JANUARY 2017 ANTIGUA

SO, WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THE ATLANTIC CROSSING?

Written March 2017.

Lovely folks who’ve been following our blog have been asking, so what happened next? Since arriving in Antigua our feet have barely touched the ground, in all senses! We’ve been sailing to neighbouring Islands, had Terry’s youngest son, Tim fly out from cold and wet Manchester to join us. We’ve bought a new Rib, and made some modifications to our girl Sisu.  Finding a good internet connection has been tricky. 99.9% of the time we don’t have wifi on the boat, very occasionally we can hot spot to an open wifi café, but this is rare, we tend to be anchored out in a harbour or in a bay with nothing near us! Then, (the excuses for not updating our blog keep coming!) when we do establish contact with the world wide wait I haven’t written anything because I’ve been slack, and in any case, the wifi connection simply isn’t strong enough to load our update and photos onto the blog, and in the midst of all that, our days seem to just fill up with “stuff”! I keep asking Terry how the hell to these other cruisers manage to lounge in the cockpit with a good Kindle? We never seem to find the time! The choice of how we spend our time is of course, ours. We’re exploring, sailing, swimming, keeping in touch with our families or fixing things which break or wear out and then enjoying the company of our friends for sundowners.

 

In the next few blogs, we’ll do a whizz through with some photos and thanks for still being interested!

Antigua, Falmouth Harbour 13 January 2017.

Our first and absolutely most important job, no hang on, opening several bottles of fizz and celebrating with our friends for several days was our first and most important job…… Our second most important job was to replace our knackered dinghy. Our original dinghy was struggling with the sun, like Wicked Witch of the West, she was melting! We’d planned to buy a new, go fast RIB in a few months time, however, each time we got in the dinghy a bit more came apart, the tubes were a bit more saggy and each trip to shore was rapidly becoming rather “exciting”. Were we actually going to make it to shore before our dinghy folded up around us?! Tim and Gayle Evans s/v Wildbird were superb. They ferried us to and fro as we checked in with Immigration and re stocked our cupboards. We’d have been stuffed without their help. We had anchored nearby a beach and could reach that, but to get into Falmouth Harbour and Nelson’s Dockyard would have ended up with us swimming at some point whilst our dinghy sank beneath us!

We needed extra horsepower for our new RIB, fortunately Tim and Gayle were replacing their outboard, so we bought it off them. Now we had the horses, but no carriage as it were! Seagull Inflatables at Falmouth Harbour provided an excellent service in ordering our new Caribe RIB, sorting out the customs quickly and in two weeks we had our new toy. Which was just in time, the transom, despite being lashed with ropes to the tubes, parted company and the rowlocks melted off, and the whole dinghy simply could not rise to the occasion any longer. We just managed to row her to shore, we hadn’t risked using our outboard on the dinghy for some time now, there was very little to attach it to! We paddled the meagre journey of 100 yards before she gave her last “pfffhhhhttt” and sagged onto the beach. We dragged up the grey, deflated bits of PVC where it was folded up and taken away by Seagull Inflatables, there was nothing that could be reused or sold on it, we’d had our money’s worth. With excited grins we dragged our brand new Rib down to the beach and jumped in, paddling like crazy we quickly reached Sisu, got aboard and with her new outboard, Terry was like a kid with a new toy, blasting round the bay! One job sorted, next on the list…..

The whole of Sisu inside and out was a shambles, cleaning took a couple of days, she’d even started to grow a weed beard and the Goose Barnacles all around her waterline was incredible to see! As we discovered, removing these guys became a regular three weekly job.

No visit to Falmouth Harbour and Nelson’s Dockyard, built between 1725 and 1746, is complete without going to a BBQ at Shirley Heights. Originally a fortification, Fort Shirley Battery which was built in 1787, this site commands a view of the entrance to English Harbour and all the neighbouring islands. On a clear day you can see Guadelope, no wonder Nelson chose here. Nowadays, this imposing viewpoint now hosts bbq party nights on Sunday evenings, top rank pan pan (steel drums) bands play their “just got to dance to” rhythms, plus lots of people dancing, and drinking lots and lots and lots of Dark and Stormy’s (Caribbean Rum and ginger Beer) make for a great night out. In occasional squalls our gang danced away a tremendous night with Tim, Gayle with Gayle’s parents, who lead the dancing!

