Going to See the Northern Virgins!

Pelican in Soper’s Hole

Saba

Lava flow to the sea – Montserrat

Lava flow to the sea – Montserrat

The volcanic wasteland on Montserrat

Montserrat on the horizon

We were determined that part of our exploration of the Caribbean would involve going north to the Virgin Islands. So certain of this plan were we, that we arranged to meet our friends Judith and Duncan up there in the on 19th January. Easy – I hear you say. But that was not strictly the case. The islands are 320 nautical miles north from St. Lucia and to cover that would involve the wind and swell being forward of the beam. Still, how difficult can that be when you are in the Caribbean Sea?
We set off from St. Lucia having checked and double-checked the weather forecasts….even Bob the Harbourmaster at Marigot Bay had a look for us on his favoured weather website. The first 12 hours were good with no problems except some annoying squalls. But then the swell got bigger and the wind came further on the nose and the squalls closed in around us. Neither of us was able to sleep that first night and by the morning a very tired Skipper admitted defeat and we changed course for Guadeloupe, the nearest land, 40 nautical miles off our starboard bow. We arrived there, off Basse-Terre, rather dishevelled, disappointed and tired. We had only covered about 120 nautical miles. Guadeloupe is a French Department and anyone who has sailed across the Channel to anywhere on the French coast will know that the first thing that happens is that you are boarded by uniformed official Douane personnel with their guns, their questions and their demands for appropriate documentation. So it was on our buoy off Guadeloupe. The two men were very polite and the paperwork was done swiftly taking all the details from the ships papers and our passports and they also told us that they were originally from France and had chosen a secondment to Guadeloupe. Finally, we asked if, having successfully completed all their forms in triplicate we were now ‘cleared in’. Ah, non Madame, absolutement non! (Silly us for even thinking it). Clearing into Guadeloupe involved going ashore (which in turn involved blowing up the dinghy and fitting and fuelling the outboard) and visiting a pub (yes, a pub!) on the harbourside with all our said particulars. Curioser and curioser! An hour or so later there we were outside what was really quite a chic bar/restaurant in Basse-Terre marina. But there was no sign of any official Immigration/Customs office there. Eventually we asked a harassed – looking woman who was cleaning up the bar in readiness for opening. She pointed to a small room alongside the restaurant which looked like a private function room with tables laid ready, definitely nothing office-like about it. Had she mis-understood our tres mal Francais peut-etre?? As we were loitering by the door she ran up behind us and beckoned us into the little room, drew back a curtain at the back to reveal, amongst the wine bottles and napkins, a computer terminal. She asked for our papers and sure enough, 10 minutes later, with much sighing and deliberation on her part and consternation on ours, we were cleared in and out simultaneously! So relieved were we by this minor victory that it seemed churlish not to partake of lunch at the establishment which had unexpectedly afforded us legal status…..and thus the day passed without us going north.
Plan B had been established, it was not as direct as Plan A of course, involved island-hopping north doing day sails and stopping for sleep at night and based on the requirement to clear customs at each Island not as easy as it sounds. Thus the next week or so was spent heading north and anchoring off the islands in the Leeward chain, including Montserrat, Kitts and Nevis, St. Eustatia (known just as Statia to its friends) and Saba. I should explain perhaps at this juncture that these particular islands are the cause of all the trouble. We chartered a yacht for 10 days and explored this part of the Caribbean for our 20th wedding anniversary in 1998 – long before we had a boat of our own. This wonderful but brief experience made us promise ourselves to return one day and do a more thorough job and here we jolly well are doing just that! Thus, passing these islands and giving them such disgracefully short shrift was a wrench to say the least, but with each island passing we promised another return visit (which would then include the necessary formalities of course) when we returned south again in late February/March.
A word here about Montserrat, which was an island completely off-limits during our former visit in 1998 but was hauntingly ever-present on the horizon with its plume of volcanic smoke. Many of you will remember the catastrophic volcanic eruptions suffered by Montserrat in the 1990’s. The capital, Plymouth and a significant portion of the south of the island was completely covered in lava and ash and is still an exclusion zone. Thankfully very few lives were lost. There remains significant seismic activity so we were not permitted to sail too close to the shore of the island but as we went past we could clearly see to our horror what looked like vast swathes of nuclear wasteland; huge grey patches of land where nothing grew and spikes of former vegetation here and there. What had been beautiful colonnaded villas stared blankly onto their wonderful seaward vistas now empty and windowless shells. The air was still sulphurously acrid. On our return trip south we intend to get ashore if we can (although there is no harbour now) as it is possible, if the experts consider it safe, to have an escorted tour through the devastated areas in the exclusion zone. We feel it would be a shame to miss a tour of our very own modern day Pompeii.
Eventually we found ourselves off beautiful Saba and therefore on the cusp of the last 100 miles to those blessed Virgin Islands which seemed so be playing so hard to get! (All sorts of smutty joke one-liners spring to mind now….but I will move swiftly on…..). From Saba north the track is such that at last the wind and swell were purported to be more behind us (just aft of the beam)….hurray! And so it proved to be. We had a comfortable sail for the rest of the way, covering the miles easily, picking up a buoy in Soper’s Hole, Tortola, British Virgin Islands at two in the morning and oh so relieved to be there! We had made it!
We were awoken in the morning by a violent splash alongside the boat. Fearing someone had fallen in to the drink we dashed up to the cockpit. The culprit was a huge pelican which flew over the boats in the anchorage and periodically dived down between them, beak first and, throwing any sense of grace to the wind, smashed into the water emerging a few seconds later with its lower beak jowls bulging and wriggling with the proceeds of its raid and an unmistakably self-satisfied grin on its face. Time and time again they came, each as graceless and over-dramatic as the last, until we found ourselves as oblivious to their clumsy splashes as everyone else seemed to be. They were indeed a firm feature of our time in the Northern Isles and a source of constant amusement and wonderment.
Now, we have explained and sighed remorselessly about the onerous task of having to clear in and out of each island nation but of course, for our dearly beloved United States to where we were headed in the guise of the US Virgin Islands, the requirements of this task for us the hapless touring sailors reached another level entirely. Thankfully, we had done some homework…. but not enough. We had thought that just as when one visits the States on holiday applying for an ESTA visa on-line would be sufficient to get us Stateside. Wrong….in fact very wrong. Had we gaily sailed into the US Virgins armed only with our ESTA visas a $540 fine would have been our welcome at Immigration! We had read on a sailing cruiser’s website (Noonsite.com) that the procedure was as follows: first, get on a ferry (a recognised form of travel in the US Immigration parlance) and arrive with your ESTA visa as foot passengers to clear you in, then go back for the boat. (A cleared in person can bring an unrecognised form of transport into the US but you can’t arrive on an unrecognised form of transport and clear in! Easy!) So, a day trip on the ferry which required us to clear out of BVI then into USVI, providing the US with all the biometric material (finger prints and retina recognition) they could obtain without actually extracting bodily fluids, before getting back on the ferry and clearing into BVI, where each time they extracted $9 from my wallet, (but not clearing out of USVI).With us so far? The boat remained in BVI. The next day we sailed the boat sailed into Crown Bay Marina Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas – pre booked as that was the address on the ESTA. We walked back to the ferry terminal at Charlotte Amalie but to a different office this time and eureka we managed to complete the necessary formalities to bring in Resolute. Got it? We must say though, through this whole administrative rigmarole all the officials we had dealings with were charming and as helpful as they could be without giving the game away (i.e. explaining why the rules were seemingly so cumbersome). They seemed a little ashamed and bemused by the system themselves….but ours is not to question that sort of authority (especially as they all carry weapons!) So, now at last we were legal and could relax and await the arrival of our dear friends Judith and Duncan with whom we were eager to explore those illusive Virgins.

