Over the Winter of 2008/2009 we berthed in Portimao marina in the Algarve, where I had the pleasure of making friends with Ron and Grace Newton from London on their Catamaran “Flo”. Ron and Grace with three other crew crossed the Atlantic with the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC) in 2001 on their previous catamaran, “Kim”. One of their crew was inspired to summarize their journey in verse, and his lines capture our trip in a way that I cannot express better.
One little caveat, this is written by a sailor, for sailors, and therefore contains a little “sailors' language”!
“Provisions”
Too many fucking bananas
That was the problem we had
We thought of the fresh fruit and vitamins
We'd be ever so glad.
But too many fucking bananas
That's what we went and bought
Despite all the careful planning
The discussions and the forethought.
So many fucking bananas
We hoisted them up the backstay
And got a huge cheer in Las Palmas
When we finally got under way.
Too many fucking bananas
It was obvious from day one
As they quickly started to ripen
Under the tropical sun.
We had fucking bananas for breakfast
And fucking bananas for lunch
If you needed a snack in between meals
Bananas you had to munch
We tried fucking bananas in Brandy
Bananas in fucking gin
For a treat we had bananas in custard
But we knew we just couldn't win.
One morning at fucking day break
We beheld a terrible sight
Our pristine yellow bananas
Had gone fucking black overnight.
Skipper gathered the crew in the cockpit
And said with a heartfelt sigh
As he chucked the bananas over the side
Fuck off, cheerio, and good bye.
The moral of this story is simple
Let the voice of experience speak
when buying fucking bananas
Just buy enough for one week.
So whenever the going is heavy
With the wind and the waves looking grim
Smile as you read our story
And remember your friends on yacht “Kim”
Luke Priest
ARC 2001
Friday, March 19, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Martinique. Nous sommes arrivé!
I've got to tell you about these French guys, they call each other Bouchon & Chou Chou (that's “Cork” and “Cabbage”, aka Stefan and Patrick). Bouchon/Stefan is a real character. He can't be much more than forty, he has a round face and a round shape, a permanent twinkle of mischief in his bright blue eyes, and a long and bushy mustache that is quintessentially French, If you haven't got the picture yet, he looks like he has just stepped out of an Asterisk and Obelisk comic strip.
We met him first in Las Palmas, where his boat was berthed on the same pontoon as us, and he introduced himself to me by playing a few bars of “Dirty ol' Town” on his flute as I walked past his boat. I obliged by singing a verse and we've been pals since, a mean achievement, since he has no English and we've been working with my little bits of pigeon French and Spanish and lots of body language. When Paul and Maura on Noble Warrior arrived I heard him again use his flute to introduce himself, this time with a few bars of “God Save the Queen”, like I said mischief!
And the pigeon French and Spanish is not to be sneezed at, they speak Portuguese in the Cape Verdes, and “Please” and “Thank you” being about the extent of my vocabulary in that idiom, I chanced my arm with my laboured Spanish. This was not only understood, it earned me the appreciation of the locals – my Spanish being so bad they couldn't tell it wasn't just bad Portuguese!
Anyway, leaving Mindelo 20/02/2010, Saturday, 16:45, Chou Chou and Bouchon came to cast off our lines, and they came armed with air horns to ensure that our exit was anything but quiet. Once free of the pontoon we let Aragorn drift about the bay while we lashed stuff down on the deck in places where it would have been in the way while casting off. Then we set sail under genoa only (a single forward sail), and left Mindelo bay and out in the rolling Atlantic.
We had met Greg and Paul from “Roma” an English boat, while in Mindelo, and they left at the same time as us. This was reassuring as it meant for at least our first night at sea there would be another boat within radio range. However it has worked out even better than that as both of us are traveling at similar speeds and we seem to have arrived at an unspoken agreement to keep each other in sight. Without this we'd be certain to be out of contact with each other very quickly. It's now Monday morning and we have just been within fifty yards of each other, taking pictures that we'll exchange later via email.
Yesterday, Sunday, we gave up on genoa only sailing as we were barely making four knots. Neil has a flight home to catch from Martinique, and at that rate it would be touch and go whether he made it. So in the morning, at the 9 a.m. watch change Catherine and Neil hoisted the mainsail, and we have been getting up to six knots since. However the winds have been a bit slack, and traveling slowly means that the towed generator is not creating as much power. That combined yesterday with a cloudy day, so we ran the engine for ninety minutes after dinner to make sure the batteries had enough juice to get through the night. A good wind all night meant we had a good charge through the night from the towed gen., so as long as we continue to have half decent winds we shouldn't have to resort to the engine for a while.
This morning shortly after dawn I noticed that one of the top battens in the sail was coming out. The battens help to keep the sail at the best angle to the wind, so when Catherine came up to relieve me at 9 we dropped the sail and fixed it. To drop and re-raise the sail we simply sailed close to the wind on genoa (headsail) only, this is a new technique for us that we learned from Neil. Having done the 3 to 6 pre dawn watch, Neil was sleeping (or trying to) for the exercise.
Later we had a call over the VHF from Roma to say they'd caught a Dorado, and Greg was recommending putting out a line. I was a bit concerned about letting out a fishing line simultaneously to the towed generator line, but reasoned that both lines should swing together. Readers of older blogs will recall the results of my previous attempt at fishing in Cadiz, where I caught a fish that was all of two inches long, and I was anxious to improve. So out went the fishing line and ten seconds later it was well and truly snagged in the towed generator rope. I spent the next hour unraveling the mess & that was the end of fishing for today.
Bad things happen in threes they say, and sure enough, after the sail's batten problems, then the fishing line tangle, before the sun had set the forward heads blocked. Neil had a look at fixing it, but the blockage is in the pipe and he didn't think it was one he could tackle at sea. Over the next few days I will summon the courage to tackle it, or at least take a look for myself. In the meantime, thankfully, we have the aft heads.
Speaking of trials & tribulations, here's a thing that I picked up from my Spanish lessons in Las Palmas. English words that end in “ation” generally translate directly into Spanish by changing the ending to “ación”, therefore “preparation” becomes “preparación”, “station” becomes “estación”, “nation”, nación”, and so on. Got the idea? OK. Spanish lesson for today, the word for “crew” is “tripulación”!
You may cringe at the poor humour, but I am already flinching at the abuse I am going to have to face from my tripulations for that.
.....
Tuesday, 23rd February.
Last night while I was on the midnight to three watch I saw that we were gradually separating from Roma on different tracks. By the time Catherine took over their light was disappearing and reappearing as we rolled about in the swell, and they were out of sight by the time Neil took over at six. When I came on again at nine I tried to raise them on VHF, and searched for them on the radar, but there was no sign. No particular problem with this, but it was reassuring to have had the company.
This morning we had another batten pop out of the sail. This time it was the bottom one, so we didn't have to lower the sail as much to fix it. I think the problem is that the shackles holding the sail to the mast are on the wrong way, causing them to chafe at the webbing that holds in the batten.
Since leaving the Cape Verdes we've been sailing on a “broad reach”. This morning we changed to a “Goose wing”. For the benefit of the non sailor, “broad reach” is sailingese for the wind is blowing from behind but not quite directly behind, or from the “aft quarter”. However now the wind is blowing directly in the direction we want to go, but when we steer that way the genoa (forward sail) is completely blanketed by the main sail. So we have gybed the genoa (pulled it out the other side) and used a pole to hold it in position. The only suitable pole we have is a big heavy spinnaker pole, so Neil and I had a bit of grunt work on the fore deck, but eventually got it set up. This set up, with the main out one side and the genoa out the other, is called a “goose wing”. It is not a very fast point of sail, but it looks elegant.
Commercial shipping have a piece of whizzkiddery on board called “AIS”. This device is linked into the ships systems and broadcasts its position, heading, speed and other relevant information by radio wave to any other AIS. Before leaving Ireland we had one of these devices installed and from time to time we pick up other ships with it. When we do we call them up and ask them for an updated weather forecast. Today we saw the Dutch tug “Statum”, first on AIS, but then he came within a couple of miles of us. We chatted briefly over the radio to Jos, the update to the forecast is more of the same, which is good.
After dinner we ran the engine for ninety minutes to boost the batteries. I am now convinced that there is a problem with the solar panels, as we are getting so little juice from them. Making matters worse is our slower speed, a combination of our “goosewing” and the fact that the winds are dropping. The slower speed means we are getting less from the towed gen. There's not much I can do about the solar panels before we reach port. Another job for the list when we get there. In the meantime, we have enough diesel to run the engine for as much battery charging as we need, and I can switch off some of the non essential systems during the day to save power if necessary.
Speaking of dinner, chili fajitas, prepared by Catherine who is today's scheduled mother. Neil being scheduled daughter today got to do wash up. As it was my turn to be son I marked our position on the chart.
Overnight the winds were slack, however with the genoa poled on a goosewing we decided that we'd keep sailing downwind, which unless there was a dramatic change in wind direction was approximately our course.
...
Wednesday 24th February
Our goose wing point of sail has sailing a little south of our ideal course, as opposed to a little north while we were broad reaching. Last we saw of Roma they were on a course diverging southerly. With our new course there is a slim chance that we might catch up with them again. Roma is a slower boat, but they are a bit more trigger happy to use the engine.
Sure enough early this morning I got a blip on the radar about six miles off our beam. Once the hour was respectable enough I gave them a call over the radio, and in a few hours we were back in sight of each other. Greg, Roma's skipper, continues to tell us of his fish dinners, caught by trailing a line. So today, while we were running the engine to charge the batteries I decided to have another go, having first hauled in the towed generator.
After about an hour I got a bite. This was a first for me, aside from two goldfish sized things that I caught in Cadiz last summer, I'd never caught a fish before, and neither had Catherine or Neil. So of the four of us, it was only the fish that had any idea what to do!
I reeled him in slowly as the fight wore him down, and got him to the back of the boat. Apparently fish change colour to the grey we're used to in the shops when they die. I still don't know what type of fish this guy was, but in the water he was a beautiful yellow green. Neil came back with net and bucket. The fish was about the size of a full grown salmon, we estimated at the time at least 18 inches, although he grew substantially subsequently! Neil was trying to get the net under him, but the net wasn't big enough, it did have the effect of panicking the fish into one final flurry of resistance that I wasn't expecting, and the line broke. Dinner escaped. I had an odd mixture of feelings; respect for this beautiful creature, relief that I wasn't going to kill it, and a part of me was glad to see him go. I wished him luck and hoped that he would be able to eject the hook from his mouth.
I put the line out again, and after about another thirty minutes I got another bite. A smaller fish, we think a dorado. He was easier to manage and we got him on board, although, as I'd never killed a fish before I made a bit of a messy job of it. Catherine cleaned and gutted him, but as there was only really enough meat on him for one dinner, or two at a push, we had him as a starter, and had a main course of sausage and mash. I'm mum today, so I got to cook him too, although once again under supervision.
The wind has been up and down all day. We continue to sail on a goosewing, and we are staying within sight of Roma. Overnight though the wind dropped very light. However we decided to follow the same strategy as last night and continue directly downwind.
Thursday, 25th February.
In the early morning the wind had died away to nothing, and with light winds for the previous 24 hours we had not been getting much power from the towed generator (the slower you go the less it produces). So when Catherine came up to relieve my watch at 9 a.m. the batteries were low and we ran the engine to charge them,. This time we put the engine in gear so that we'd have some propulsion as well. We rolled up the genoa and motored at a fuel efficient 4 knots.
Overnight Roma had overtaken us and motored ahead. Just before dawn I could barely see their nav light on the horizon, but as daylight came I lost sight of them. A little later Greg called us on the radio to say that his autohelm (automatic steering) had failed, and so had his backup steering. He was trying to fix it, and we would probably overtake him. Roma also has wind steering, but so far they have been unable to get it working properly. Wind steering is a piece of kit that I am very envious of, at it steers the boat at an angle to the wind, and you can set the angle, therefore it doesn't require any power. Unfortunately Greg and Paul on Roma haven't had much success getting that working either. If they don't sort something out they will have to steer the whole way to the Caribbean, two weeks non stop steering with only two people on board they will arrive two very tired men.
We have neither wind steering nor backup autohelm. Our fall back plan in the event of automatic steering failure is to hand steer, that would be a huge amount of extra work, but with three of us less of a nightmare than what Roma face.
As we are heading west at in excess of 100 miles a day, and since we have kept all our watches on UT (Irish time), the sunrise and sunset are both getting later every day by about eight minutes.
