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CRUISING EUROPE
The Watts Family aboard "Taz"

Mike and Jan Watts set off from Trinidad, in the Spring of '99, accompanied by their four children ( all teen-aged or older), and sailed across the Atlantic, which makes them voyagers really, but here we will concentrate on what they did when they reached the other side, which puts them in the Cruising Folk category!  

The family are from the United States of America and they wanted to see some of the sights of Europe. Their offspring would join them for a spell as each of them got the opportunity to take time out from other activities.

We met the Watts family in Chaguaramas, Trinidad, while they were making preparations for their extended cruising tour of Europe and, before they set off, we were the very fortunate recipients of a splendid vertical windlass and chain, which they replaced before heading out on their Atlantic crossing and gave us as a parting gift.  We have just recently installed it, after worrying needlessly about how we could do so without destroying the foredeck. 

It eventually became apparent that it would not affect the deck very seriously to change from a horizontal to a vertical model, and we took the plunge. It is undoubtedly the best windlass and chain we've had aboard and our gratitude knows no bounds...we hope to get an opportunity to tell them so in person some day...meanwhile, we thought you might like to see this splendid photograph they sent us...you'll never guess in which season it was taken...

Here are excerpts from the letters of Jan Watts. We start in the summer of '99:

"Sarah (the youngest) and I are now in Switzerland. We have just enrolled her in school here, at Brillantmont in Lausanne. She is thrilled.
We leave for Spain tomorrow, Mike and Bob (Ed: Bob is a friend who traveled across the Atlantic with the family) should be there by the 18th.
Bob (this aforementioned friend is a young yachtsman who left his own vessel in the Caribbean to crew aboard 'Taz' on the crossing) will fly back to St Martin around the 22nd.

While we were in England, we visited the town of Bath (in South West England )as it had been suggested that we shouldn't miss it. Loved it. We drove 2000 miles through England and Scotland. It sure is pretty there."

From the 6th July 1999:

"It is very nice here in the South of Spain, but it isn't called the wind from the ¨frying pan of Hell¨ breeze for nothing.  The temperatures are up to the 100´s with a 35knot breeze that comes up from the north. We are off to cooler places. The boys are off playing golf today. We girls are doing internet for the last time until we find another out-of-the-way place to do it again. They are in bars around here, but not very many towns have them at all. We are heading towards France, it should be cooler.

We have found a place to stay for the winter, in a town called Zermatt, in Switzerland. It is where the Matterhorn is. The real one, not the Disney look-alike.  I can look at it from the kitchen window, and the boys only have to walk 200 feet to the ski lift. They can ski all the way to Italy and back again. Very cool. 

You can only get to the town by train. No cars allowed,
Horse drawn carriages move everyone around. Lots of dogs, restaurants, and things to do. We will be there from Mid December till the first of March."


This is from Jan's letter of Autumn/Fall 1999:

"We are currently in Antibes. It is a nice old village between Cannes and Monte Carlo. Tough location. It is very nice. It is an old walled in city, from centuries ago. It has a huge natural harbor that holds lots of boats. There are a couple hundred mega yachts over 110 feet long. The biggest is a 300+ footer called Lady Mora. It is like a cruise ship, only it is privately owned. 

We are having a great time in Europe. We have been in France now a month or so. Time has a way of slipping by. We usually aren't aware of the day of the week and have to look it up. Certainly, not like the old days.
Friends of ours came for a much too short visit a week or so ago. We motor/sailed up from Marseilles to a place near Cannes. 
It started to storm. So we parked and drove. Our version of Park and Ride. We managed to get to Cannes and Monte Carlo before they had to go back to Paris, for business, and then home.

Here the storms are infrequent, at least this time of year. There is either no wind or too much. You motor, or park. When it blows, it is between 35-45 miles per hour winds. We have had two such storms, this past month. The last one was a day earlier than the weather predictions, which caught us moving the boat to a safer harbor. So, being the tough Caribbean sailors that we are, we just plowed through it. We were the only ones going in our direction. But, we got here safely, wet, but in sound condition. Not only was the weather off by a day, it also didn't last the four days predicted. It was only the day we sailed. So, we have had three lovely, calm, days here in the marina.