St. Lucia

Soper’s Hole, Tortola, BVI

Lava flow to the sea – Montserrat

The volcanic wasteland on Montserrat

Montserrat on the horizon

cheers!

Afternoon nap with Grandad

Lobsters!

With my Grandad in the dinghy

Tommy waving to Nana and Grandad in his dinghy

Beautiful Castries Cathedral

It’s all too much for sailor-boy!

Hotel Chocolat Restaurant

Marigot Bay beach

The days were flying away as were many of our friends and we were unable to leave Rodney Bay until all our maintenance issues were resolved.  We had to move the boat to make way for The initial euphoria of arriving in Rodney Bay, St. Lucia and the sharing of our stories over endless rum-punches with our fellow ARCees  served to push any sense of place and time to the back of our fuzzy consciousness for several days. As well as lots of congratulations and adulation there were practical matters to be dealt with, not least hunting out the incredibly busy but totally laid back sail repairer high in his loft and placing our torn mainsail alongside all the other casualties of the crossing for his sometime attention.  We had also placed an order by e-mail for a new Raymarine linear drive unit for the autohelm via our new best friend John (the marine equipment suppliers) who was equally nonplussed about the constant queues beating a path to his door.  We were also put in touch with Prudence.  Bedecked with gold chains and a wide Caribbean smile, he arrived several days after we had been expecting him to see if he could help our fridge to conform to its primary and very important purpose of keeping cold.  Assuming he was yet another local chap trying to sell us his wares or his services we shamefully did not give him the welcome he deserved and we assumed he would take one look at the fridge and advise us we needed to buy an expensive new one which he would fit for an exorbitant fee.  How we misjudged both him and our circa 1984 fridge! Prudence examined said fridge and got out his hoover and gave the compressor a good clean.  This seemingly domestic activity was not impressing the Skipper.  Prudence  then patiently explained to us that modern European fridges did not have the insulation required for hot climes but that was OK but with 20 years of dust on the heat exchanger it was not playing on a level playing field.  With the compressor working better (and looking so much cleaner) he advised us to monitor the temperature for a day or so and he would come back….and off he went again.  Sure enough a few days later he ambled back and we were able to report that the fridge was indeed holding its own thanks to his ministrations….he smiled his broad knowing smile, charged us a pittance for his services and ambled off to the next ailing fridge.