At home we'd also be getting the benefit of the lengthening days,. but in these latitudes the amount of daylight only varies about an hour or so between our mid winter and mid summer.
Continued light winds mean that our batteries keep getting drained. Neil has suggested that we let them drain during the day, and then run the engine at night when there is a greater drain on our power resources.
We are getting to sail slowly, but I have calculated that if we can make 90 miles a day (average 4 knots) we should be in Martinique by the 14th March. Neil has a flight home to catch, we won't know exactly what date until we arrive, other than on or after the 15th.
This afternoon, buoyed by my success yesterday as “hunter gatherer” I took out the fishing rod and sat at the aft of the boat for a couple hours. I took the line in before coming back to the cockpit for lunch to find that the lure was gone! After lunch I had another go, and another fruitless couple of hours reading my book. Finally, about 6, after a chat over the radio with Roma in which Greg told us of yet another fish that they have caught, I went aft with rod one more time. Third time lucky, or so it seemed, as soon enough I was reeling in another fish that we think is a dorado. Once again he was big enough to make a hearty meal for one, or could be stretched to a meal for two, but definitely not big enough to feed the three of us. I cast the hook again, but I sensed the crew had a little less enthusiasm as they set about the gutting and cleaning, and I could hear plans being discussed for dinner of chili con carne. I took the hint and put away the fishing gear.
Friday 26th February
Catherine's comment in the log at three o'clock this afternoon “Whoever heard of Westerley trade winds in this neck of the woods!?” The trade winds, reliably as clockwork the books tell us, blow consistently from the North-East at about 20 knots. Yet here we are beating into light airs, and having to go way north of our track. And even still we are glad of the breeze such as it is, it's better than sitting in the swell going nowhere with our sails banging about. Progress towards Martinique on our current course is about 2 knots (= 2 MPH), with almost 1,500 miles to go, and Neil with a flight to catch, my old teacher's line of “must do better” comes to mind.
Saturday 27th February
Still becalmed, plodding along with banging sails, occasionally the breeze getting up enough to push us along at 4 knots, then dying away again. Catherine ran the engine for a couple of hours during her early morning watch when the batteries got so low they were threatening to drop the autohelm. This brought the days miles covered figure to a still-not-nearly-respectable 80. One week out of the Cape Verdes today, and after the last two days of calm, we have barely averaged a hundred miles a day. Our target is 120, and I had been harbouring ambitions of 150.
All day we barely drifted along in almost no wind. At times making 2 knots, more often less than that. In this the third day of calm morale is visibly dropping.
I cheered myself up this morning by going for a swim. Not just any old swim, a swim in the Atlantic over a thousand miles off both Africa and any point in the Americas, only the Cape Verdes, 700 miles behind us are nearer, unless you count the ocean bed beneath three miles plus of water. It was a rather short swim, jumping off the front of the boat and swimming directly to the transom ladder at the back. The mention of sharks and killer whales as I was jumping in doing enough to ensure my prompt return.
Earlier on a ship passed on the horizon, Roma called them on the radio to get an updated weather forecast, force three today, but force 4 tomorrow, north easterly too, very promising! As we were finishing lunch we saw another ship, and as we were chatting with Roma over the radio trying to identify her, she called us. They too gave us a forecast, but said tomorrow's wind would be from the northwest. Not so good.
Lunch, now that I mention it, included home made brown bread that Catherine made yesterday on her “mother” shift”. And it wasn't made from a mix either, not bad for mid Atlantic! Me being mum today I served it up with ham, salami and cheese. For dinner I made them spaghetti carbonara – a fistful of spaghetti, a carton of carbonara sauce, with a packet of rashers chopped up small to supplement the bacon content. Catherine stuck some pre-bake garlic bread in the oven to go with it.
We spent the afternoon reading in the shade of the bimini (sun shade over the cockpit). The wind did occasionally reach force 3, however most of the time it was varying between beaufort 1 and 2, that's between no wind and no wind at all at all at all!
Working the watches three hours on, six hours off, no one gets a full 8 hours sleep in one go, so usually at least one of us peels off for an early night shortly after dinner (about 9ish), and usually it is midday before all three of us are up and about again. This has the advantage that despite the fact that the three of us our eating, sleeping, working, 24/7 in an area the size of a small room, we are not tripping over each other all the time, at least not as much as one would expect.
Sunday, 28th February
Last day of the month, and as I take over from Neil's watch at 6 a.m. we are still crawling along, rolling about in the swell and making very little progress. However, just before Catherine came up to relieve me at 9 a.m. a gently breeze got up and we were making 4 knots, not long after it had reached its promised force 4, and from the North East to boot! Thus with the wind on the starboard quarter we are now broad reaching nicely at 5 knots. Aragorn doesn't sail as well as some boats on this point of sale, especially not in her current state loaded to the gills with provisions, so we'll gladly take 5 knots. If we can keep it up we'll be in Martinique by the 10th March despite the last three days.
Neil is mother today, and as I type he is preparing lunch. Catherine has once again slipped into the galley ahead of him and made some more brown bread, we fairly demolished yesterday's.
And then the aft heads blocked! You'll remember the forward heads blocked on Monday, so it was looking like we were out of options, until I figured that we could still use it via the holding tank. Another job for when we reach port.
Other than that we spent the day reading our books, and Neil and I had a few games of chess. I have to be careful with him, in most games now he is getting an initial advantage, I have maintained the upper hand against him only on the strength of his slip ups.
For dinner Neil prepared what is becoming our “Aragorn Atlantic special” - Tinned duck and sausages. We got the duck in Carrefoure in Las Palmas as a special treat dish. We had come across it in Carrefoures in previous ports, but it was usually in short supply. In Las Palmas they were well stocked, and we cleaned them out. However first time we had it Neil barely touched his, so since then we cook it with sausages, Neil gets them, Catherine and I have duck, and everyone is happy.
Monday 1st March
The wind that got up yesterday morning has been holding, so we've been making good progress. Miles covered in the 24 hours up until noon today is 111. However, not quite as good as it seems, as overnight Catherine saw what she thought was a green flare in the sky to the South East just as Neil was taking over the watch. Distress flares always burn either red or white and we all thought it most likely that this was a shooting star, but we hadn't been in touch with Roma for a couple of days, and from our diverging courses the last time we saw them, South East was the direction we thought they'd be. Catherine woke me to let me know and I agreed that we should investigate. So we spent the next few hours going in the wrong direction.
There were no more flares, nothing on the horizon in any direction, and we could not make radio contact with anyone even though we called Roma several times and put out a “pan pan” relay call. So when I came up for my watch at 9 a.m. we resumed our course, Westward.
With the continued favourable wind, everyone's in good humour and spirits are high. Neil has been entertaining us by singing old Beatles numbers off key until we threaten to make him walk the plank. We don't seem to have quite exhausted our repertoire of riddles and corny jokes. For the latter Neil has been benchmarking them against those his father tells, and so we have arrived at the Jim Maher award for same!
Tuesday 2nd March
Overnight I saw a “green flare” in the sky. This time it was definitely a shooting star, but having seen it I felt more comfortable about having abandoned our detour yesterday morning.
Unfortunately from this morning the wind started to ease and go a bit southeasterly, slowing us down and forcing us to steer North of our best course. The miles covered in the 24 hours to noon was 117, one of the best since the Cape Verdes, but at an average of under 5 knots nothing to write home about -- hmm, even though that's what I'm doing, isn't it? And now with the wind failing again, it looks like that'll be a record for some time. No one is talking about it, but the drain on everyone's previous good form is noticeable. In addition, we're all pretty tired. Yes, we've gotten into our rhythm of 3 hours on 6 hours off, but it's a tiring one. We cheer ourselves up with facts like we have covered 2,000 miles since leaving the Canaries – a threshold I think we crossed yesterday, tomorrow we expect to cross the half way point between the Cape Verdes and Martinique, and the next day our distance to go should dip below the 1,000 miles. This afternoon I got really low and fed up as we wallowed around in the swell barely making three knots, and even that is not in the most direct course.
Enough of this depressing introspection. Today I'm mother, and as the sun went down I began to prepare this evening's gourmet presentation, salmon pasta. This is a dish we hadn't done before, but seemed straightforward, cream sauce, tin of salmon, pasta, seasoning. Not being a fish eater, it took a bit of encouragement to get Neil to go along with this, but as our menu is limited he went along.
Now perhaps if it had been Catherine, with her culinary skills, to have prepared this dish at least the first time, then maybe it would have worked out better. I had been thinking more on the lines of the tasty smoked salmon pasta that we used to enjoy in La Strada in Dun Laoghaire. But the gruel I slopped up was yee-uch! We all managed to force it down, but I am afraid it will be a while before that particular dish gets another outing.
After dinner I took over the watch from Neil and he took off to bed promptly, but Catherine stayed up long enough for the two of us to have a cup of tea. We had been discussing the overnight sail plan earlier, and we had switched from a goose wing to a broad reach in the hope of at least a more comfortable night – Aragorn feeling a little less prone to the swell at that point of sail in the light winds. However as we finished our tea the wind disappeared completely. Rather than spend another night with sails banging as we wallowed in the windless swell I decided to burn some of our precious diesel and run the engine. We have enough diesel left for three days motoring, provided we go slowly, that's about 100 miles a day, however with over 1,000 miles to go we have to use it judiciously. So before Catherine went to bed we took in the sails and started motoring.
It was then, as I settled myself down on my own for the last two hours of my watch that I had my extra terrestrial experience. First I saw an area of clouds on the horizon behind us in the East light up, too bright to be a ship, it was more like the light pollution from a small city, except brighter, and impossible where we are – a thousand miles from land. I watched, momentarily startled, as a bright yellow dome emerged from the sea. Slowly the dome on the horizon grew becoming more round, until it lifted itself clear of the water altogether as a bright yellow disk of light. Of course I had realised after the first half second that I was looking at the full moon rising, but it was none the less awe-inspiring for that. Last night too, I noticed Catherine had remarked in the log about another spectacular moonrise.
You weren't expecting me to talk about little green men, were you?
Wednesday, 3rd March
Once again this morning I am on the 6 – 9 dawn watch. Well I've been calling it the dawn watch, but as we travel westwards dawn comes later every day, and in fact today dawn was just after 9 a.m.
As I took over from Neil at 6 a.m. We noticed a slight breeze getting up, we decided it would be worth trying to sail again, so we unrolled the genoa, killed the engine, adjusted our course slightly to windward, and sure enough we were getting 4 knots on the calm sea.
After Neil had gone to bed I realised that we had not redeployed the towed generator, which we took in when we turned on the engine last night. The engine generates all the power we need, and there is no need to trail a propeller on a rope for extra juice, aside from the risk of wrapping the generator's rope around the engine's propellor, it slows us down. So later, when Catherine came to relieve me at 9, as we were still sailing, we relaunched the towed genny before breakfast.
Over the period of my watch we had been averaging 4 knots in the light winds. If we can keep this up all the way to Martinique, we should just make it in time for Neil's flight, which he tells us will be on or after the 15th. However, having had mainly light winds since leaving the Cape Verdes, lighter even than this morning, I'd be happier if we could put something in the bank, so to speak. So after breakfast, leaving Neil to enjoy his well earned kip, Catherine and I set about deploying the last card in our hand for improving our sailing speed – the cruising chute.
The “cruising chute” is a huge light wind headsail, which we can use instead of the genoa. It is so much like an asymmetric spinnaker that I couldn't tell you the difference. Thus far in this crossing we hadn't used it for a few reasons, including that it is a rather finicky sail to both deploy and sail with, and requires extra work from the crew. Also, based on our previous attempts with it, I wasn't entirely sure that we'd get any more speed from it. However, I'd estimated about 17 days for the entire trip, Cape Verdes to Martinique, yet here we were on the eleventh day, and thanks to the disappearance of the trade winds, we weren't quite half way yet. Something had to be done.
So I spent the next 45 minutes crawling about the foredeck, getting whacked by sails and lines, while Catherine laboured over the halyards and winches from the cockpit. Because we've used it so rarely, there was also a bit of trial and error before we got it right. Eventually though we got there, and when I hauled up the snuffer to release the sail I immediately felt Aragorn surge forward, and add a knot to our speed.
