Summer 2013 Plan

The Golden Cloud 26/2/13

What a busy few week's its been since I returned from the land of Ice, and ice, and ice, and oh a bit more ice.

On return from Greenland I decided that this summer me and The Cloud would be going on an adventure. Over a nice cup of tea with a good friend Billy Whitehouse, and then numerous phone calls to charity's and sponsors a plan slowly formulated, and its one I'm now very excited to announce.

Summary: 2300 Mile Anti-Clockwise Lap of the UK leaving 1st of May, doing beach cleans every overnight stop (aim 1000 bags of rubbish) raising funds for Surfers against Sewage, RNLI, Isle of Wight Society for the Blind and The Multiple Sclerosis Society. 

On the 1st of May 2013, The Golden Cloud will depart Ynyslas, and after stopping off in Aberdovey, will head South to do a 2300 nautical mile of the United Kingdom, in an anti-clockwise direction. The route according to passage planning software would take 35 days of direct sailing with a vessel profile similar to golden cloud. However, the plan is not to rush this and enjoy the journey as much as the destination. We plan to do 20-50 miles (~4-7 hours) sailing a day, taking advantage of the best weather and tidal conditions, and staying at anchor when it's not ideal.

The Giants Causeway
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Giant's_Causeway_-_geograph.org.uk_-_133.jpg

The Route plan includes natural beauties like The Scilly Isles, various gorgeous estuaries, Ramsey and Skomer Islands, The White Cliffs of Dover, the North West of Scotland, and the The Giants Causeway to name but a few. 

Seeing the Puffin's of Skomer Island
http://www.coolplaces.co.uk/places/uk/wales/pembrokeshire/st-davids/1596-skomer-island

It also takes in Every Capital of the UK (Cardiff, London, Edinburgh, Belfast) as well as the City's of Bristol, Falmouth, Plymouth, Poole, Southampton, Portsmouth, Brighton, Dover, Newcastle, Liverpool, Bangor etc.

A personal highlight will be sailing under Tower Bridge
Source http://www.travlang.com/blog/category/london-travel-guide/

The journey will give us a chance to see this beautiful nation of ours from angles we've never seen it before.

As per normal on the Cloud the journey will be planned as Sustainable, Low Cost and Eco-friendly as possible.

The plan is to live off the sea, fish and forage where possible, we'll even try to grow some veg and mushrooms in the limited space onboard. The plan is to sail everywhere as much as possible without using the motor unless absolutely nessasary (emergency's and tight harbour manoeuvring). All our electric will come from a small solar panel on deck. I'm even looking into changing the motor to a electric one that runs off the panel!

Its planned that we will moor in little bays and harbours instead of marinas and ports, as there is increasing evidence that large marinas are unsustainable, and huge point sources of pollution from oil in bilge pumps, antifoul paints, sewage from sea toilets and litter. We will reduce our impact in this way because the boat has no sea-toilet, all garbage will be recycled where possible and binned, and we will be careful in the use of antifoul paints and bilge pumps. Added to this the anchoring in open bays and smaller harbours means any pollution from us will be a more dilute source and thus more easily dealt with by nature. 

We wanted to give something back as part of the trip ans so we decided that we would collect sea-rubbish, an ever increasing plight on the coastal beauty of the world (we even saw it in Greenland!)

After talking to Surfers against Sewage we have decided to do a beach clean at every overnight stop and aim to collect 1000+ bags of rubbish. We want to do this to add to the cause, but also to make our trip a positive one for the environment, making it better after we leave than when we arrive, and to highlight the issue of sea rubbish to a wider audience. 

Beach Litter Picture
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2009/apr/08/waste-marine-life 

Added to this we aim to raise money for the RNLI for their work for seafarers, The Isle of Wight Society for the Blind and The Multiple Sclerosis Society for the help they gave my dad when he lost his sight with MS a few years ago, and Surfers against Sewage for there work cleaning up the coast.

http://rnli.org 

http://www.iwsightconcern.org.uk/

http://www.wight-ms.org.uk/

http://www.sas.org.uk

http://www.muckbootcompany.com 

And in the past few hours I can gladly announce the 1st Commercial Sponsor for the Project "The Muckboot Company". The Company are supplying the crew with their specialist, hard wearing  neopreyne boots. In Greenland we wore Muckboots for sailing was very impressed, hence going to Muckboot for sponsorship. 


And so the next step! Well were currently looking for crew and sponsorship (personal and commercial) for the journey. A just giving site will be set up shortly after we have discussed things through with the charitys. If you would like to become part of the crew, want to help with your local beach clean, want to help out in the organisation, or have any ideas or offers for sponsorship, Please send me an email on joeberpearce@yahoo.co.uk

Looking forward to a Great Summer!

The Golden Cloud is glistening on the horizon

The Golden Cloud 15/12/11


As one life begins to end, the Golden Cloud is glistening on the horizon.


I write this entry sat on the train on my way to the family home for christmas. When I return to Uni in January, The Golden Cloud will be home! I left the hotel first thing this morning and on the way out, the boss gave me a bottle of wine and some lovely biscuits. I can't help but think these "luxury" items may be the last, and will be savoured with that in mind.


In the bag with the wine also came my tip slip. I thought of no better way to use this money  than to head to a favourite old haunt of the local cafe, and have a big breakfast.The result was leaving town with a big smile and a belly stuffed with too much food. I wonder if those feelings will happen in 2012?