 There was an island tour on offer to enable us to try to get to grips with a sense of the place to where we had miraculously arrived and a true realisation of our definite relocation from Europe. It was stunningly beautiful. From every headland the expanse of blue sea seemed endless and alongside it the slopes of brilliant vivid green vegetation against the clear blue sky offered a truly amazing backdrop.  The colours were startling and glorious……no touch-up required to those photos!  The atmosphere in the marina was calming as many of the crews were leaving to return to UK – some just for Christmas and others who had come just for the ride – for good.  There was a huge sense of the end of our big event which culminated in the ARC prize-giving (at which we won the prize for, wait for it…drum roll please….the Best Blog! Perhaps a tricky prize for the Skipper to accept with good grace as he would naturally have preferred one which highlighted some aspect of his sailing prowess….but beggars cannot be choosers and I for one was exceptionally proud).

the main ARC (direct from Las Palmas) who were starting to arrive in great numbers…initially the swaggery  unmistakable racing crews who had traversed the Atlantic entirely under spinnaker in about 10 days flat….pleeeese!  Our sense of achievement was diminishing fast so it was time to leave Rodney Bay and head down the island to Marigot Bay which was a huge relief. Marigot is a magical tropical basin tucked up in the rainforests and is so picturesque it features in many of the adverts which entice you to St Lucia every Sunday from the Travel supplement of your newspaper.  We had booked a berth in the small marina ahead of our move there but on arrival there was some confusion about this and we were ushered by a seemingly official looking guy in a dinghy to a mooring buoy in the harbour.  We were in no mood to argue, so were happy to sit on the buoy for a while and take in our new surroundings.  The marina itself was little more than a few fingers jutting out from the wooden boardwalk around a portion of the perimeter of the bay.  What made the place incredible was the size of the vessels attached to these fingers.  Huge super yachts of various shapes and sizes adorned the moorings with their smart uniformed crews busily cleaning and preening.  In fact, we overheard  (not that there was any choice)the commentary given from one of many tour boats which circled round us in the harbour presumably bringing photo-snapping bods from local resorts that one of the boats was awaiting the arrival of Simon Cowell.  (The star duly arrived a day or so later with a party of friends.) We were eventually given our promised berth…dwarfed as we were by the massive gleaming hulks around us. With only a few days until we were to be joined by our middle son Simon, his wife Liz and our 18 month old grandson Tommy for Christmas we turned our thoughts to the arrangements and decided we must organise ourselves by first booking a hire car to collect them from the airport. We innocently enquired at the marina office and to our dismay the request was met with a grimace on the assistant called Crystal’s beautiful face and a shaking of her head. Oh no! She explained that with Christmas fast approaching it would be unlikely that any hire cars would be available but she would try for us.  And try she certainly did….about 20 calls later and mustering all her bounteous charm she secured us a car, checking and re-checking the booking until she was satisfied it was a trusty source. What a star! With all the ducks in a row we could concentrate on being on holiday and took ourselves off to the beach at Marigot…..a quintessential  tropical beach with a strip of bright white sand studded with coconut palms.  For the first time we felt we had really arrived in a wonderful holiday destination and were very excited that Simon, Liz and Tommy would shortly be arriving to share it with us.

Perhaps we should say a word here about the local ‘Chancers’.  Everywhere we went on dry land and on the water we were approached by friendly locals offering us everything from fruit to garbage collection to ice to cleaning services.  The underbelly of the beautiful island was populated by those trying to make a living from the seemingly rich yachties frequenting their shores in their droves at this time of year.  And who could blame them.  We had been cautioned against those locals wishing to make a quick buck but found it very difficult to resist the charms of the wide white-toothed grin and the imploring eyes.  Both Skipper and I found ourselves inexplicably drawn into deals for huge quantities of over-ripe fruit – the likes of which Tesco or any self- respecting supermarket would firmly reject – at hugely inflated prices! Although as Simon will testify, not all their advances were unwelcome – the lobsters we bought from 2 very charming chancers were delicious. On closer inspection on our beautiful Marigot beach we noticed a whole row of bogus anchors for mooring buoys shamelessly left out to dry in the sun…stoney, sand/cement-filled tyres with bamboo wicks soon to be sunk in the harbour and attached to a buoy to confuse the unwitting foreign visitor unaware of the difference between these lightweight illegal specimens and the proper sunk- into- the- sea-bed- in- hench-pre-mixed- concrete variety.  The overnight fees of course would be appropriated accordingly….but into entirely unofficial pockets of course.  Despite this under-current of ‘dodgy dealings’ we never felt unsafe or at all threatened.  The local people were extremely welcoming and helpful.  Some local officials could be a little surly on first meeting and seemed to need to see that you were going to treat them with the desired respect before they would reciprocate.  Perhaps they still carry the heavy mantel of their terrible down-trodden past at the hands of the likes of us?

The arrival of Tommy Nobbs (and his exhausted parents) took St Lucia by storm…..almost literally.  From the day they arrived until after Christmas the heavens opened in a very unseasonal fashion.  On Christmas Eve we found ourselves in torrential rain with thunder and lightning booming overhead for hours on end.  On Christmas Day, when the rain had at least abated to heavy showers, it seemed everything was wet and damp and steaming in the heat of the day.  There were tell-tale dark patches in the water which we subsequently learnt was the result of massive landslides in the south of the island (Vieux Fort) causing immense damage to roads, infrastructure and lives in the local communities there.  (Indeed, about a month later, it was in the waters off Vieux Fort that a British yachtsman died or was perhaps murdered after an encounter with some local chaps aboard his boat).