I mentioned half way, well this morning we crossed the halfway mark of this final leg of the crossing (Cape Verdes to Caribbean). The total distance for the leg is 2,070 miles, and as of today we have less than 1,035 to go. To celebrate we all had showers, such a simple luxury, but our only source of fresh water is what we carry in our tanks, so we have to use it carefully.
Of course we have sailed more than 1,035 miles to get here, on account of the way we have been fish tailing about to make the most of the winds. Later today we crossed another milestone, when the distance to go dipped below the 1,000 mile mark. These distances do not reflect our trip from the Canary Islands to the Cape Verdes, nor our passages between the Cape Verdes' islands, all of which accounts for another 1,000 miles plus, so the optimist in me says that we are past the two thirds stage. One more fact buried in all these numbers is that we are a thousand miles from the nearest land. Sobering.
We occasionally see passing ships, the last one was a few days ago, “Advantage”, we chatted briefly over the radio with the American crew and they gave us an updated forecast. They also mentioned that there was a fleet of rowing boats ahead of us, (in case you thought we were mad!!) - we might catch upon them over the next couple of days. We haven't had any contact with Roma since then either.
Neil being Mum today made us a fry up of sausage, rashers, mashed potatoes and beans, although I passed on the beans.
We had a busy day, as we spent a lot of time steering the boat, the cruising chute did indeed prove finicky and we had to make constant intersessions as the autohelm lost its way. Then, at sunset, the wind increased, and though Neil was enjoying himself piloting the boat at 8 knots with the big light wind sail, I chose discretion over speed and we reverted to the genoa, which poled out in a goose wing enabled us to follow a more direct course. The change of sail meant another 20 minutes on the foredeck getting whipped and beaten by the lines and sails flogging in the wind, and leaving a lump of skin off my toe there in the process. Although I am daughter today, seeing the state of me when I came back, Catherine volunteered to do the wash-up, I was too wrecked to protest and went straight to bed.
Thursday, 4th March
I was awoken ahead of my 8:45 alarm clock by the swell as Aragorn surged and rolled in a way that told me the trade wind was back. Still tired, I clung to my half-sleep, hooking my knee over the edge of the bed to stop me rolling on top of Catherine, and managed a few more minutes doze. I envy the way Neil apparently wakes two minutes before his watch, and is wide awake in the cockpit, ready for duty within 60 seconds, still early for his watch. I need at least 10 minutes, to gather my thoughts, get dressed, and stumble bleary eyed into the cockpit.
Sure enough, bleary-eyed or not, it was quite apparent that the trades were back, blowing us directly towards our target of Martinique, and at speeds up to 7 knots. Although 5 knots was the more usual, and sometimes even a little less, with the result that we covered 16 miles in my three hour watch up to 12 o clock. If we could repeat that in every three hour period we'd be there in a week. Our 24 hours to noon miles traveled figure today is 121 miles, bringing us110 miles closer to our target – we lost the extra 11 miles due to our fishtailing.
Sunrise was about half nine this morning (still Irish time, when we arrive in Martinique we'll gain four hours). Not as spectacular as some, due to a lot of cloud about. Before too long I was sheltering under the spray hood from a light rain that fell for a few minutes, but afterwards it cleared up and I could feel the sun burning me through my jeans. Today we've reached 45 degrees west, Martinique is approximately 60. The significance is that sunrise/sunset is exactly one hour later for every 15 degrees west you go.
Yet another batten is slipping out of the mainsail this morning, we'll have to drop the sail at some stage today to sort it. Another thing that Neil noticed was the genoa sheet (that's the rope we use to control it) was chafing on the spinnaker pole. I dug up some hosing to protect it, which we can put on at the same time.
As the day wore on the wind veered southerly and we had to keep pointing more and more north to maintain our goose-wing. Eventually we had to gybe the mainsail, and before we could do that we had to sort out the batten. Another foray onto the foredeck, but we got it sorted with out much fuss, we're improving!. Then in the afternoon the wind dropped again and backed, so this time we gybed the genoa, and poled it out on the other side, so we're back to a goose-wing again for the night.
That's right, I said the wind dropped, and our speed is down to little more than a crawl once more. At least there's enough to keep the sails full, and they're not banging about uselessly as they had been, but our speed is down to three and a half knots.
Dinner tonight was sweet and sour chicken, Catherine being mum today, and the chicken came from a tin, but it was very tasty,.
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Tuesday 9th March
Ok, I've skipped a few days. What'd I miss? Not a lot, the wind gets up from the East or North east and we think the trades are back, but then it dies away again, and we are left at best tootling along at a snail's pace of three knots, or worse, going nowhere at all with the sails just banging about as we drift with the current. Why don't you turn on the engine I hear you ask, simple fact is we brought enough diesel for at best 100 hours of very economic motoring at about 4 knots, in other words 400 miles worth. We didn't have room for any more, and even at that we have jerrycans tied to the deck. Anyway, we're not supposed to need it, the trade winds blow reliably from the East or North East non stop from December to June, and my chart announces authoritatively, the North Equatorial Current flows West at between a half and one and a half knots. I wonder if whoever proclaimed these pieces of wisdom was ever out here, heck I wonder do they know what a boat or the sea looks like!
Enough belly-aching. Actually we have had both wind and progress, and even some excitement, in the last few days, and the westward current does seem to have resumed, albeit with as much South in it as West.
The wind that we've been getting has been from the South, so hardly the trades, but we've had it on and off since Saturday. It's been good enough to keep our mileage over 100 a day, although, now that we're getting closer to land, we are feeling affluent enough with the diesel to run under engine in the calms. The 24 hours up to noon today were the best since we left the Cape Verdes, coming in at 129 miles. On Sunday the winds were light so we put up the cruising chute again, and sure enough it added a knot or two, but it was a lot of work to hoist and to sail by, the watch having to sit on the autohelm to take over when things went askew, which they did regularly. Eventually, during the night when the wind died away we took it down again and motored for a few hours until the wind returned. We had gambled on the wind holding overnight to keep up the good speed, but we lost the bet and had the added grief of taking the thing down in the dark. The downside of this wind is that the boat is leaned over and bouncing about a lot on the waves, which is alright when sitting in the cockpit, but working in the galley, i.e., cooking, washing up, etc, is a bit more difficult. I think all of us have received minor scalds in the process. Still, we'll take it, it's a lot better than wallowing around in the swell and not making any progress.
We have started to see more shipping again as we get closer to the Caribbean. We can only see for a few miles to the horizon in any direction, but we get advance warning from either the AIS our radar detector. This latter screeches at us when we've been pinged by radar – at which point we turn off the sound and look for the approaching vessel on our own radar or the AIS. The AIS is another piece of whizzkiddery that big ships use to broadcast their position, speed, direction etc., and we have the kit too, so we can pick them up. Then we call them up, say hi, and get an update of the weather forecast, if they answer us that is.
Last Friday we saw a sail on the horizon. As the day wore on it seemed to inch closer to us. We tried calling them on the radio several times, but they didn't respond, presumably they had their radio switched off, or maybe they don't speak English. By nightfall they were probably only a couple of miles away, but then after dark they didn't seem to turn on any navigation lights and in the morning they were out of sight.
Then on Sunday, I was making one of our routine checks on the instruments, when I saw this boat pop up on the AIS, 5 miles ahead of us, and traveling South West at less than a knot. Just as I was guessing it must be one of the rowers, albeit headed in the wrong direction, he called us over the radio. And that was how we met Pete the single handed rower from South Africa. He explained that he was taking a break, hence was just drifting with the current. I'll repeat that for anyone that thinks we're mad sailing the Atlantic, Pete is rowing single handed across. Apparently there's an Irish guy doing it single handed as well, but I didn't catch who it was. Pete told us that he was rowing from the Canaries, and had left nine weeks previously. We didn't have to make any significant adjustment in our course to meet up with him, as he was right on our course. Spotting his little boat in the ocean swell wasn't so easy, even with him standing up, but with the help of our instruments we rendez-vous'd mid ocean.
We'd had time to prepare a goody bag containing a couple of beers from the fridge, some fresh scones that Catherine had baked, with some Kerrygold and jam, all made as waterproof as we could get it, and tied to an empty water bottle for buoyancy. As we were sailing under cruising chute at the time we were whizzing along at 6 knots as we passed him, Neil steered us as close as we dared, I lobbed the goodies towards him, and Catherine took the pictures. Then as the Crusoe figure disappeared behind us we sang him a verse of Molly Malone. For anyone interested, Pete's boat's name is “Nyamezela” and his web site is www.rowpeterow.co.za, and he's updating the site from the boat. So you don't have to wait until he arrives in Antigua to get his latest.
This evening the wind has died down a bit, which means we've slowed down, but as we'd been thumping along at up to seven and a half knots, slowing down to 5 overnight will be a bit of a relief. Especially as it means I'll be able to get a nights sleep without having to cock one leg over the side of the bed to stop me sliding on top of Catherine.
We would be going quite a bit faster, except that we are probably losing half a knot on account of all the extra provisions we are carrying, plus another half knot on account of the growth and barnacles beneath our waterline – I haven't scrubbed the bottom since lifting out last July. Then we are losing half knot because of the resistance caused by trailing the towed generator, and the other day, we had to give up on the battens in the mainsail and take them all out before they came out by themselves, thus losing another half knot. I'm thinking if we lose any more half knots we'll be going backwards.
Dinner tonight is chili again, out of a tin of course. Neil being Mum is doing the cooking, me being today's daughter, I get to wash up.
We crossed the 300 miles to go milestone just after eight this evening, so it looks like we'll arrive in Marin, Martinique, probably Friday. Or if we're real lucky Thursday. However, if it's after dark we'll wait off shore until morning to go in in daylight.
Wednesday, 10th March
Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we nearly there?
The wind has gone light again. We'd hoist the cruising chute, but we've had such grief getting it up and down that nobody has the will or the energy. The trip is taking its tole that way.
Aside from our routine chores, cooking, cleaning, watch duty, etc., we usually entertained ourselves reading, either fiction, or one of our Caribbean cruising guides, or one of our astrology guides. The downside of the latter was we could only read during daylight, but the stars obviously are only visible at night. Also, I've had the occasional game of chess with Neil, and the three of us have played cards – when there was no wind to blow the cards away. Otherwise we have engaged in such mentally challenging enterprises was “I Spy”.
Thursday, 11th March
Watching the miles to go's slow but relentless decrease helps counterbalance the lethargy of almost three weeks at sea. The light winds have made our arrival in tomorrow almost a certainty in le Marin, Martinique. As the wind dropped away to nothing we turned on the engine, and with only a hundred miles to go, we have enough diesel to motor all the way.
Friday, 12th March
LAND!
Almost twenty days at sea, and we have sighted land. When I handed over the watch to Catherine at 9 a.m. this morning (Irish time) it was before dawn, but with only 35 miles to go, I expected that land would be visible with daylight. But after grabbing a few hours sleep I was disappointed to come up to the cockpit with 18 miles to go to see only a haze on the horizon.
Staring into the distance we were unsure whether we were looking at the vague outline of mountains or whether we were just straining our eyes. But finally it cleared a little and we were looking at the low contours of South East Martinique.
It has been a slow crossing, 14 days would have been good, 17 average, but by the time we tied on at 6 pm Irish time it was 20 days to the minute after we'd untied in the Cape Verdes.
Before we saw land we got reception on our phones, and started to send and receive SMS messages – until that my phone ran out of credit, and I discovered I need the Internet to top up. Neil's flight, we've just found out is 10 a.m. tomorrow, which cuts it just about as fine as we can be.
Saturday, 13th March, Martinique
We had to wait until 7 a.m. this morning to check in with immigration. Neil's airport taxi was waiting outside while I went through the formalities, which I had to do before I could give him back his passport.
The marina is full, but they have given us a berth for one night only, so we've got to get back to the boat now and get her ready to go out into the anchorage. Then it's back to the to do list, and plan where we go from here.
Au-revoire!
We met him first in Las Palmas, where his boat was berthed on the same pontoon as us, and he introduced himself to me by playing a few bars of “Dirty ol' Town” on his flute as I walked past his boat. I obliged by singing a verse and we've been pals since, a mean achievement, since he has no English and we've been working with my little bits of pigeon French and Spanish and lots of body language. When Paul and Maura on Noble Warrior arrived I heard him again use his flute to introduce himself, this time with a few bars of “God Save the Queen”, like I said mischief!
