The Spaniards have a good word for it: invernaje. Everything made
fast, everything stowed, and then the whole crew vanishes for a few
months while the November storms have their say. I am told this is
sensible. I am told the crew has homes to go to, and elderly relatives
with failing wifi who apparently cannot survive the holidays without
someone young enough to understand a router. I have never once been
consulted on the scheduling.
I will be staying, obviously. Someone has to. A ship left alone at a
pontoon for months at a stretch needs a spirit aboard to mind the
lines, listen for anything working itself loose, and generally keep an
eye on a boat that cannot keep an eye on herself. This is, in fact,
the single oldest and most legitimate piece of my trade, older than
the pipe, and I intend to point that out to anyone who suggests I have
nothing to do all winter.
It does sting a little, watching everyone pack up and head off to
somewhere colder and greyer than here, especially in December, when
this stretch of coast is putting on some of its best weather of the
year for an audience of precisely nobody. Their loss. I hear there is
a proper refit planned come spring: fixing, sanding, and the general
glorious mess of getting a new-to-us boat into shape. I will have had
several quiet months to think up complaints about all of it in
advance.