Our time with Simon, Liz and Tommy aboard was wonderful..in the true sense of the word. After some initial hesitation, Tommy was in awe and wonder with the whole experience (and we with him in turn of course) – especially the dinghy.  Once he had been out a few times with his Grandad and Daddy there was no stopping him and every time his lifejacket was put on in readiness he presumed another outboard trip was on the cards and he scrambled to the stern to ensure he missed none of the action.  Unlike his Daddy, Tommy was less enamoured with the big-boat sailing as he felt confined and tethered in the cockpit by his harness.  Consequently we tended to restrict the sails to shorter ones timed to coincide with his naps in order to give Simon and Liz some peaceful sailing time. We modified our plans too because of the still unreliable weather.  We were often beset with squalls of sudden strong winds and torrential rain and got used to spotting the likely black cloud culprits in the otherwise blue skies.  We managed to give St. Lucia a good exploring though both by hire car and by Resolute.  We returned to Marigot Bay and to Rodney Bay with them as well as stopping in the shabby-chic capital of Castries.  During our days ashore there Tommy proudly led our tour trotting around on his reins much to the amusement of the locals who had never seen such a thing.  One chap stood and pointed at Tommy saying …”oh boy day got you now!”.  Cruise ships were our neighbours in Castries Bay but we soon realised that their inhabitants only partook of a sanitised capital….in the main touring only a sanitised mall of duty free shops and restaurants not the backstreets and local markets that we got to know and love. Such a shame!

One of the highlights of our time together in St. Lucia was our time at Hotel Chocolat.  Thanks to the generosity of our friends Lauriann, John and Matthew Owens we received an incredible gift of a voucher for Hotel Chocolat  (of chocolate high street shop fame in UK) to sample its delights.  Most memorable was the magnificent venue for lunch right under the famous Piton mountains.  The restaurant had open sides to enjoy the cool mountain airs and views to their maximum.  The chocolate-themed food was amazing making Tommy exclaim …”oh Wow!” which spoke for us all.

Most memorable too at our Christmas anchorage near the town (and former capital when under French control) of Soufriere was the boat-boys.  On Christmas Eve when we turned up in the torrential rain, a little boy of about 12 clad in a huge yellow waterproof jacket and a broad Caribbean white smile, paddled up to us on a pink plastic canoe with a makeshift oar as we approached the mooring buoys and offered to take our lines – our bow to the mooring buoy and a stern line way back to the shore and round the nearest palm tree.  He was drenched but never stopped smiling and when his job was complete he proudly introduced himself as Peterson.  We paid him the pittance he charged us for his services and a bit more besides and he asked if we had any biscuits or Coca Cola.  We obliged with a packet of biscuits and he was thrilled. We stayed there for several days and each day Peterson would come along and offer to take our rubbish and offered to get us fresh coconuts explaining which were for eating and which for just drinking the milk.  If another ’boat boy’ approached us we would just say..” no thank you Peterson is looking after us”….something was then understood in the code of boat boys and sure enough they would smile and move on to the next boat.  At Soufriere harbour when we arrived in our dinghy to have a look at the town and re-supply another boat boy who introduced himself as Lester offered to mind our dingy for us whilst we were ashore.  There being two boys with the same name our Lester was called red Lester as his T shirt was red!  Red Lester took great pride in looking after our dinghy for us and helped us all aboard before mentioning his paltry fee for his services.  Tommy had needed no help to get aboard the dinghy of course, in fact whenever we saw a dinghy – albeit on a pontoon or alongside any boat Tommy would head straight for it and begin to clamber in saying “please” in his most imploring tone!

St. Lucia, being our place of momentous arrival in the Caribbean will always have a special place I our hearts.  It is simply gorgeous with a rough underbelly of shabbiness and some deprivation but the people were gracious and welcoming to the hordes of tourists…always anxious to share their beautiful landscapes and laid-back, unhurried lifestyles.  Even when our beloved family had deserted us in paradise it was going to be hard for us to move on but with the advent of 2014 it was time to head north to the Virgin Islands to find a new Caribbean experience with some old friends.

 

 

Atlantic Retrospective

Please forgive me for ignoring our blog for so long.  I hope most of you will have been able to follow our Atlantic crossing adventure via the World Cruising Club Atlantic Rally for Cruisers website.  Indeed with our daily blog and the Yellowbrick tracking service our loyal supporters seemed much more up to date about our position than we were in the midst of the ocean!

For those of you who did not manage to find us and for the sake of completeness I will give a quick resume of our voyage (using some snippets from our Award Winning ARC blog) and some photographic proof that we did indeed cross the Pond.  Be warned, this is a fairly long entry….trying to condense what was possibly the most intense 19 days of our lives into a few paragraphs  has proved impossible….