And the pigeon French and Spanish is not to be sneezed at, they speak Portuguese in the Cape Verdes, and “Please” and “Thank you” being about the extent of my vocabulary in that idiom, I chanced my arm with my laboured Spanish. This was not only understood, it earned me the appreciation of the locals – my Spanish being so bad they couldn't tell it wasn't just bad Portuguese!
Anyway, leaving Mindelo 20/02/2010, Saturday, 16:45, Chou Chou and Bouchon came to cast off our lines, and they came armed with air horns to ensure that our exit was anything but quiet. Once free of the pontoon we let Aragorn drift about the bay while we lashed stuff down on the deck in places where it would have been in the way while casting off. Then we set sail under genoa only (a single forward sail), and left Mindelo bay and out in the rolling Atlantic.
We had met Greg and Paul from “Roma” an English boat, while in Mindelo, and they left at the same time as us. This was reassuring as it meant for at least our first night at sea there would be another boat within radio range. However it has worked out even better than that as both of us are traveling at similar speeds and we seem to have arrived at an unspoken agreement to keep each other in sight. Without this we'd be certain to be out of contact with each other very quickly. It's now Monday morning and we have just been within fifty yards of each other, taking pictures that we'll exchange later via email.
Yesterday, Sunday, we gave up on genoa only sailing as we were barely making four knots. Neil has a flight home to catch from Martinique, and at that rate it would be touch and go whether he made it. So in the morning, at the 9 a.m. watch change Catherine and Neil hoisted the mainsail, and we have been getting up to six knots since. However the winds have been a bit slack, and traveling slowly means that the towed generator is not creating as much power. That combined yesterday with a cloudy day, so we ran the engine for ninety minutes after dinner to make sure the batteries had enough juice to get through the night. A good wind all night meant we had a good charge through the night from the towed gen., so as long as we continue to have half decent winds we shouldn't have to resort to the engine for a while.
This morning shortly after dawn I noticed that one of the top battens in the sail was coming out. The battens help to keep the sail at the best angle to the wind, so when Catherine came up to relieve me at 9 we dropped the sail and fixed it. To drop and re-raise the sail we simply sailed close to the wind on genoa (headsail) only, this is a new technique for us that we learned from Neil. Having done the 3 to 6 pre dawn watch, Neil was sleeping (or trying to) for the exercise.
Later we had a call over the VHF from Roma to say they'd caught a Dorado, and Greg was recommending putting out a line. I was a bit concerned about letting out a fishing line simultaneously to the towed generator line, but reasoned that both lines should swing together. Readers of older blogs will recall the results of my previous attempt at fishing in Cadiz, where I caught a fish that was all of two inches long, and I was anxious to improve. So out went the fishing line and ten seconds later it was well and truly snagged in the towed generator rope. I spent the next hour unraveling the mess & that was the end of fishing for today.
Bad things happen in threes they say, and sure enough, after the sail's batten problems, then the fishing line tangle, before the sun had set the forward heads blocked. Neil had a look at fixing it, but the blockage is in the pipe and he didn't think it was one he could tackle at sea. Over the next few days I will summon the courage to tackle it, or at least take a look for myself. In the meantime, thankfully, we have the aft heads.
Speaking of trials & tribulations, here's a thing that I picked up from my Spanish lessons in Las Palmas. English words that end in “ation” generally translate directly into Spanish by changing the ending to “ación”, therefore “preparation” becomes “preparación”, “station” becomes “estación”, “nation”, nación”, and so on. Got the idea? OK. Spanish lesson for today, the word for “crew” is “tripulación”!
You may cringe at the poor humour, but I am already flinching at the abuse I am going to have to face from my tripulations for that.
.....
Tuesday, 23rd February.
Last night while I was on the midnight to three watch I saw that we were gradually separating from Roma on different tracks. By the time Catherine took over their light was disappearing and reappearing as we rolled about in the swell, and they were out of sight by the time Neil took over at six. When I came on again at nine I tried to raise them on VHF, and searched for them on the radar, but there was no sign. No particular problem with this, but it was reassuring to have had the company.
This morning we had another batten pop out of the sail. This time it was the bottom one, so we didn't have to lower the sail as much to fix it. I think the problem is that the shackles holding the sail to the mast are on the wrong way, causing them to chafe at the webbing that holds in the batten.
Since leaving the Cape Verdes we've been sailing on a “broad reach”. This morning we changed to a “Goose wing”. For the benefit of the non sailor, “broad reach” is sailingese for the wind is blowing from behind but not quite directly behind, or from the “aft quarter”. However now the wind is blowing directly in the direction we want to go, but when we steer that way the genoa (forward sail) is completely blanketed by the main sail. So we have gybed the genoa (pulled it out the other side) and used a pole to hold it in position. The only suitable pole we have is a big heavy spinnaker pole, so Neil and I had a bit of grunt work on the fore deck, but eventually got it set up. This set up, with the main out one side and the genoa out the other, is called a “goose wing”. It is not a very fast point of sail, but it looks elegant.
Commercial shipping have a piece of whizzkiddery on board called “AIS”. This device is linked into the ships systems and broadcasts its position, heading, speed and other relevant information by radio wave to any other AIS. Before leaving Ireland we had one of these devices installed and from time to time we pick up other ships with it. When we do we call them up and ask them for an updated weather forecast. Today we saw the Dutch tug “Statum”, first on AIS, but then he came within a couple of miles of us. We chatted briefly over the radio to Jos, the update to the forecast is more of the same, which is good.
After dinner we ran the engine for ninety minutes to boost the batteries. I am now convinced that there is a problem with the solar panels, as we are getting so little juice from them. Making matters worse is our slower speed, a combination of our “goosewing” and the fact that the winds are dropping. The slower speed means we are getting less from the towed gen. There's not much I can do about the solar panels before we reach port. Another job for the list when we get there. In the meantime, we have enough diesel to run the engine for as much battery charging as we need, and I can switch off some of the non essential systems during the day to save power if necessary.
Speaking of dinner, chili fajitas, prepared by Catherine who is today's scheduled mother. Neil being scheduled daughter today got to do wash up. As it was my turn to be son I marked our position on the chart.
Overnight the winds were slack, however with the genoa poled on a goosewing we decided that we'd keep sailing downwind, which unless there was a dramatic change in wind direction was approximately our course.
...
Wednesday 24th February
Our goose wing point of sail has sailing a little south of our ideal course, as opposed to a little north while we were broad reaching. Last we saw of Roma they were on a course diverging southerly. With our new course there is a slim chance that we might catch up with them again. Roma is a slower boat, but they are a bit more trigger happy to use the engine.
Sure enough early this morning I got a blip on the radar about six miles off our beam. Once the hour was respectable enough I gave them a call over the radio, and in a few hours we were back in sight of each other. Greg, Roma's skipper, continues to tell us of his fish dinners, caught by trailing a line. So today, while we were running the engine to charge the batteries I decided to have another go, having first hauled in the towed generator.
After about an hour I got a bite. This was a first for me, aside from two goldfish sized things that I caught in Cadiz last summer, I'd never caught a fish before, and neither had Catherine or Neil. So of the four of us, it was only the fish that had any idea what to do!
I reeled him in slowly as the fight wore him down, and got him to the back of the boat. Apparently fish change colour to the grey we're used to in the shops when they die. I still don't know what type of fish this guy was, but in the water he was a beautiful yellow green. Neil came back with net and bucket. The fish was about the size of a full grown salmon, we estimated at the time at least 18 inches, although he grew substantially subsequently! Neil was trying to get the net under him, but the net wasn't big enough, it did have the effect of panicking the fish into one final flurry of resistance that I wasn't expecting, and the line broke. Dinner escaped. I had an odd mixture of feelings; respect for this beautiful creature, relief that I wasn't going to kill it, and a part of me was glad to see him go. I wished him luck and hoped that he would be able to eject the hook from his mouth.
I put the line out again, and after about another thirty minutes I got another bite. A smaller fish, we think a dorado. He was easier to manage and we got him on board, although, as I'd never killed a fish before I made a bit of a messy job of it. Catherine cleaned and gutted him, but as there was only really enough meat on him for one dinner, or two at a push, we had him as a starter, and had a main course of sausage and mash. I'm mum today, so I got to cook him too, although once again under supervision.
The wind has been up and down all day. We continue to sail on a goosewing, and we are staying within sight of Roma. Overnight though the wind dropped very light. However we decided to follow the same strategy as last night and continue directly downwind.
Thursday, 25th February.
In the early morning the wind had died away to nothing, and with light winds for the previous 24 hours we had not been getting much power from the towed generator (the slower you go the less it produces). So when Catherine came up to relieve my watch at 9 a.m. the batteries were low and we ran the engine to charge them,. This time we put the engine in gear so that we'd have some propulsion as well. We rolled up the genoa and motored at a fuel efficient 4 knots.
Overnight Roma had overtaken us and motored ahead. Just before dawn I could barely see their nav light on the horizon, but as daylight came I lost sight of them. A little later Greg called us on the radio to say that his autohelm (automatic steering) had failed, and so had his backup steering. He was trying to fix it, and we would probably overtake him. Roma also has wind steering, but so far they have been unable to get it working properly. Wind steering is a piece of kit that I am very envious of, at it steers the boat at an angle to the wind, and you can set the angle, therefore it doesn't require any power. Unfortunately Greg and Paul on Roma haven't had much success getting that working either. If they don't sort something out they will have to steer the whole way to the Caribbean, two weeks non stop steering with only two people on board they will arrive two very tired men.
We have neither wind steering nor backup autohelm. Our fall back plan in the event of automatic steering failure is to hand steer, that would be a huge amount of extra work, but with three of us less of a nightmare than what Roma face.
As we are heading west at in excess of 100 miles a day, and since we have kept all our watches on UT (Irish time), the sunrise and sunset are both getting later every day by about eight minutes.
At home we'd also be getting the benefit of the lengthening days,. but in these latitudes the amount of daylight only varies about an hour or so between our mid winter and mid summer.
Continued light winds mean that our batteries keep getting drained. Neil has suggested that we let them drain during the day, and then run the engine at night when there is a greater drain on our power resources.
We are getting to sail slowly, but I have calculated that if we can make 90 miles a day (average 4 knots) we should be in Martinique by the 14th March. Neil has a flight home to catch, we won't know exactly what date until we arrive, other than on or after the 15th.
This afternoon, buoyed by my success yesterday as “hunter gatherer” I took out the fishing rod and sat at the aft of the boat for a couple hours. I took the line in before coming back to the cockpit for lunch to find that the lure was gone! After lunch I had another go, and another fruitless couple of hours reading my book. Finally, about 6, after a chat over the radio with Roma in which Greg told us of yet another fish that they have caught, I went aft with rod one more time. Third time lucky, or so it seemed, as soon enough I was reeling in another fish that we think is a dorado. Once again he was big enough to make a hearty meal for one, or could be stretched to a meal for two, but definitely not big enough to feed the three of us. I cast the hook again, but I sensed the crew had a little less enthusiasm as they set about the gutting and cleaning, and I could hear plans being discussed for dinner of chili con carne. I took the hint and put away the fishing gear.
Friday 26th February
Catherine's comment in the log at three o'clock this afternoon “Whoever heard of Westerley trade winds in this neck of the woods!?” The trade winds, reliably as clockwork the books tell us, blow consistently from the North-East at about 20 knots. Yet here we are beating into light airs, and having to go way north of our track. And even still we are glad of the breeze such as it is, it's better than sitting in the swell going nowhere with our sails banging about. Progress towards Martinique on our current course is about 2 knots (= 2 MPH), with almost 1,500 miles to go, and Neil with a flight to catch, my old teacher's line of “must do better” comes to mind.
Saturday 27th February
Still becalmed, plodding along with banging sails, occasionally the breeze getting up enough to push us along at 4 knots, then dying away again. Catherine ran the engine for a couple of hours during her early morning watch when the batteries got so low they were threatening to drop the autohelm. This brought the days miles covered figure to a still-not-nearly-respectable 80. One week out of the Cape Verdes today, and after the last two days of calm, we have barely averaged a hundred miles a day. Our target is 120, and I had been harbouring ambitions of 150.
All day we barely drifted along in almost no wind. At times making 2 knots, more often less than that. In this the third day of calm morale is visibly dropping.
I cheered myself up this morning by going for a swim. Not just any old swim, a swim in the Atlantic over a thousand miles off both Africa and any point in the Americas, only the Cape Verdes, 700 miles behind us are nearer, unless you count the ocean bed beneath three miles plus of water. It was a rather short swim, jumping off the front of the boat and swimming directly to the transom ladder at the back. The mention of sharks and killer whales as I was jumping in doing enough to ensure my prompt return.
