Magic ; Dog Log
Tuesday 24rd November The B’ARC – Day 3
It’s a dog’s life.
I have been sailing for 12 months now and it still confuses me - a lot. When I lived at home in North Yorkshire life was so good – running in the fields chasing butterflies and looking at cows – now life is significantly more weird.
It all began when we arrived in our tiny new home – a boat, apparently. I couldn’t understand why we had downsized. Then things got really strange. The floor in this new home moved and I couldn’t figure out what was outside and what was inside – in other words where should I go to the toilet? I am a Maltese Terrier called May. Such matters are delicate and having fully understood the rules of our house this ‘boat’ situation was a completely different. But eventually I learned where to go and I learned a lot more. I learned that living on board is fun – I get to see dolphins and I especially enjoy being with my owners all the time. In our house they went out more but here they can’t so I get to sit on laps all the time; that is if they are not rushing about pulling bits of string and raising flappy things up a big pole.
My humans are very odd. Having sailed for a year we then arrived somewhere really warm and found that there were other dogs living on boats. We chatted by pee mail along the docks and I discovered that we are a select pack. We are going to be going on something I think is called the B’ARC which sounds perfect. My owners and their friends have been rushing about a lot and doing some really strange things – like dressing up in mad outfits and buying a crazy amount of fruit and vegetables – I don’t like those but the meat order looked inviting.
One not so good thing is that I have suddenly had to go to the vet a lot – I hate the vets but apparently we have to have a lot of paperwork for me because I am special and my passport alone is just not enough. The B’ARC started well for my humans – there was a marching band and lots of excitement. They looked happy but I could tell they were all anxious too. I didn’t like the first day – there were a lot of other boats really close to ours and that made my owner Tina very anxious which makes me upset but then my other owner Mark and their friends Simon, John, Lottie and Nisse were happy so it was confusing. There was a lot of wind and some big waves and I didn’t like that so I hid in my bed and looked after Tina.
Now we have been at sea for two days, things are more settled and we are having fun. Today I met a squid that seems to have flown onto the deck. We have also seen whales and dolphins a big brown turtle calmly swam by and a small bird came on board for a rest. It said hello to me as I looked at it but I only speak human and dog – perhaps someday I will learn ‘Bird’ as you never know when a second language will come in handy. Our home seems to be rolling a lot but we are all getting used to it now. I quite enjoy sliding down the floors. We are apparently sailing well – whatever that means. But the humans are talking a lot about ‘Jammin’ – I do hope they are talking about Parties in the warm place we are going to – but I think that perhaps from the way they keep looking up at the flappy white things – they are talking about something else. There is a weird dance they do around the boat whilst putting on boots and jackets, and why are they up at odd times? One human I do enjoy talking to is Chris Tibbs. We are sailing near him and today we talked on the radio thingy – I met Chris in Las Palmas and told him I tell the weather “rough!” He liked that.
I hope tomorrow we see more animals as people are, frankly - just weird.
It’s a dogs life.