On the train we tootled past the boat yard, and i'm filled with a sense of what's to come. There was a pristene beauty to the valley as we sped past. The wintery haze hid the larder of natural foods that will soon be at my disposal. What I saw through the train window, only made my excitement and thought processes run wild. I wondered the best ways to catch and cook canada geese, if there was a hidden delicacy in the reeds, indeed were the reeds themselves a scrumptious treat?


As people came and went, bought things off the trolley, and played football manager on their I-Pads, I couldn't help feel that somewhere our modern society had lost it's way.


The £5 per litre fruit juice (with numerous preservatives and chemicals added) from kenya on the trolley. The thousands of pounds of laptops and I-things that our society makes us crave. Our obsesion even through a tough economic climate (the worst times since the 1980's according to a certian D. Cameron) with this tat, and crap, that honestly doesn't improve us or our lives.


I looked out the window and saw a world of under-utilised natural plenty. These people on the train speed past unaware, as they are engrosed in the latest episode of "strictly come dancing" on I-player. A few months down the line they may visit these beautiful places on Google Earth, on holiday, or on a team building exercise. unaware that they can admire it's beauty from the train journey too!


Last Night I had my final meal as a Uni Seminar Coordinator. The meal's purpose; to amuse and chat up a lecturer of another uni, sucking up basically. I had spent in excess of a combined week's food and energy budget for this task. While everything I ate could be caught, forraged or grown in the local area, and cooked with relatively little skill. Don't even get me started about how the majority of the dish was 5 months out of season.


I realised sat there, and sat on the train this morning, that we've become so disconnected with the natural rhythms of the world, with the true value of things. As a society we say we can't afford or its too hard to live sustainably. Yet we will easily waste the equivilant money of a high spec solar panel or wind turbine, for our annual upgrade of laptop, mobile, i pad or the next new piece of kit. This would be understandable if we needed the upgrade to do what we NEED to do on the computers. But all we NEED to do on a laptop is type, and research on the internet, neither needing high spec, or regular upgrades. What does need the regular upgrades is for the new version of Football Manager, Call of Duty, or FIFA. We buy these things and they stop us from doing things outside, they cost us money, they take up our time. Because of this we then have to spend further money on a Gym Membership, an excersise bike, a week's holiday to somewhere hot (and a massive distance worth of aviation fuel and pollution). 


If we just thought long term, not for our next techno fix, we'd save enough money in a short period of time to buy solar panels, wind turbines, land, woodland, shelter, and all the things one would need to live a life where it doesn't cost money to live, and it does't damage the planet. If we lived more sustainably we wouldn't need the gym membership as lifting the logs into the fire would build our biceps. We wouldn't need the holiday in Tenerife, as even Aberystwyth has an average of 4 hours of sunlight every day (1455 hours a year). The thing that grinds the most is that IPad (which I admit I'm also jealous that I don't have one!) may have cost around £1000 now, the second it's brought its value will halve by the end of the year its outdated and chances are will just be hoarded in a cupboard. If i spent £1000 on renewable energy equipment, (say £300 turbine, £300 panels, £150 battery, £150 transformers and controllers) based on output rating (normally the output is below this admittidly) I'd make 15p worth of electric an hour (on the price N.Power was charging me) Thats £3.6 a day, of £25 a week, of £1310 a year. In one year with these rough figures I could afford an upgrade on my solar panel and a new IPad!


Enough ranting, my train's just passed some snow topped peaks, and that reminds me to say, Merry Christmas to all, and a Happy New Year!

The Times They are a Changing

The Golden Cloud 8/12/11

So I thought to myself, a broker who has on his website boats of up to £500,000, and has sold boats from the UK to people in the USA, should find a 24ft boat for under £1000, moving only 22miles plain sailing (pardon the pun). Perhaps not it seems.

Now I understand I'm small fry, its out of season, and probably not worth the effort. But if this is the case, don't offer to sort everything out. This is a big deal, big expense for me, for gods sake it's going to be my house. So waiting the best part of a fortnight for the broker to liaise with the boatyard to sort out the best date for moving and a price to suit, does kinda grind.

Before I go any further I'll put this into context. 24ft of boat, moving 22miles, I've sorted the road transport, but I needed the yard where the boat is, to get a crane for demasting the boat and getting her on the lorry. That was the only thing I needed. I myself had sorted the crane at the destination boatyard, in about 10minutes. The cost at the destination boatyard to get her off the lorry and remasted came to £60.

I told him the dates the lorry could do, and he said OK he'd sort it out. So each day he called me gave me a cock and bull story of why he hadn't. Made funnier by the fact he lives half a mile from the boatyard and could easily pop over there any time.

So this morning, after getting a call from him claiming that "all dates wouldn't align, and that the price for the crane was going to be astronomical", I decided to take matters into my own hands. 

In 15minutes, the boatyard, crane, lorry, crane, boatyard from origin to destination were all aligned and the primers set. Upon calling the broker he was amazed that so much work could be done so quickly... I know the sailing type are meant to be layed back.... but he's bloody horizontal.

The new date is the 7th of January, a full 25 days after the originally intended date. This isn't a bad thing though, it means £50 less rent, it means I get a straight run at it, it means I can shop for items I need in the January Sales, it means I have the best part of a months more wages. But on the other hand it is a pain in the arse to have to wait.

But if anyone is free through January for an hour, an evening, a weekend, or a week, please give me a shout. Any help would be much appreciated, and as part of the deal a boat party in the summer!

The date set, costs confirmed, looks like the times will soon be a changing.