Earlier on a ship passed on the horizon, Roma called them on the radio to get an updated weather forecast, force three today, but force 4 tomorrow, north easterly too, very promising! As we were finishing lunch we saw another ship, and as we were chatting with Roma over the radio trying to identify her, she called us. They too gave us a forecast, but said tomorrow's wind would be from the northwest. Not so good.
Lunch, now that I mention it, included home made brown bread that Catherine made yesterday on her “mother” shift”. And it wasn't made from a mix either, not bad for mid Atlantic! Me being mum today I served it up with ham, salami and cheese. For dinner I made them spaghetti carbonara – a fistful of spaghetti, a carton of carbonara sauce, with a packet of rashers chopped up small to supplement the bacon content. Catherine stuck some pre-bake garlic bread in the oven to go with it.
We spent the afternoon reading in the shade of the bimini (sun shade over the cockpit). The wind did occasionally reach force 3, however most of the time it was varying between beaufort 1 and 2, that's between no wind and no wind at all at all at all!
Working the watches three hours on, six hours off, no one gets a full 8 hours sleep in one go, so usually at least one of us peels off for an early night shortly after dinner (about 9ish), and usually it is midday before all three of us are up and about again. This has the advantage that despite the fact that the three of us our eating, sleeping, working, 24/7 in an area the size of a small room, we are not tripping over each other all the time, at least not as much as one would expect.
Sunday, 28th February
Last day of the month, and as I take over from Neil's watch at 6 a.m. we are still crawling along, rolling about in the swell and making very little progress. However, just before Catherine came up to relieve me at 9 a.m. a gently breeze got up and we were making 4 knots, not long after it had reached its promised force 4, and from the North East to boot! Thus with the wind on the starboard quarter we are now broad reaching nicely at 5 knots. Aragorn doesn't sail as well as some boats on this point of sale, especially not in her current state loaded to the gills with provisions, so we'll gladly take 5 knots. If we can keep it up we'll be in Martinique by the 10th March despite the last three days.
Neil is mother today, and as I type he is preparing lunch. Catherine has once again slipped into the galley ahead of him and made some more brown bread, we fairly demolished yesterday's.
And then the aft heads blocked! You'll remember the forward heads blocked on Monday, so it was looking like we were out of options, until I figured that we could still use it via the holding tank. Another job for when we reach port.
Other than that we spent the day reading our books, and Neil and I had a few games of chess. I have to be careful with him, in most games now he is getting an initial advantage, I have maintained the upper hand against him only on the strength of his slip ups.
For dinner Neil prepared what is becoming our “Aragorn Atlantic special” - Tinned duck and sausages. We got the duck in Carrefoure in Las Palmas as a special treat dish. We had come across it in Carrefoures in previous ports, but it was usually in short supply. In Las Palmas they were well stocked, and we cleaned them out. However first time we had it Neil barely touched his, so since then we cook it with sausages, Neil gets them, Catherine and I have duck, and everyone is happy.
Monday 1st March
The wind that got up yesterday morning has been holding, so we've been making good progress. Miles covered in the 24 hours up until noon today is 111. However, not quite as good as it seems, as overnight Catherine saw what she thought was a green flare in the sky to the South East just as Neil was taking over the watch. Distress flares always burn either red or white and we all thought it most likely that this was a shooting star, but we hadn't been in touch with Roma for a couple of days, and from our diverging courses the last time we saw them, South East was the direction we thought they'd be. Catherine woke me to let me know and I agreed that we should investigate. So we spent the next few hours going in the wrong direction.
There were no more flares, nothing on the horizon in any direction, and we could not make radio contact with anyone even though we called Roma several times and put out a “pan pan” relay call. So when I came up for my watch at 9 a.m. we resumed our course, Westward.
With the continued favourable wind, everyone's in good humour and spirits are high. Neil has been entertaining us by singing old Beatles numbers off key until we threaten to make him walk the plank. We don't seem to have quite exhausted our repertoire of riddles and corny jokes. For the latter Neil has been benchmarking them against those his father tells, and so we have arrived at the Jim Maher award for same!
Tuesday 2nd March
Overnight I saw a “green flare” in the sky. This time it was definitely a shooting star, but having seen it I felt more comfortable about having abandoned our detour yesterday morning.
Unfortunately from this morning the wind started to ease and go a bit southeasterly, slowing us down and forcing us to steer North of our best course. The miles covered in the 24 hours to noon was 117, one of the best since the Cape Verdes, but at an average of under 5 knots nothing to write home about -- hmm, even though that's what I'm doing, isn't it? And now with the wind failing again, it looks like that'll be a record for some time. No one is talking about it, but the drain on everyone's previous good form is noticeable. In addition, we're all pretty tired. Yes, we've gotten into our rhythm of 3 hours on 6 hours off, but it's a tiring one. We cheer ourselves up with facts like we have covered 2,000 miles since leaving the Canaries – a threshold I think we crossed yesterday, tomorrow we expect to cross the half way point between the Cape Verdes and Martinique, and the next day our distance to go should dip below the 1,000 miles. This afternoon I got really low and fed up as we wallowed around in the swell barely making three knots, and even that is not in the most direct course.
Enough of this depressing introspection. Today I'm mother, and as the sun went down I began to prepare this evening's gourmet presentation, salmon pasta. This is a dish we hadn't done before, but seemed straightforward, cream sauce, tin of salmon, pasta, seasoning. Not being a fish eater, it took a bit of encouragement to get Neil to go along with this, but as our menu is limited he went along.
Now perhaps if it had been Catherine, with her culinary skills, to have prepared this dish at least the first time, then maybe it would have worked out better. I had been thinking more on the lines of the tasty smoked salmon pasta that we used to enjoy in La Strada in Dun Laoghaire. But the gruel I slopped up was yee-uch! We all managed to force it down, but I am afraid it will be a while before that particular dish gets another outing.
After dinner I took over the watch from Neil and he took off to bed promptly, but Catherine stayed up long enough for the two of us to have a cup of tea. We had been discussing the overnight sail plan earlier, and we had switched from a goose wing to a broad reach in the hope of at least a more comfortable night – Aragorn feeling a little less prone to the swell at that point of sail in the light winds. However as we finished our tea the wind disappeared completely. Rather than spend another night with sails banging as we wallowed in the windless swell I decided to burn some of our precious diesel and run the engine. We have enough diesel left for three days motoring, provided we go slowly, that's about 100 miles a day, however with over 1,000 miles to go we have to use it judiciously. So before Catherine went to bed we took in the sails and started motoring.
It was then, as I settled myself down on my own for the last two hours of my watch that I had my extra terrestrial experience. First I saw an area of clouds on the horizon behind us in the East light up, too bright to be a ship, it was more like the light pollution from a small city, except brighter, and impossible where we are – a thousand miles from land. I watched, momentarily startled, as a bright yellow dome emerged from the sea. Slowly the dome on the horizon grew becoming more round, until it lifted itself clear of the water altogether as a bright yellow disk of light. Of course I had realised after the first half second that I was looking at the full moon rising, but it was none the less awe-inspiring for that. Last night too, I noticed Catherine had remarked in the log about another spectacular moonrise.
You weren't expecting me to talk about little green men, were you?
Wednesday, 3rd March
Once again this morning I am on the 6 – 9 dawn watch. Well I've been calling it the dawn watch, but as we travel westwards dawn comes later every day, and in fact today dawn was just after 9 a.m.
As I took over from Neil at 6 a.m. We noticed a slight breeze getting up, we decided it would be worth trying to sail again, so we unrolled the genoa, killed the engine, adjusted our course slightly to windward, and sure enough we were getting 4 knots on the calm sea.
After Neil had gone to bed I realised that we had not redeployed the towed generator, which we took in when we turned on the engine last night. The engine generates all the power we need, and there is no need to trail a propeller on a rope for extra juice, aside from the risk of wrapping the generator's rope around the engine's propellor, it slows us down. So later, when Catherine came to relieve me at 9, as we were still sailing, we relaunched the towed genny before breakfast.
Over the period of my watch we had been averaging 4 knots in the light winds. If we can keep this up all the way to Martinique, we should just make it in time for Neil's flight, which he tells us will be on or after the 15th. However, having had mainly light winds since leaving the Cape Verdes, lighter even than this morning, I'd be happier if we could put something in the bank, so to speak. So after breakfast, leaving Neil to enjoy his well earned kip, Catherine and I set about deploying the last card in our hand for improving our sailing speed – the cruising chute.
The “cruising chute” is a huge light wind headsail, which we can use instead of the genoa. It is so much like an asymmetric spinnaker that I couldn't tell you the difference. Thus far in this crossing we hadn't used it for a few reasons, including that it is a rather finicky sail to both deploy and sail with, and requires extra work from the crew. Also, based on our previous attempts with it, I wasn't entirely sure that we'd get any more speed from it. However, I'd estimated about 17 days for the entire trip, Cape Verdes to Martinique, yet here we were on the eleventh day, and thanks to the disappearance of the trade winds, we weren't quite half way yet. Something had to be done.
So I spent the next 45 minutes crawling about the foredeck, getting whacked by sails and lines, while Catherine laboured over the halyards and winches from the cockpit. Because we've used it so rarely, there was also a bit of trial and error before we got it right. Eventually though we got there, and when I hauled up the snuffer to release the sail I immediately felt Aragorn surge forward, and add a knot to our speed.
I mentioned half way, well this morning we crossed the halfway mark of this final leg of the crossing (Cape Verdes to Caribbean). The total distance for the leg is 2,070 miles, and as of today we have less than 1,035 to go. To celebrate we all had showers, such a simple luxury, but our only source of fresh water is what we carry in our tanks, so we have to use it carefully.
Of course we have sailed more than 1,035 miles to get here, on account of the way we have been fish tailing about to make the most of the winds. Later today we crossed another milestone, when the distance to go dipped below the 1,000 mile mark. These distances do not reflect our trip from the Canary Islands to the Cape Verdes, nor our passages between the Cape Verdes' islands, all of which accounts for another 1,000 miles plus, so the optimist in me says that we are past the two thirds stage. One more fact buried in all these numbers is that we are a thousand miles from the nearest land. Sobering.
We occasionally see passing ships, the last one was a few days ago, “Advantage”, we chatted briefly over the radio with the American crew and they gave us an updated forecast. They also mentioned that there was a fleet of rowing boats ahead of us, (in case you thought we were mad!!) - we might catch upon them over the next couple of days. We haven't had any contact with Roma since then either.
Neil being Mum today made us a fry up of sausage, rashers, mashed potatoes and beans, although I passed on the beans.
We had a busy day, as we spent a lot of time steering the boat, the cruising chute did indeed prove finicky and we had to make constant intersessions as the autohelm lost its way. Then, at sunset, the wind increased, and though Neil was enjoying himself piloting the boat at 8 knots with the big light wind sail, I chose discretion over speed and we reverted to the genoa, which poled out in a goose wing enabled us to follow a more direct course. The change of sail meant another 20 minutes on the foredeck getting whipped and beaten by the lines and sails flogging in the wind, and leaving a lump of skin off my toe there in the process. Although I am daughter today, seeing the state of me when I came back, Catherine volunteered to do the wash-up, I was too wrecked to protest and went straight to bed.
Thursday, 4th March
I was awoken ahead of my 8:45 alarm clock by the swell as Aragorn surged and rolled in a way that told me the trade wind was back. Still tired, I clung to my half-sleep, hooking my knee over the edge of the bed to stop me rolling on top of Catherine, and managed a few more minutes doze. I envy the way Neil apparently wakes two minutes before his watch, and is wide awake in the cockpit, ready for duty within 60 seconds, still early for his watch. I need at least 10 minutes, to gather my thoughts, get dressed, and stumble bleary eyed into the cockpit.
Sure enough, bleary-eyed or not, it was quite apparent that the trades were back, blowing us directly towards our target of Martinique, and at speeds up to 7 knots. Although 5 knots was the more usual, and sometimes even a little less, with the result that we covered 16 miles in my three hour watch up to 12 o clock. If we could repeat that in every three hour period we'd be there in a week. Our 24 hours to noon miles traveled figure today is 121 miles, bringing us110 miles closer to our target – we lost the extra 11 miles due to our fishtailing.
