I knew that leaving the Police was going to be a huge wrench and as the thirty year mark loomed I realised that without a specific project in place I was likely to be continually finding excuses to stay. The opportunity to sail all four corners of the Atlantic on the Bark Europa provided such a vehicle and as I confirmed the booking I knew the clock was ticking towards ending my Police career.

However it is one thing to sign a few forms and hand over a deposit, there are no waves crashing over your computer, no sickness and no missing family and friends. Two blasts of Europa’s horn as she sailed into Cape Harbour raised the hairs on my neck and brought a sobering dose of reality to the challenge ahead of us. Perhaps a Harley Davison and a tattoo would have been a better antedote for my mid life crisis.

We left the hotel burdoned with four months luggage considerably added to by this time with Kelseys hydrogenated fat fixes, chocolate, crisps, cakes and biscuits, sourced from a local supermarket. This of course slowed our journey somewhat as we had to keep stopping to swap the carrier bags over from one hand to the other, in some vain attempt to make them lighter and quicken our arrival at the ship.

The Bark Europa is a Dutch registered tall ship and the crew members are made up of a rather strange mix of nationalities. The common denominator is, all of them wear sandals, have their hair tied back in pony tails and smoke rollies.. The ship was berthed outside the Cape Grace Hotel, one of Cape Towns most celubrious hotels, and there was some temporary metal fencing in between the quay and hotel grounds .As the crew stood on the dockside it was a scene akin to the Greenham Common protests of the 1980's. Stereotyping aside everyone of the crew are friendly, knowledgable, ethical, they are great company and it is a privilege and a pleasure to be associated with them.

Bags stowed and clothing crammed into the very limited cupboard space the most important item on the agenda is the initial safety brief. Now serious a subject as this is, the advent of immersion survival suits does tend to inject a degree of humour and humility into these briefings. Twenty five crew donning bright orange skin tight wet suits together with matching gloves bootees and headgear is a sight to behold and the fashion conscience amongst us may have had some difficulty with this process. Indeed when fully dressed there is a striking similarity to the telly tubby’s Tinky Winky and I thought it might be apt if we were issued squashed coat hangers to stick on our heads to complete the outfit. As usual at these times, many photographs are taken and I have no doubt that they will be published on many social networking sites, so much laughter will be had at our expense.

After a brief spat with South African Immigration we said our final goodbyes and left our berth slowly negotiating the channels, locals waving us off along the way. It would be seventeen hundred miles to St Helena and until then we would have to make do with our own company so we enjoyed the interaction with the well wishers whilst we could. Table Mountain gradually faded into the distance as we made our way into the open sea and all that that would bring

Doddy