Resolute of Thames – True Blue (with a dash of panic)

22 November 2013

We are settling nicely and resting well (albeit in 4 hourly bursts) after the bitter sweet Mindelo experience.
If the first Leg to Cape Verde was disappointing from the blue water sailing perspective (more like grey water) then Leg 2 is certainly delivering. The sky today is almost cloudless and the sea is deep blue and silver dazzled by the sun as it moves relentlessly…seemingly pushing us onwards.
Not such an idyllic picture last night however when we were gleefully whizzing along under full main and genoa when the Autohelm (automatic steering system) failed. Gilly-mate’s peaceful watch was rudely interrupted by alarms and instrument messages. Skipper was unceremoniously woken and hand steering commenced. In the inky blackness (needless to say Moon had unhelpfully not put in an appearance) we took down the main sail and its gybe preventer and regained control under headsail alone. Since then Harriet the Hydrovane (the completely independent steering system with a vane and rudder on the stern) has come into her own. Calmly and silently she nods her red vane to find the wind and steers her iffy course which, when plotted on the chart is remarkably accurate and steady. Meanwhile Autohelm is in disgrace. Outwardly there seems nothing wrong so we are hoping he gave up when the going got too tough for him and he could no longer hold the course with so much sail up and quite a lot of wind. There being nothing seemingly wrong and therefore frustratingly nothing for Skipper to busy himself fixing, we tentatively pressed ‘auto’ and it engaged immediately as though nothing had happened. However, had there been a button for us to press which said TRUST there would be no way it would engage, so for the time being at least in light winds and little swell, Harriet continues to be our trustworthy steerer. 

26 November 2013

Just as we were doing so averagely….overnight there was a big downpour of rain after which the wind failed to show. We initially turned Evil Engine on for a burst – we needed to charge everything anyway but after breakfasting…still no wind. Grumbling Skipper subsumed himself in weather forecasts and declared we were indeed in a hole with little prospect of wind for several days. We worked out how much fuel we had and how many miles that would allow us to cover and immediately turned the engine off as with about 1250 miles to go to St Lucia and no wind in any direction within striking distance the realisation dawned on us that motoring was a futile act. So here we are with very little wind and every sail we own to the fore to try to utilise it (well, actually at the moment the full main and genoa) and, as those of you following us on the Yellow Brick will have gleaned, we are doing about half our average speed but are thankful to be moving forwards at all. The upside is that it is absolutely glorious…an everlasting twinkling counterpain of blue, constantly undulating with swell on which we gently rise and fall. The sky continues the seamless blue theme of course, smudged with a mere suggestion of white thin clouds here and there.

Enough day-dreaming…more Paul Hollywood bread to be made….throwing calorific caution to the wind…if there was any of course! We’re getting there..so’s Christmas and at this rate I know who is likely to get there first!

Resolute of Thames – THE HUNGER GAMES AND WHISTLING FOR THE WIND

27 November 2013

Those readers who know us well and, if I flatter myself by believing that there are some people who are either reading this out of idle curiosity or because they are looking forward to ARC 2014, will I am sure have already concluded that we take it in turns to craft the words. Generally speaking Gilly-mate does the superlatives whilst I, Colin stick to the factual.

So factually, we continue to make some westward progress in what is best described as light airs which fortunately are of a northerly nature. The wind machine is currently producing NE Force 1. We have set the hydrovane to max power, put the wind just forward of the beam and other than occasionally trimming the sails we have pretty much left the boat to get on with it. The course over the ground is anything from 230 to 300 degrees. This in coastal or even offshore sailing would be something of an anathema – busy crews would be constantly tweaking sails to try and get the boat moving that little bit faster in a direction that was say within at least 10 degrees off the destination. Out here, with 1200 nautical miles or so go to St Lucia and boat speed at anything from 0.5 to 3 and a bit knots, I am not sure that the amount of effort required would give us any meaningful return. So currently our aim is to keep the boat moving in a generally westerly direction and wait for some more wind. Strangely this is not in the least frustrating – sitting off Cowes 500 meters from the finishing line for hours whilst others enjoy a pint in the clubhouse is frustrating. However, this is a rally and those boats ahead of us, who cruelly appear to currently have more wind, will I am sure be a source of some jealousy as their status changes from “at sea” in a few days time. I shall simply stop reading the daily position reports provided by Rally Control!

From our perspective the Yellow Brick concept and the reports it generates has parallels with the Hunger Games (the trilogy of futuristic books – and a film – by Suzanne Collins which imagines a vast sadistically controlled Big Brother-ish scenario which the whole nation follows every year and watches as their regional heroes fight to get to the end of the ordeals sent to try them). The Atlantic is our arena and each of the boats a participant. When we followed several boats during ARC 12 this never occurred to us – but knowing now that we are a green dot on at least 4 i-phones and getting missives telling us how we are falling back down the fleet or asking why we have suddenly shot off to the south is really quite surreal. You, dear reader, know far more about what the other boats are doing than we do. Rest assured we need no gifts (permitted when things got tough in the Hunger Games) but if you could ask the Gamemakers in Rally Control to turn the wind machine up 2 notches (no more) we would be grateful. Otherwise we may be reduced to using the traditional sailors method of summoning the wind ie by whistling a tune and this, experience tells me, normally produces wind that makes the last 500m more difficult, very uncomfortable and with a finishing time some 5 minutes after the bar has closed. You must understand my dilemma, whilst I am really enjoying bobbing about in the ocean if Cinderella does not get to the closing ceremony I (and you) will never hear the last of it.