The Med so far is different from the Caribbean, in that there really aren't many places to anchor out. There are marinas every 20 KM though. The coastline is very rocky, and drops off to a few hundred feet in no time. It is beautiful to see. Old castles and forts are everywhere. You can tend to take them for granted. I am sure that if you lived here long enough, it would just seem normal to have all of these really old buildings around you.

We walk into whatever the local town is, every day, to get freshly baked bread, fresh vegetables, and fruit.  They have tons of local little grocery stores or stands. It is all very specialized. Fruit from one, veggies from another, the butcher is down the lane, and the bakery around the corner. They are very big on really fancy desserts. It is really hard to resist.
We are a little out of sync, in timing. Mike and Matt don't get up until 9:30 and 10 AM. After tea and breakfast, we start to move about on our daily tasks. We are out of the boat by Noon, in time for just about everyone to close for the mid-day period.  All of Europe does this close-from- 12-3:30-or-4 PM thing.  They then open up until around 7 or 8 in the evening. 

No wonder Spain and France's economy isn't keeping pace with others. These people never work! They take the entire month of August off. The whole country is on vacation at the same time. Most jobs give the people 2 months off every year.  Even the trash man gets this. 

We usually wind up having lunch, our big meal of the day, and wait for the stores to open up again. Internet access is beyond primitive here. No one in town knows they even have a shop, and when you finally find one, the only people in it are all the kids that crew on the boats. It is the way we all keep in touch. It is like being at home in there. They all speak English, from England of course, but we manage to be understood. 

We don't see many Americans. Mike spent a good long time there yesterday, talking with kids from London. 3 boys and a girl, all fresh out of college and not a clue what to do with their lives. We see this a lot. Not like the days when we were in college to be "something or another". We all had a plan. They don't these days. I was reassured that my kids weren't the only ones who hadn't laid out their lives yet. They are at least younger than these are. 

We will be moving to the edge of France and Italy in a week or so. Monaco is just a stones throw from Italy. I am ready for pasta! Michael is ready for good wine. The French have some really awful stuff. California wines really spoiled us. We will spend the next month or so moving down the coast to Malta. Then, after the winter season, we will come back up to the top of Italy and take a slow trip down. This Med thing could take years!

It is so comfortable and relaxed around here. The three months we have been here, have gone by so quickly. You have to force yourself to keep moving. We have a routine of parking, every so often, and driving inland. 
You can't get the real picture, just seeing the coastline and the coastal cities. 

Inland is beautiful; everywhere we go we see parts of the US. This and that looks like Colorado, or Wyoming, or Arizona. It isn't that different from home. Just a lot closer together. 

The French and Spanish people are lovely. Very helpful, friendly and easy to be around. Besides if they talk about us, we don't know it! Michael likes the fast trains. They really get going around here. They have 'bullet', and then they have the regular fast type. 

Travel is really easily organized locally. You can move around without a car. Besides, the streets are so narrow; a V.W. (Volkswagen automobile)  has to make a three-point point turn, just to make a turn at all, in the city. They really never thought the car thing would catch on. You can tell! The streets are all one way, the way the first guy in the block is going. The poor guy who comes in the other way, just backs out, waits his turn, and prays someone else doesn't come in after this guy.

Annie (the family's dog) is loving Europe; they let her walk around everywhere, even the stores, and restaurants. Everywhere. And they feed her too! Bow Wow Cool!"

Thanks to Jan Watts of 'Taz' for that!
We have found Jan's observations fascinating, it's always interesting to hear a country you know well, or are a native of, described by visitors from a different country just as it is interesting to hear the viewpoints of other cruisers as they describe places one has never visited. 
If you are travelling, or have recently travelled, in a part of the world which is new to you or, conversely, very familiar to you and which you feel is under-appreciated by visitors, we'd love to hear from you, too...