bar and had them cooked for us - from sea to plate in a couple of hours !

Usually the fishing is out on the reef and it can be a bit 'uppy and downy' with the swell and a bit chilly with the wind even in Gambia so as I said I don't go however I do like to go up the creek on one of the pirogues so last time (2011) we booked for that 

picture from BoatDesign.net

This is the sort of boats I like, they have cushions and seats and shelter from the sun and they go slowly !

I caught a fish !

so did he, but it was a bit too strenuous for some in fact I don't think the other chap woke up the whole time we were out - he still shared the end of day tip tho!

But real men like BIG fish ! 

Ken, Ninja (no not his real name) and a PROPER fish ! - snapper I think (again I'll check with The Oracle) from our 2011 trip.

another big one, captain fish and Buba Gambia's most punctual taxi driver, again from 2011

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post the fishing trips depart from a place called Dentons Bridge, 

picture from Flikr 

There are a lot of sellers here selling anything from 'silver' jewellery to wooden carvings, I usually end up buying necklaces - stone ones not 'silver' However one time I made a very expensive purchase - it was our second trip, we arrived at Dentons Bridge to go fishing - this was back in the day when I used to go too, I didn't have a sun hat and they are 100% a necessity - prevent sun stroke etc, so I ran into the first hut selling hats and emerged a couple of minutes later with a rather fetching straw hat, we jumped onto the fishing boat and off we went. A while later Ken commented on my hat and asked me how much I'd paid for it, it was the equivalent of £10.00 Ken and the boat man nearly fainted - that is probably more than the seller makes in a week, I had paid the first price he had asked for and not done the 'proper' thing of haggling him down to at least half of the first price.  At the end of our holiday I carefully packed The Hat in to my suitcase and unpacked it when I got home, The Hat was one of the first things to go back in the case for our next trip. I arrived at Dentons Bridge the following holiday proudly wearing my hat and heard a voice booming from one of huts :

 "I recognise that hat" 

 it was the seller I had bought it from the previous year! however I think I get the last laugh, I still  have The Hat and it has accompanied me on each trip since, so working out that it cost £10.00 and we've done 6 more trips since I think I got my monies worth ! ! 

a bit like this one but without the ribbon - picture from Orvis, 

A helping hand

Sometime last year I saw an ad in on one of the fishing trade sites asking for skippers of under 10mt inshore fishing boats to take part in a survey for CEFAS (Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science - doesn't exactly trip of the tongue does it !! hence CEFAS) the best part of the survey is that a fee is paid - as they say every little helps ! It mainly involves listing where the boat was fishing what they caught etc  the returns are submitted to CEFAS and then paid a fixed sum per submission.  Occasionally members of the CEFAS staff like to come out on the boat with the fisherman. Below is Sam & her colleague Gary.

The fish is a common Ray, not allowed to land this species, it was alive so went back to swim free !

Now, own up, who out there when watching nature programmes featuring seals immediately goes "aaahhhh cute" ? yes me too, however the following picture shows the utter devastation they cause.

These are (were) monkfish, the seals get into the fishing nets and eat the monkfish tails leaving the unsaleable heads, as you can see there are 6 monks the tails of which can fetch up to £10/kg each and each tail is about 3kg - you can do the maths it makes one heck of a dent in the accounts! Once fed the seals swim off to rest before finding another net to feed on.

From SimonPW3 skipper of fishing boat Sparkling Line - another Cornish fishing boat via Twitter

"1trip alone we have lost 600 monkfish to seals” ouch, that's about £15k worth"

I usually get text messages when the boat is landing back in port to let me know all is safe, usually the text are just "landed" etc but sometimes it's "I've been Gweek'ed" which means the seals have won and the Gweek reference to the Seal Sanctuary at the nearby village of Gweek.


This weeks fishing has mainly been mackerel. Can you name the one that's not mackerel?

and do you know what is unusual about it? - answers at the bottom !

Typically the best mackerels were caught on Friday and there is no market now till Tuesday because of the Bank Holiday weekend - our friend Eric had a couple but mainly they will be used for baiting the lobster pots - there hasn't been much success in that line either so far - the sea is still far too cold - where the heck is this global warming when you need it ? !

This was a nice bonus it is a Brill also known as Poor Man's Turbot - very nice, I like this fish, and readers may like to be reassured that the hat and sweatshirt are now in the washing machine !

In case you were thinking that Skipper had gone all techy and managed to set the timer on the camera Jim a.k.a. Dolphin Man and Free Labour was on board on as well and he took the photo.


Back to that fish - it is a Garfish and what's unusual about it is that it has green bones - yes honestly GREEN ! not one that I'd eat.

"no more fish thanks I'm full"

Bye for now from me and the seals !