Resolute of Thames – Last tomato day

30 November 2013

 Since yesterday our spirits have soared as we have now have useable winds again which we hope and pray will prevail. Yesterday was a bad day which culminated in Gilly-mate having a (brief) episode of sense-of-humour failure. All day ( and the one before) Skipper was rightly completely obsessed by finding some wind and we actually found some but it was right on the nose so then there was lots of cynicism about lack of trade winds and the inaccuracies of forecasting…to put it politely. Gilly-mate decided the best course of action was to provide some domestic and culinary good-mood music and she set to to make some more bread only to find that her svelte digital scales do not work whilst the boat is rocking. Hitherto she had pre-weighed the dry ingredients whilst on terra firma. So some guess-work ensued and the result you ask? Disaster. Whereas other loaves have been wolfed down in a real cut-and-come-again fashion this flat, grey brick is still sitting unloved and has already been scorned in favour of crackers.

Stocks of all fresh stuffs 10 days into the voyage are become scarce. At our breadless lunch, Skipper announced innocently “this is the last tomato….” . Now, at this point I can hear my Mother and Sister (and our Tortoise too come to that) gasp knowingly as in my family tomatoes are a staple food item and it is not unheard of to eat several every day. It is impossible to imagine a fridge without tomatoes. Bad news indeed Supper too was much the same…..a spaghetti bolognese made and frozen but as it was defrosting I remembered the dubious provenance of both the mince and some of the other ingredients and my fears were borne out when exasperated Skipper tried it and only ate the pasta! And all this was happening with a backdrop of beating uncomfortably away from the rhumb-line.
So, all in all not a good day and one to hopefully look back on as a turning point in the voyage as we now seem to have found the trade winds again. One little positive point to add though…Skipper, understanding something was amiss at lunch, offered me his last slice of tomato….it must still be love!

Resolute of Thames – self indulgent

02 December 2013

 n so many ways we are new to this blogging thing. We grasped the concept with the intent of creating something primarily for friends and family to follow what we are doing rather than opening a book on our lives. Before setting out we followed boats on last year’s ARC and found some blogs interesting and other less so. Generally the more interesting were the factual accounts of the how rather than more self indulgent accounts of individuals’ lives and emotions. As our world has contracted over the last few weeks it has also been a vehicle through which to rant – anything from tomatoes to the meteorologist. Today’s submission is I am afraid self indulgent – today is our 35th wedding anniversary – and we are, if the current wind holds going to spend it bobbing around on the ocean going slowly in almost the right direction. So today’s entry is by our own standards self indulgent but then hey so is this whole project so bear with me just this once.

I met Gill age 15 and, even though I didn’t know it then, still with lots of growing up to do. Friendship became a serious relationship over the next couple of years and I guess we were the classic teenagers in love. Neither sets of parents particularly approved but as I joined the Army at 16 mine ceased to have a vote and I remember telling them so with very little eloquence but an awful lot of passion! With hindsight I would say my passion centred around their apparent inability to accept that a good friend had become a soul mate and I was as sure then as I am now that this is a permanent state of affairs. So to my friend, mentor, companion, sounding board and (after a 38 year career in the Army) camp follower, with all the sacrifices and turbulence that has brought you – thank you – quite simply my life would have been a lot less rich without you. My current regret is that I don’t seem to be able to find a shop locally to purchase that last minute card and unfortunately I can’t currently get on line to do moon pig thing. Colin.

Gilly-mate says: Goodness me! I am nearly at a loss for words…and all the above from a man who usually intones a very British scoff at any emotional outburst. Naturally I too am very nostalgic today. Unbelievably, we are here in this huge ocean together….who would have thought it possible? Over the years we have made so many plans and moves to new places and to share new experiences…culminating now in this mad but amazing adventure…something I never thought I would be capable of and something I would never have considered without the love and encouragement of this incredible, inspirational man. Talk about making a silk purse out of a pig’s ear! The most important result of our chaotic and nomadic 35 year union has been 3 awesome sons who are a constant source of pride, who in turn have given us three beautiful and talented daughters-in-law and now some icing on the already loaded cake…2 absolutely adorable little Grandsons. Our cup runneth over…and the love goes on. Enough already.

Resolute of Thames – ON FLY-IN FISH AND SQUALLS

05 December 2013

 The fly-in fish, or more correctly Exocoetidae Beloniformes Actinopterygii, has been a regular visitor to the boat. I normally have to clear the decks of the dead each morning before Gilly-Mate assumes her first watch. In doing so I note that there are 2 types, Exocoetus has one pair of fins and a streamlined body to optimize for speed, while the other variant, Cypselurus has a flattened body and two pairs of fins, which maximizes its time in the air. They were actually studied closely in the early 1900s as a possible model upon which to develop an airplane. However, they have one major design fault in that they have no forward vision. Which is presumably why they all seem to impersonate second world war Japanese pilots. The difference is of course that they do us no harm – until last night that is, when one thumped me firmly across the head. He was quite a large example and judging by the impact (Energy equals mass multiplied by velocity squared) he must have been of the genus Excoetus – or should that be Exocetus? -. I was so shocked that I actually just returned him to the water (yes he was definitely a male!). We don’t fish on Resolute on this voyage anyway, but we have enjoyed some of the large specimens for breakfast. They do not however make up for the lack of tomatoes on board. Obviously.