Sunrise was about half nine this morning (still Irish time, when we arrive in Martinique we'll gain four hours). Not as spectacular as some, due to a lot of cloud about. Before too long I was sheltering under the spray hood from a light rain that fell for a few minutes, but afterwards it cleared up and I could feel the sun burning me through my jeans. Today we've reached 45 degrees west, Martinique is approximately 60. The significance is that sunrise/sunset is exactly one hour later for every 15 degrees west you go.
Yet another batten is slipping out of the mainsail this morning, we'll have to drop the sail at some stage today to sort it. Another thing that Neil noticed was the genoa sheet (that's the rope we use to control it) was chafing on the spinnaker pole. I dug up some hosing to protect it, which we can put on at the same time.
As the day wore on the wind veered southerly and we had to keep pointing more and more north to maintain our goose-wing. Eventually we had to gybe the mainsail, and before we could do that we had to sort out the batten. Another foray onto the foredeck, but we got it sorted with out much fuss, we're improving!. Then in the afternoon the wind dropped again and backed, so this time we gybed the genoa, and poled it out on the other side, so we're back to a goose-wing again for the night.
That's right, I said the wind dropped, and our speed is down to little more than a crawl once more. At least there's enough to keep the sails full, and they're not banging about uselessly as they had been, but our speed is down to three and a half knots.
Dinner tonight was sweet and sour chicken, Catherine being mum today, and the chicken came from a tin, but it was very tasty,.
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Tuesday 9th March
Ok, I've skipped a few days. What'd I miss? Not a lot, the wind gets up from the East or North east and we think the trades are back, but then it dies away again, and we are left at best tootling along at a snail's pace of three knots, or worse, going nowhere at all with the sails just banging about as we drift with the current. Why don't you turn on the engine I hear you ask, simple fact is we brought enough diesel for at best 100 hours of very economic motoring at about 4 knots, in other words 400 miles worth. We didn't have room for any more, and even at that we have jerrycans tied to the deck. Anyway, we're not supposed to need it, the trade winds blow reliably from the East or North East non stop from December to June, and my chart announces authoritatively, the North Equatorial Current flows West at between a half and one and a half knots. I wonder if whoever proclaimed these pieces of wisdom was ever out here, heck I wonder do they know what a boat or the sea looks like!
Enough belly-aching. Actually we have had both wind and progress, and even some excitement, in the last few days, and the westward current does seem to have resumed, albeit with as much South in it as West.
The wind that we've been getting has been from the South, so hardly the trades, but we've had it on and off since Saturday. It's been good enough to keep our mileage over 100 a day, although, now that we're getting closer to land, we are feeling affluent enough with the diesel to run under engine in the calms. The 24 hours up to noon today were the best since we left the Cape Verdes, coming in at 129 miles. On Sunday the winds were light so we put up the cruising chute again, and sure enough it added a knot or two, but it was a lot of work to hoist and to sail by, the watch having to sit on the autohelm to take over when things went askew, which they did regularly. Eventually, during the night when the wind died away we took it down again and motored for a few hours until the wind returned. We had gambled on the wind holding overnight to keep up the good speed, but we lost the bet and had the added grief of taking the thing down in the dark. The downside of this wind is that the boat is leaned over and bouncing about a lot on the waves, which is alright when sitting in the cockpit, but working in the galley, i.e., cooking, washing up, etc, is a bit more difficult. I think all of us have received minor scalds in the process. Still, we'll take it, it's a lot better than wallowing around in the swell and not making any progress.
We have started to see more shipping again as we get closer to the Caribbean. We can only see for a few miles to the horizon in any direction, but we get advance warning from either the AIS our radar detector. This latter screeches at us when we've been pinged by radar – at which point we turn off the sound and look for the approaching vessel on our own radar or the AIS. The AIS is another piece of whizzkiddery that big ships use to broadcast their position, speed, direction etc., and we have the kit too, so we can pick them up. Then we call them up, say hi, and get an update of the weather forecast, if they answer us that is.
Last Friday we saw a sail on the horizon. As the day wore on it seemed to inch closer to us. We tried calling them on the radio several times, but they didn't respond, presumably they had their radio switched off, or maybe they don't speak English. By nightfall they were probably only a couple of miles away, but then after dark they didn't seem to turn on any navigation lights and in the morning they were out of sight.
Then on Sunday, I was making one of our routine checks on the instruments, when I saw this boat pop up on the AIS, 5 miles ahead of us, and traveling South West at less than a knot. Just as I was guessing it must be one of the rowers, albeit headed in the wrong direction, he called us over the radio. And that was how we met Pete the single handed rower from South Africa. He explained that he was taking a break, hence was just drifting with the current. I'll repeat that for anyone that thinks we're mad sailing the Atlantic, Pete is rowing single handed across. Apparently there's an Irish guy doing it single handed as well, but I didn't catch who it was. Pete told us that he was rowing from the Canaries, and had left nine weeks previously. We didn't have to make any significant adjustment in our course to meet up with him, as he was right on our course. Spotting his little boat in the ocean swell wasn't so easy, even with him standing up, but with the help of our instruments we rendez-vous'd mid ocean.
We'd had time to prepare a goody bag containing a couple of beers from the fridge, some fresh scones that Catherine had baked, with some Kerrygold and jam, all made as waterproof as we could get it, and tied to an empty water bottle for buoyancy. As we were sailing under cruising chute at the time we were whizzing along at 6 knots as we passed him, Neil steered us as close as we dared, I lobbed the goodies towards him, and Catherine took the pictures. Then as the Crusoe figure disappeared behind us we sang him a verse of Molly Malone. For anyone interested, Pete's boat's name is “Nyamezela” and his web site is www.rowpeterow.co.za, and he's updating the site from the boat. So you don't have to wait until he arrives in Antigua to get his latest.
This evening the wind has died down a bit, which means we've slowed down, but as we'd been thumping along at up to seven and a half knots, slowing down to 5 overnight will be a bit of a relief. Especially as it means I'll be able to get a nights sleep without having to cock one leg over the side of the bed to stop me sliding on top of Catherine.
We would be going quite a bit faster, except that we are probably losing half a knot on account of all the extra provisions we are carrying, plus another half knot on account of the growth and barnacles beneath our waterline – I haven't scrubbed the bottom since lifting out last July. Then we are losing half knot because of the resistance caused by trailing the towed generator, and the other day, we had to give up on the battens in the mainsail and take them all out before they came out by themselves, thus losing another half knot. I'm thinking if we lose any more half knots we'll be going backwards.
Dinner tonight is chili again, out of a tin of course. Neil being Mum is doing the cooking, me being today's daughter, I get to wash up.
We crossed the 300 miles to go milestone just after eight this evening, so it looks like we'll arrive in Marin, Martinique, probably Friday. Or if we're real lucky Thursday. However, if it's after dark we'll wait off shore until morning to go in in daylight.
Wednesday, 10th March
Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we nearly there?
The wind has gone light again. We'd hoist the cruising chute, but we've had such grief getting it up and down that nobody has the will or the energy. The trip is taking its tole that way.
Aside from our routine chores, cooking, cleaning, watch duty, etc., we usually entertained ourselves reading, either fiction, or one of our Caribbean cruising guides, or one of our astrology guides. The downside of the latter was we could only read during daylight, but the stars obviously are only visible at night. Also, I've had the occasional game of chess with Neil, and the three of us have played cards – when there was no wind to blow the cards away. Otherwise we have engaged in such mentally challenging enterprises was “I Spy”.
Thursday, 11th March
Watching the miles to go's slow but relentless decrease helps counterbalance the lethargy of almost three weeks at sea. The light winds have made our arrival in tomorrow almost a certainty in le Marin, Martinique. As the wind dropped away to nothing we turned on the engine, and with only a hundred miles to go, we have enough diesel to motor all the way.
Friday, 12th March
LAND!
Almost twenty days at sea, and we have sighted land. When I handed over the watch to Catherine at 9 a.m. this morning (Irish time) it was before dawn, but with only 35 miles to go, I expected that land would be visible with daylight. But after grabbing a few hours sleep I was disappointed to come up to the cockpit with 18 miles to go to see only a haze on the horizon.
Staring into the distance we were unsure whether we were looking at the vague outline of mountains or whether we were just straining our eyes. But finally it cleared a little and we were looking at the low contours of South East Martinique.
It has been a slow crossing, 14 days would have been good, 17 average, but by the time we tied on at 6 pm Irish time it was 20 days to the minute after we'd untied in the Cape Verdes.
Before we saw land we got reception on our phones, and started to send and receive SMS messages – until that my phone ran out of credit, and I discovered I need the Internet to top up. Neil's flight, we've just found out is 10 a.m. tomorrow, which cuts it just about as fine as we can be.
Saturday, 13th March, Martinique
We had to wait until 7 a.m. this morning to check in with immigration. Neil's airport taxi was waiting outside while I went through the formalities, which I had to do before I could give him back his passport.
The marina is full, but they have given us a berth for one night only, so we've got to get back to the boat now and get her ready to go out into the anchorage. Then it's back to the to do list, and plan where we go from here.
Au-revoire!
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Cape Verdes, 16/02/2010 - 11:05
So I haven't written anything in a while, mainly because my dawn watch didn't come round again before we reached the Cape Verdes.
And yes, we arrived in the Cape Verdes last Thursday, 11th February, at about 5 p.m. Irish time, seven days and three hours after we left Las Palmas by the time we'd put the anchor down in the port of Palmeira, in the very barren looking island of Sal.
Sal is the North-Eastern most island of the Cape Verdes, and it is quite different to what I expected. Firstly I assumed it would be green, given the archipelago's name. Catherine tells me they are just named after the nearest point on continental Africa, but the place is as dry as a bone, with hardly any vegetation. Another thing is it's my first time in Africa. Despite the Cape Verdes being one of the most advanced and wealthy countries in west Africa it is still quite a startling experience. (That's advanced and wealthy in a third world context). The obvious poor state of the infrastructure, the lack of shops, and the sparsity of available produce in the shops that there are, all go to underline this really is a different world.
The locals are generally ethnic African, although a few are obviously European, then there are a few ex-pats, and of course the tourists. Tourism is very much in its infancy here, thank God, compared to the Canaries and other places we have been. Still, there are plenty of white faces about.
Population is just under half a million, with a similar number of Cape Verdean nationals living abroad.
The local kids might hassle us for 50 escudos (about €0.50) to mind the dinghy when we come ashore, and I have come across the occasional surly attitude, but generally the people are friendly and they respond well to my attempts to speak Portuguese - although all I'm doing is chancing my arm with a few Spanish words.
Bureaucracy here is a pain. We have to check in and out of every port. The norm seems to be that they keep your boat papers until you leave, but so far we've been able to manage on 24 hour passes, so they check us in and out at the same time. there is also a charge of 650 Escudos a time (about €6). It seems all the other boats we have met don't bother with check in, and just go ashore illegally. But I'm having enough anxiety in this strange place, not to be adding to my worries by being illegal. And anyway, they obviously need the money.
So far we have had two stops in Sal, Palmeira to check in, then to Santa Maria in the South of the island. Then we had an overnight sail of 80 miles to Carrical on the island of Sao Nicalau. This is a tiny litte anchorage, with a few local fishing boats, no bigger than rowing boats, and us and four other sail boats squeezed into a tiny cove. The village has no police station, and as we hadn't checked into Sao Nicalau yet it wasn't legal to go ashore. So yesterday, with no wind at all, we motored around to the port of Tarrafal on the West of the island, where we did check in.
We had been promising ourselves a meal out upon reaching the Cape Verdes, but we were finding it difficult to even find a restaurant, much less one of adequate quality. We had lunch in a place in Santa Maria, Sal, but Burger and chips meant a burger with three chips in the burger!! The girl did realise, and brought us a plate of chips afterwards, but despite the friendly service and cheap price, I've had better burgers. Then last night, just after we'd given up looking, we stumbled on a neat little restaurant where they gave us three Pizzas, a bottle of wine, and a couple of beers for 2,400 Escudos (about (€20).
The swell in the anchorage overnight was pretty bad. It wasn't so much the big Atlantic swells that were rolling in to the open anchorage, these were gentle enough, but then they bounced off the steep shore and the ricochet came back and hit us as a short nasty chop.
It kept up like this all night and this morning, so we didn't hang around for long and we are now heading for the capital Mendelo. The winds are light at the moment, if they don't pick up a bit we'll have to run the engine for an hour or two to make sure we arrive before dark.