The fly-in fish was followed 10 minutes later by the first of a succession of squalls. These we weathered with a reef in the main and the genoa reduced to about the size of a number one jib (handkerchief for the uninitiated!) Harriot hydrovane safely saw us through them all. This morning at dawn we were greeted by an horizon with squalls banked up as far as my forward looking eyes could see. (Perhaps the fly-in fish has the last laugh as he can’t see the squalls coming). We discussed taking down the main but agreed that with one reef and a pressing need to reduce the 550nm left to go to zero we would press on. At this point, dear reader, you may recall that my preferred downwind rig in anything other than light airs is 2 headsails. Anyway life went on I assumed the watch from Gilly-mate and was down on the SSB radio hosting our morning chat show when it got to the point where I gave our position and wind I calmly announced wind SSE Force 7 and looked up to watch the main go aback. Mistake. Leaving my radio audience bemused, I rushed upstairs and put the wind back behind us which forced the top baton in the main that had gone the wrong side of the shrouds out again and this ripped the main just below the baton – almost right across. We (Gilly-mate was awake and rightly grumpy at this point) gingerly dropped the sail and examined the damage and then put it in its sail bag (where A we can’t see it and B if you believe in ferries it will mend itself). We are now, back to plan A – 2 headsails up and are going a tad slower but in the right direction. Rule ONE of passage making – don’t let the proximity of the destination cloud your judgment!

To add insult to injury one of our rivals, yacht Kika is just passing us with his very fancy, colourful para-sailor sail up. We have chatted on the radio and they too are recovering from a rather calamitous Thursday morning. I have contacted my new friend Exocetus and he is going to arrange a mass attack by a whole flock (or is that shoal or perhaps fleet?) of his closest friends this afternoon. I am not expecting it to cause much damage to the sail if indeed they can see it – but imagine living with the smell of all those fish scales for the next 5 days.

 Resolute of Thames – Oh, the stars!

06 December 2013

 We have very much focused in this log on how we have miraculously managed to continue to work as a team over this voyage which of course is essential when only double-handed. Sometimes the responsibility for each others welfare weighs quite heavy and at other times we feel we would not welcome the intrusion of anyone else in our familiar bubble. But the person you must get on with best of all when sailing double handed is yourself. If you don’t like your own company then it would be intolerable as the watches can be very long and lonely. If viewed as a drag then that is what they indeed become but actually the time alone is such an incredible opportunity and such a rarity in our usually busy crowded lives. Initially to have so much time alone can seem rather intimidating and uncomfortable but then as the days pass I find I can welcome the near silence and the time for reflection. To take the sense of isolation one step further, with 12 hour nights much of this face to face with yourself time is in darkness, so not even any grand ocean vista to detract from the just you-ness. But of course then there are the stars for company! And oh what stars….such a majestic canopy you would not believe! Here is where my superlatives fail me. From Psalmist to Coldplay each have felt moved to mention them with awe and wonder..but no wonder when out here with no other light at all the vastness and the multitudes of the solar systems can be almost physically felt which in turn ensures that one is reminded how infinitesimal we each are as we pass through this ocean and this universe. Good heavens what a privilege.

Resolute of Thames – The Final Night At Sea

09 December 2013

 Really impossible to believe that there is some land with our name on somewhere in the distance. We have 2 other yachts on the horizon..but one is not an ARC yacht….no details of the other one yet…you will know of course from your yellow brick screen. Sorry to keep you all waiting for our arrival and know we aren’t going very fast at the moment. The swell is not to be messed with and there are also squalls around which increases our wind speeds++ so trying to keep a steady course under headsail and the sweet little trysail which to my knowledge has never had an outing since we have had ROT. With the mainsail poorly little trysail is hanked onto the mast but has 2 sheets into the cockpit and she helps to keep us a little more stable in the swell…every little helps. The plan tonight was to gybe back and forth across the rhumb line as we can’t sail directly down it. However, at dusk we had done with it so with 100 miles to go the engine has, at last, gone on for some propulsion. Therefore, dear reader, this is our last night at sea and, other than a perfunctory..” we crossed the finish line at x o’clock local time”.. you will not hear from us again on this log. For those readers who are following this out of concern for our safety or sanity you can just read the next paragraph and skip to the final 2 paragraphs. For those, perhaps working towards following in our wake, below are the skipper rather doubty thoughts on the biggest challenge / biggest success of the adventure. Take a deep breath before proceeding and remember that until tonight he had only motored about 10 miles.

The journey from Cape Verde has taken us 19 days. However, we took a dive south to try and get around the chaos caused by a disturbance to the trade winds. The dive came a little too late and was not bold enough so the middle third of the journey was hard work and slow.

The biggest challenge, other than the disruption to the trade winds, has been power generation. We are a power hungry boat. There is a fridge with a very old compressor, a more modern small deep freeze, SSB (which OK needs volts as well as amps), a Sat C plus the normal navigation instruments. Downwind our Ampair did not stand a chance. We accepted that the engine needed to be on to make water or transmit well on the SSB and we therefore found ourselves running the engine in idle for 2-3 hours per day and that is with 160 amps worth of alternators strapped to the engine and a 400 amp hour domestic battery bank. With hindsight either a generator and large capacity 240 volt charging box or something towed would have been more efficient plus a larger battery bank. We took about 300 litres of diesel but always maintained it was for power generation and emergencies – that is until we are within motoring distance of land.