And yes, we arrived in the Cape Verdes last Thursday, 11th February, at about 5 p.m. Irish time, seven days and three hours after we left Las Palmas by the time we'd put the anchor down in the port of Palmeira, in the very barren looking island of Sal.
Sal is the North-Eastern most island of the Cape Verdes, and it is quite different to what I expected. Firstly I assumed it would be green, given the archipelago's name. Catherine tells me they are just named after the nearest point on continental Africa, but the place is as dry as a bone, with hardly any vegetation. Another thing is it's my first time in Africa. Despite the Cape Verdes being one of the most advanced and wealthy countries in west Africa it is still quite a startling experience. (That's advanced and wealthy in a third world context). The obvious poor state of the infrastructure, the lack of shops, and the sparsity of available produce in the shops that there are, all go to underline this really is a different world.
The locals are generally ethnic African, although a few are obviously European, then there are a few ex-pats, and of course the tourists. Tourism is very much in its infancy here, thank God, compared to the Canaries and other places we have been. Still, there are plenty of white faces about.
Population is just under half a million, with a similar number of Cape Verdean nationals living abroad.
The local kids might hassle us for 50 escudos (about €0.50) to mind the dinghy when we come ashore, and I have come across the occasional surly attitude, but generally the people are friendly and they respond well to my attempts to speak Portuguese - although all I'm doing is chancing my arm with a few Spanish words.
Bureaucracy here is a pain. We have to check in and out of every port. The norm seems to be that they keep your boat papers until you leave, but so far we've been able to manage on 24 hour passes, so they check us in and out at the same time. there is also a charge of 650 Escudos a time (about €6). It seems all the other boats we have met don't bother with check in, and just go ashore illegally. But I'm having enough anxiety in this strange place, not to be adding to my worries by being illegal. And anyway, they obviously need the money.
So far we have had two stops in Sal, Palmeira to check in, then to Santa Maria in the South of the island. Then we had an overnight sail of 80 miles to Carrical on the island of Sao Nicalau. This is a tiny litte anchorage, with a few local fishing boats, no bigger than rowing boats, and us and four other sail boats squeezed into a tiny cove. The village has no police station, and as we hadn't checked into Sao Nicalau yet it wasn't legal to go ashore. So yesterday, with no wind at all, we motored around to the port of Tarrafal on the West of the island, where we did check in.
We had been promising ourselves a meal out upon reaching the Cape Verdes, but we were finding it difficult to even find a restaurant, much less one of adequate quality. We had lunch in a place in Santa Maria, Sal, but Burger and chips meant a burger with three chips in the burger!! The girl did realise, and brought us a plate of chips afterwards, but despite the friendly service and cheap price, I've had better burgers. Then last night, just after we'd given up looking, we stumbled on a neat little restaurant where they gave us three Pizzas, a bottle of wine, and a couple of beers for 2,400 Escudos (about (€20).
The swell in the anchorage overnight was pretty bad. It wasn't so much the big Atlantic swells that were rolling in to the open anchorage, these were gentle enough, but then they bounced off the steep shore and the ricochet came back and hit us as a short nasty chop.
It kept up like this all night and this morning, so we didn't hang around for long and we are now heading for the capital Mendelo. The winds are light at the moment, if they don't pick up a bit we'll have to run the engine for an hour or two to make sure we arrive before dark.
Under Passage, Tuesday 09/02/2010 - 07:55
The way we've set the watches, three hours on, six hours off, means that we're each on at a different time every day, until the pattern repeats every three days. So here I am back on the dawn watch three days later, and writing again. I'm starting an hour later today because i couldn't find the little LED light I was using to write by in the pre dawn, it's either gone over the side or someone's put it away in a "new" place.
So what's new? We're in the tropics! We had some discussion about whether the tropic of cancer is at 23 degrees or 23 and a half, but either way we crossed 23 degrees lat yesterday morning. Now I know that this conjures up visions of basking in sunshine, but in fact, here I am sitting in three layers of clothes, plus my woolly ski hat, trying to stay warm. Well, it is just after dawn. At least I don't feel the need for my thermals any more, which I was wearing the first couple of nights out of Gran Canaria.
So what's been the excitement over the last few days? Nothing as dramatic as a rope on the rudder thankfully. We tried to pole out the genoa on the end of the spinaker pole on Sunday, to allow us to sail more directly downwind. However the pole is just too big and heavy and long, Catherine and I had it kind of working in a kludged sort of way before, under Neil's direction we tried to do it the right way, but it was so big, we gave up after a bit.
We are getting daily visits from dolphins, the pods are huge. I suppose, 200 plus miles from the African coast, and, according to our instruments, not another boat within a thousand square miles, we are probably as much of a novelty for them as they are for us. But you want to see them, coming towards us in their hundreds, splashing and cavorting on their way, many of them jumping clean out of the water, it is quite a display. Unfortunately they are long gone by the time we have gotten the camera out.
We got the towed generator back online on Saturday. We launched it when Catherine came up to relieve me at 9 a.m. It has been working fine since, except that it has a tendency to slide along the puishpit until it reaches something hard, and then starts to vibrate loudly. We've had to make several trips to the back of the boat to sort it, but it has been OK now for about 36 hours, so fingers crossed.
I'm still not convinced that it is giving us the 1 amp per knot that the manufacturers claim (and that other boats with the same piece of kit tell us they are getting), so I suspect I have something set up wrong. Despite 150 watts of solar panels, we are using more power than we are generating, so we might yet have to use the engine again to charge the batteries, especially if the wind dies off and we slow down. The main culprits for energy consumption are the automatic steering, the fridge and the navigation lights. Still, we're almost holding our own.
The sky at night over the ocean is amazing. No fear of light pollution out here. I spotted the Southern Cross the night before last. At first I thought I was imagining it, as we're still in the Northern hemisphere, but Catherine confirmed it in one of our Astronomy books last night. I went to point it out to Neil when I was taken over from his watch this morning, but he told me he had been steering by it for half the night.
That's another good thing about having Neil on board, he likes to steer. On a good day I might steer for fifteen minutes or so and leave the autohelm to it the rest of the time, but Neil will steer for hours, and the saving in battery power is noticeable.
Sailing wise we are making good progress. Right now we are about 250 miles NNE of Sal, our first intended stop in the Cape Verdes. We've been making a good 5 to 7 knots for the last two days, although we were becalmed for a couple of hours on Sunday. Eventually we ran the engine for an hour to stop the sails banging about, and also to put a bit of a charge into the batteries.
And I nearly forgot to say, we met another sailboat yesterday, "Maueve Piti", from Austria. We came within a few hundred yards of each other, chatted briefly on the VHF, and they gave us an updated forecast. Then we both gybed in opposite directions and we lost sight of them.
That's where we're at now. I probably won't be writing again until we reach the Cape Verdes.
Cheers!
So what's new? We're in the tropics! We had some discussion about whether the tropic of cancer is at 23 degrees or 23 and a half, but either way we crossed 23 degrees lat yesterday morning. Now I know that this conjures up visions of basking in sunshine, but in fact, here I am sitting in three layers of clothes, plus my woolly ski hat, trying to stay warm. Well, it is just after dawn. At least I don't feel the need for my thermals any more, which I was wearing the first couple of nights out of Gran Canaria.
So what's been the excitement over the last few days? Nothing as dramatic as a rope on the rudder thankfully. We tried to pole out the genoa on the end of the spinaker pole on Sunday, to allow us to sail more directly downwind. However the pole is just too big and heavy and long, Catherine and I had it kind of working in a kludged sort of way before, under Neil's direction we tried to do it the right way, but it was so big, we gave up after a bit.
We are getting daily visits from dolphins, the pods are huge. I suppose, 200 plus miles from the African coast, and, according to our instruments, not another boat within a thousand square miles, we are probably as much of a novelty for them as they are for us. But you want to see them, coming towards us in their hundreds, splashing and cavorting on their way, many of them jumping clean out of the water, it is quite a display. Unfortunately they are long gone by the time we have gotten the camera out.
We got the towed generator back online on Saturday. We launched it when Catherine came up to relieve me at 9 a.m. It has been working fine since, except that it has a tendency to slide along the puishpit until it reaches something hard, and then starts to vibrate loudly. We've had to make several trips to the back of the boat to sort it, but it has been OK now for about 36 hours, so fingers crossed.
I'm still not convinced that it is giving us the 1 amp per knot that the manufacturers claim (and that other boats with the same piece of kit tell us they are getting), so I suspect I have something set up wrong. Despite 150 watts of solar panels, we are using more power than we are generating, so we might yet have to use the engine again to charge the batteries, especially if the wind dies off and we slow down. The main culprits for energy consumption are the automatic steering, the fridge and the navigation lights. Still, we're almost holding our own.
The sky at night over the ocean is amazing. No fear of light pollution out here. I spotted the Southern Cross the night before last. At first I thought I was imagining it, as we're still in the Northern hemisphere, but Catherine confirmed it in one of our Astronomy books last night. I went to point it out to Neil when I was taken over from his watch this morning, but he told me he had been steering by it for half the night.
That's another good thing about having Neil on board, he likes to steer. On a good day I might steer for fifteen minutes or so and leave the autohelm to it the rest of the time, but Neil will steer for hours, and the saving in battery power is noticeable.
Sailing wise we are making good progress. Right now we are about 250 miles NNE of Sal, our first intended stop in the Cape Verdes. We've been making a good 5 to 7 knots for the last two days, although we were becalmed for a couple of hours on Sunday. Eventually we ran the engine for an hour to stop the sails banging about, and also to put a bit of a charge into the batteries.
And I nearly forgot to say, we met another sailboat yesterday, "Maueve Piti", from Austria. We came within a few hundred yards of each other, chatted briefly on the VHF, and they gave us an updated forecast. Then we both gybed in opposite directions and we lost sight of them.
That's where we're at now. I probably won't be writing again until we reach the Cape Verdes.
Cheers!
Under passage Saturday, 06:55 a.m., 6/02/2010
I'm sitting alone in the cockpit, taking the 6 to 9 “dawn” watch. I relieved Neil just an hour ago, and turned on the engine to charge the batteries, they were down to minus 81, when they get to minus 100 they are too flat to run the autohelm. The reason they are so low is the towed generator has been down since last night.
I've just squeezed a few more degrees west, currently we're averaging six knots on 204 degrees. Our best course is 212 degrees, but that has us sailing too close to the gybe.
It's still dark, I'm using the head torch to see what I'm writing, which doesn't do much for my night vision, but there is nothing but sea for miles.
The stars are gradually disappearing from the sky, caused by a combination of the approaching dawn and a light haze forming. The moon is just below half, it hadn't risen before my last watch finished at midnight.
We finally got away from Las Palmas on Thursday, filled up with diesel and left the fuel pontoon at 14:30. A few French boats, including Stefan and Didier, left just before us. Paul and Maura from Noble Warrior waved us off from the pontoon.
We deployed the towed generator, seems to be only giving about half the power I was expecting, or about half an amp per knot of speed. The fact that its propellor is trailing on thirty metres of rope is a bit of a worry, I hope it doesn't wrap around anything.
I considered putting a reef in about sunset Thursday, but decided it wasn't worth the effort. I regretted it later as the wind got up to over twenty knots and we were whizzing along at eight knots. So last night just before the sun set we made the effort. Neil suggested heaving to while we reefed, I remembered Catherine and I got ourselves into a bit of a mess when we tried that before, however I wanted to see if there was a better way and if Neil would do anything differently. We were also due to gybe, so it seemed to make sense to combine the two manoeuvres.
We had quite a bit of speed on bouncing along in a moderate sea, I crawled onto the foredeck on my hands and knees to rearrange the gybe preventer line. All went well until the sheet caught in the jackstay, and we had to depower the genoa and I had to crawl forward a second time to release. By the time we had that sorted I realised in all the fuss I had dropped the preventer line, which was now trailing in the sea off the end of the boom. Another struggle to retrieve the line, and then I had to crawl to the bow a third time to lead the line through the fairlead and back to the cockpit.
Finally back in the cockpit Neil spotted that the generator had stopped turning. Seeing that I was knackered he went back himself to see what was wrong. It turned out gybing the long way round to heave to in the process wasn't such a good idea, considering that I didn't stop to think the effect this would have on the thirty metre rope we were trailing from the generator, and which was now wrapped around the rudder.