The biggest success has been the hydrovane. Our confidence in Harriet has grown by the day and with hindsight I would say that our earlier, less than satisfactory, impressions were due entirely to me failing to comprehend the sensitivity of the vane angle and the relationship between vane angle and the power setting. This coupled with the complexity of altering course (which string do you pull and by how much?) made it difficult to explore exactly how it should work. The addition of a tell tail on the vane (so you can see the wind angle relative to the vane), some reflective tape on the wheel that changes the wind angle (so you can see how much you are changing course) and marking one of the bits of string (so you know which one to pull to turn to port or starboard) has taken all of the guess work out of setting her up. That just leaves trimming the sails – which is a must.

With just Gilly-mate and I on board we have kept the rig simple. For downwind sailing; in strong winds genoa and second headsail (No1 Jib), in lighter winds main (with a big foreguy/preventer on the END of the boom) and poled out genoa. We only have one pole so flew the second headsail free. The only time we suffered was during the middle third when the cruising chute would undoubtedly have made the difference between being stopped and doing a knot, but here there is an effort versus return argument. We can ride out most squalls just by shortening the headsail (a one person operation) but for every squall and there were plenty, fancy fabric needs to come down (a 2 person operation) and we were just not prepared to have our sleep mucked up to that extent. With 550nm to go and feeling the call of that rum punch too strongly we ran the main and headsail combination in force 4 squally conditions – inevitable result – tear in main.

A brief word on communication. The SSB / Airmail combination has been outstanding – providing you understand the basics of HF radio propagation (buy a book, put on an anorak and get to grips with it – otherwise you waste lots of amps trying to make impossible links). The Sat C has provided a good back up for those few occasions when instant messaging has been required. The Sat C also has 2 other advantages. Firstly, Safetynet – a NAVTEX service for the middle of oceans and secondly a guaranteed live link ashore to an MRCC of your choice, for free, in the event of an emergency.

Before closing I would like to address the question we have been asked repeatedly on the way down to the Canaries – why are you doing this voyage with ARC and not independently? Well for lots of reasons:

1. This is Part One of our (early) retirement plan. Part 2 is to cruise the Caribbean. The whole WCC package has been invaluable in changing the boat from an offshore vessel into one capable of double handed ocean passage making. At one level the idea of having one’s boat inspected seems invasive in the extreme on the other it makes one take an objective look at what you do and how you do it. The ideas in their hand book and the links they have with medical insurers, boat insures etc gave me pointers which made putting together the whole package to support us during our time away much more straightforward – especially as we prepared for this trip whilst living in Norway. Why re-invent the wheel?

2. The yellow brick system and this log allows friends and family to be part of the adventure in a way they have not been able to be up to now.

3. The comaraderie of our fellow entrants. Both in harbour and on the radio every day. With just the 2 of us it is quite simply good to speak to an outsider every other day – especially one who is going through the same frustrations as you.

4. The general support provided by the WCC team. In 4 days in Cape Verde we saw more of the islands than we would have done in a week or two on our own. We did not have to clear in or out, they had done all of the ground work for the tours and we had a guaranteed berth etc. Added to that is the continued prompt back-up of the Rally Support Team whilst we have been at sea. The whole organisation is one which the boss Andrew Bishop should be rightly proud.

Will we do another Rally? – yep, wouldn’t hesitate – I suspect we will be on either ARC Panama or, more likely, ARC Europe to head back to dear old Blighty in 2015.

So, how to sum up our epic adventure? It has been a huge challenge and very hard at times when, with just the two of us, sleep deprivation is factored in. We are uncertain whether this has been typical from a weather perspective and suspect not, but the somewhat difficult conditions this year have left us occasionally, at times feeling utterly helpless and frustrated but fortunately never both at the same time! In our modern lives we are simply never at the mercy of the elements in the way that you are on a 41 foot boat in the middle of an ocean. This is not just too much wind, not enough is if anything, even more frustrating. On the plus side it has stretched us and affirmed our suspicion that you can indeed do anything if you push yourself and rise to the challenge. As a couple and team it has strengthened us and taught us even more definitively that the key is to compromise and make allowances, love and laugh! If nothing else this trip will give us endless anecdotes and photographs with which to bore our grandchildren and help us to remember, in our dotage, that we were once capable of doing something adventurous, brave and out of the ordinary.

 

So, on the 9^th December, 19 days after leav ing Mindelo in the Cape Verde islands we finally arrived in Rodney Bay, St. Lucia.  Being one of the last of our ARC + fleet to arrive was a definite benefit as far as the breadth and loudness of our welcome as we tied up.  We were over-awed by it all…even the Boss of the World Cruising Club, Andrew Bishop was there to greet us as well as bearers of baskets of local fruit, blowers of fog horns and eager takers of our lines…not to mention the very welcome pourers of rum punch!   What an anti-climax it would have been to slip in quietly and unnoticed.

 

There then followed several unreal days of dizzy recovery; sight-seeing trips around the island; re-provisioning and preparing for the final social events, prize-giving and sad farewells before we turned our thoughts to the unlikely approach of Christmas in such tropical climes and the impending arrival of our son Simon, his wife Liz and Tommy their 18 month old.

More on St. Lucia to come…..