Hot, tired, and sweaty, the last of our daylight disappearing with the imminently setting sun, and a rope around our rudder, all I could think to say was a swear word, and only one at that, but I repeated it multiple times. Fortunately Neil was a bit more positive in his thinking, saying reassuringly from his vantage point at the back of the boat that it was alright, he could fix it.
I confess I was a bit circumspect of youthful optimism, but I nodded to him to have a go, as the alternative plan forming in my mind involved launching the dinghy & trying to poke out the rope from it, and in the fading light this was going to be a lot of grunt work. Thankfully my circumspection was misplaced, and in a few minutes Neil had the rope free. I had sufficiently recovered to go back and help haul in the rope.
We had started all this to put in a reef before dark, but by now the sun had long set, with the very last traces of daylight in the sky. I decided that redeploying the towed generator would best be left until the morning. Hence, when I started my watch ten hours later, the batteries were low, and hence we are now running the engine to put a charge back in them.
In the process the jackstay, which is what we clip our lifelines onto when going on deck, came under such force when it was caught in the genoa sheet that I no longer trust it, and it'll be replaced at the next chandlers. Other than that, we lost a boathook overboard in the excitement, but considering the damage we might have had to the generator or the rudder, this was small price to pay.
While I have been writing it has become daylight, it takes less than thirty minutes at these latitudes, and the haze I referred to earlier is making for a somewhat grey dawn with no sign of the sun yet. It'll show soon enough and we'll be back to blue skies.
The “Mother – Daughter – Son” watches are working with mixed success so far. We started on Thursday with Catherine as mother, me as daughter, and Neil as son. So Catherine roasted the chicken, but all I did was the wash up, and the son role is probably a little il-defined. Yesterday Neil produced a fine dinner of sweet and sour left over chicken, albeit with a bit of coaching and assistance from Catherine.
So far Neil is the only one with a full appetite, Catherine and I are still feeling a bit quesy in the swell. Oddly I was fine on Thursday, and only began to feel iffy yesterday. Today being the third day I am expecting we'll both improve.
The boat is stuffed to the gils with provisions. We've been buying bottled water to drink, especially in the Canaries, where the tap water is all desalinated and has a bit of a taste. However, generally we don't drink the water from the boat's tank, except in tea and coffee. We left Las Palmas with our 500 litre water tanks full, plus an emergency 80 litres of tap water, plus almost 200 litres of bottled drinking water. On top of this we have about 80 litres of beer, ten of UHT milk, three litres of skipper's whiskey, two litres of brandy, plus the bottles of Port, Madeira, vodka and wine that we have picked up in our travels. Although, comparatively, we have very little wine. Catherine, when doing the final shop was, I think, less concerned about Aragorn's waterline than the one in our bank account!
Ahh, finally, I see the sun, a hazy yellow disk off the port beam (left of the boat to the non-mariner). Well, ok for 08:25. Just over half an hour of my watch left. Catherine will be up to relieve me soon. It went fast enough while I was writing. When she comes up I'll have a go at redeploying the towed generator. We have a rule on board, no one goes on deck without someone in the cockpit to take appropriate action in the event of anything going askew.
Before we left home a friend of Catherine's bought her a little brass sign that reads “My husband is Captain, but I have been made Admiral”. I promptly put it up in the boat with enthusiasm, in the galley! It's my turn to be mother today, but no less than Neil, I'll be under the strict supervision of the admirtal of the galley.
Hasta Luego!
I've just squeezed a few more degrees west, currently we're averaging six knots on 204 degrees. Our best course is 212 degrees, but that has us sailing too close to the gybe.
It's still dark, I'm using the head torch to see what I'm writing, which doesn't do much for my night vision, but there is nothing but sea for miles.
The stars are gradually disappearing from the sky, caused by a combination of the approaching dawn and a light haze forming. The moon is just below half, it hadn't risen before my last watch finished at midnight.
We finally got away from Las Palmas on Thursday, filled up with diesel and left the fuel pontoon at 14:30. A few French boats, including Stefan and Didier, left just before us. Paul and Maura from Noble Warrior waved us off from the pontoon.
We deployed the towed generator, seems to be only giving about half the power I was expecting, or about half an amp per knot of speed. The fact that its propellor is trailing on thirty metres of rope is a bit of a worry, I hope it doesn't wrap around anything.
I considered putting a reef in about sunset Thursday, but decided it wasn't worth the effort. I regretted it later as the wind got up to over twenty knots and we were whizzing along at eight knots. So last night just before the sun set we made the effort. Neil suggested heaving to while we reefed, I remembered Catherine and I got ourselves into a bit of a mess when we tried that before, however I wanted to see if there was a better way and if Neil would do anything differently. We were also due to gybe, so it seemed to make sense to combine the two manoeuvres.
We had quite a bit of speed on bouncing along in a moderate sea, I crawled onto the foredeck on my hands and knees to rearrange the gybe preventer line. All went well until the sheet caught in the jackstay, and we had to depower the genoa and I had to crawl forward a second time to release. By the time we had that sorted I realised in all the fuss I had dropped the preventer line, which was now trailing in the sea off the end of the boom. Another struggle to retrieve the line, and then I had to crawl to the bow a third time to lead the line through the fairlead and back to the cockpit.
Finally back in the cockpit Neil spotted that the generator had stopped turning. Seeing that I was knackered he went back himself to see what was wrong. It turned out gybing the long way round to heave to in the process wasn't such a good idea, considering that I didn't stop to think the effect this would have on the thirty metre rope we were trailing from the generator, and which was now wrapped around the rudder.
Hot, tired, and sweaty, the last of our daylight disappearing with the imminently setting sun, and a rope around our rudder, all I could think to say was a swear word, and only one at that, but I repeated it multiple times. Fortunately Neil was a bit more positive in his thinking, saying reassuringly from his vantage point at the back of the boat that it was alright, he could fix it.
I confess I was a bit circumspect of youthful optimism, but I nodded to him to have a go, as the alternative plan forming in my mind involved launching the dinghy & trying to poke out the rope from it, and in the fading light this was going to be a lot of grunt work. Thankfully my circumspection was misplaced, and in a few minutes Neil had the rope free. I had sufficiently recovered to go back and help haul in the rope.
We had started all this to put in a reef before dark, but by now the sun had long set, with the very last traces of daylight in the sky. I decided that redeploying the towed generator would best be left until the morning. Hence, when I started my watch ten hours later, the batteries were low, and hence we are now running the engine to put a charge back in them.
In the process the jackstay, which is what we clip our lifelines onto when going on deck, came under such force when it was caught in the genoa sheet that I no longer trust it, and it'll be replaced at the next chandlers. Other than that, we lost a boathook overboard in the excitement, but considering the damage we might have had to the generator or the rudder, this was small price to pay.
While I have been writing it has become daylight, it takes less than thirty minutes at these latitudes, and the haze I referred to earlier is making for a somewhat grey dawn with no sign of the sun yet. It'll show soon enough and we'll be back to blue skies.
The “Mother – Daughter – Son” watches are working with mixed success so far. We started on Thursday with Catherine as mother, me as daughter, and Neil as son. So Catherine roasted the chicken, but all I did was the wash up, and the son role is probably a little il-defined. Yesterday Neil produced a fine dinner of sweet and sour left over chicken, albeit with a bit of coaching and assistance from Catherine.
So far Neil is the only one with a full appetite, Catherine and I are still feeling a bit quesy in the swell. Oddly I was fine on Thursday, and only began to feel iffy yesterday. Today being the third day I am expecting we'll both improve.
The boat is stuffed to the gils with provisions. We've been buying bottled water to drink, especially in the Canaries, where the tap water is all desalinated and has a bit of a taste. However, generally we don't drink the water from the boat's tank, except in tea and coffee. We left Las Palmas with our 500 litre water tanks full, plus an emergency 80 litres of tap water, plus almost 200 litres of bottled drinking water. On top of this we have about 80 litres of beer, ten of UHT milk, three litres of skipper's whiskey, two litres of brandy, plus the bottles of Port, Madeira, vodka and wine that we have picked up in our travels. Although, comparatively, we have very little wine. Catherine, when doing the final shop was, I think, less concerned about Aragorn's waterline than the one in our bank account!
Ahh, finally, I see the sun, a hazy yellow disk off the port beam (left of the boat to the non-mariner). Well, ok for 08:25. Just over half an hour of my watch left. Catherine will be up to relieve me soon. It went fast enough while I was writing. When she comes up I'll have a go at redeploying the towed generator. We have a rule on board, no one goes on deck without someone in the cockpit to take appropriate action in the event of anything going askew.
Before we left home a friend of Catherine's bought her a little brass sign that reads “My husband is Captain, but I have been made Admiral”. I promptly put it up in the boat with enthusiasm, in the galley! It's my turn to be mother today, but no less than Neil, I'll be under the strict supervision of the admirtal of the galley.
Hasta Luego!
Finally leaving Las Palmas, bound for Cape Verdes
Wed, 3 Feb 2010
If you didn't receive this one by email, you might not be on the mailing list, let's know if you want to be added.
Hi All,
We have had to abandon our earlier plans to go to La Palma, one of the more remote and smaller Canary Islands. Partly because of the delay getting away, we originally planed to leave last Monday, but the main reason is the wind is coming from that direction, and a 140 mile trip into wind is not too appetising. So we are bound for the Cape Verdes. About 800 miles, and 7 plus days from here. The long range weather forecast is good, promising trade winds behind us for most of the journey. We do expect a couple of days of almost complete calm at the weekend, so it could be 10 days or more before we arrive.
10 days at sea is no problem, we are carrying enough food and provisions for at least 5 weeks. Catherine says that she thinks she has cured herself of her love of shopping, we have spent about €800 on groceries since Monday. Amazingly, Aragorn's lockers and bilges have absorbed it all, I am looking schemingly at still available nooks and crannies that I am sure would hold another few cases of wine. I hasten to add, the wine is for when we reach land, we don't go in for much booze under way, a single 33cl beer at sundown is each crew's daily ration of grog. However we've been told that wine and beer are more expensive and lower quality in the Caribbean, so we are bringing a small supply.
My nephew Neil, who is crewing with us has been a real bonus, he has already serviced all the winches and the life jackets, and done several other jobs around the boat..
I hope to write a bit for the blog while under way although I won't be able to post it until we reach the Cape Verdes. If you haven't already done so, click on the "follow" button on the Blogsite & you will get automatic notification of updates that we make.
Wishing you all fair winds and safe anchorages.
The crew of Aragorn
Pat, Catherine and Neil.
A final note to my old school pals meeting for a reunion on the 9th April, regrettably I won't be able to join you this time, but enjoy the bash, and maybe next time...
If you didn't receive this one by email, you might not be on the mailing list, let's know if you want to be added.
Hi All,
We have had to abandon our earlier plans to go to La Palma, one of the more remote and smaller Canary Islands. Partly because of the delay getting away, we originally planed to leave last Monday, but the main reason is the wind is coming from that direction, and a 140 mile trip into wind is not too appetising. So we are bound for the Cape Verdes. About 800 miles, and 7 plus days from here. The long range weather forecast is good, promising trade winds behind us for most of the journey. We do expect a couple of days of almost complete calm at the weekend, so it could be 10 days or more before we arrive.
10 days at sea is no problem, we are carrying enough food and provisions for at least 5 weeks. Catherine says that she thinks she has cured herself of her love of shopping, we have spent about €800 on groceries since Monday. Amazingly, Aragorn's lockers and bilges have absorbed it all, I am looking schemingly at still available nooks and crannies that I am sure would hold another few cases of wine. I hasten to add, the wine is for when we reach land, we don't go in for much booze under way, a single 33cl beer at sundown is each crew's daily ration of grog. However we've been told that wine and beer are more expensive and lower quality in the Caribbean, so we are bringing a small supply.
My nephew Neil, who is crewing with us has been a real bonus, he has already serviced all the winches and the life jackets, and done several other jobs around the boat..
I hope to write a bit for the blog while under way although I won't be able to post it until we reach the Cape Verdes. If you haven't already done so, click on the "follow" button on the Blogsite & you will get automatic notification of updates that we make.
Wishing you all fair winds and safe anchorages.
The crew of Aragorn
Pat, Catherine and Neil.
A final note to my old school pals meeting for a reunion on the 9th April, regrettably I won't be able to join you this time, but enjoy the bash, and maybe next time...
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Dolphins
Here are some dolphin shots that we took at various times on the way down.
Este es video de unos delfines.
Este es video de unos delfines.
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