In the very good company of Tim and Gayle s/v Wildbird and Alex and Carla Hilberg s/v Ari B. Carla and Alex over sundowners one evening said that as we’d all missed Christmas we would all sail around the corner to Green Island and celebrate Christmas and Boxing Day feasting on their boat. Great plan! Forget resting after our crossing, we didn’t want to miss any new experiences! They did us proud with a full Christmas dinner in the sunshine.

Green Island is idyllic, and as we motored carefully through coral reefs we both felt that the 22 day journey across the Atlantic was worth it. The azure seas, turquoise skies, space of mooring, fish, rays and pelicans flying around us was what we had hoped to find. We anchored up and jumped into the warm seas, under our feet brightly coloured fish swam around us.

Back home we hadn’t had time to properly sort out a sun shade. We had a bimini, and I’d hand sewn green scaffolding netting around the top half of the bimini whilst in the Cape Verdes, but the tiny scrap of material we’d brought from home and thought would be our additional sunshade was rubbish. Fortunately, Terry’s son Tim was bringing out our salvation from the burning sun, but he wasn’t arriving till February. This time, Alex and Carla helped us with the loan of their spare huge super duper sunshade, ah….. the difference was immediate! Our black sprayhood simply absorbed heat, by covering it with this large sunshade, the sun could do her worst, we flicked our teeth at her red hot rays, we had cool shade!

 

Christmas Day at Green Island was great fun! Sisu was still mid sort out from the crossing, and not really fit for entertaining, just yet……. so armed with booze and quickly compiled pressies, Manx TT 2006 (vintage darling) racing baseball caps, which lit up (Whooo!!!) we had starters and Fizz on Wildbird followed by a superb Christmas dinner on Ari B and swapping stories over several drinks and excellent food. The following day, Boxing Day, we had a bbq and bonfire on the beach, with me playing my pipes and practise chanter, accompanied by jigs on the beach to my lively tunes with Gayle on her guitar plus Carla and I as her backing singers! Definitely the most unique Christmas Day and Boxing Day we’ve ever had!

Back to reality, a common problem on boats is stinky heads (toilet). Not wholly due to the user, the smell is due to a reaction from the seawater and uric acid, (wee in other words) which causes a calcium build up in the pipes making the heads smell. The reaction is accelerated by temperature and the sea here is 25 deg C, it happens when sailing anywhere, however we have a darned sight more heat here, and if the calcium build up isn’t kept under control, then the result is that you don’t linger long in the heads with a good book and you get your pipes clogged up with calcium. A regular job now is to put Muriatic Acid into the loo, let it react, rather like a mini volcano then sluice out the calcium. Result, a pleasant heads and a peaceful reverie with nature once more. Plus, it’s one of the few places on a boat where you get some privacy! Sometimes (Terry)

Another lovely regular job is scrubbing Sisu’s hull. We keep an eye on weed, goose barnacles and general growth on her hull and keel. Any growth slows Sisu down, as much as half a knot and over a distance this can make a difference. She feels sluggish when under sail. So, donning snorkel, mask, fins, our scouring pads, plus our new toy, a suction grabber. We clamp it onto the hull as we work. There’s often a bit of a swell or current, and by the time you’ve got to where you want to scrub, you’re out of breath after a couple of feeble swipes with your scourer, it’s like emptying a well with a thimble. The grabber means you can dive down, hang on to the handle of the suction clamp, and scrub away, often in the company of a Barracuda hovering over your shoulder, watching you or smaller fish eating up what you’ve scrubbed off!

I’m also learning how to use our new outboard motor and our Rib. We have more power now, by getting the Rib to plane, i.e. go very fast so the Rib rises up and planes over the sea, we save fuel as there’s less surface area of Rib on the water. It’s going to take some getting used to! We blast our way from boat to shore, bouncing over waves which is great fun and we keep dry, unlike our old dinghy where a change of clothes was generally necessary. The last time I used an outboard was when I was a youngster, out lobster potting with Dad in his boat and our trusty Seagull outboard which putt putted its steady way out around Castletown Bay and putt putted its way back to the quayside. I quite happily took the boat there and back. With our new Rib and more horse power, everything moves very fast 20 Knots, plus you need to keep an eye out other boats, folks swimming, snorkelling, little Laser dinghies zipping around, Kite surfers, mooring buoys etc etc. All this to look out for and steer! I’ll get used to it, and look forward to feeling exhilarated and independent rather than anxious and bloody scared I’ll hit something! I’m getting better at slowing down and coming alongside Sisu’s hull a bit more gently rather than boinging off it or roaring past it completely, whilst Terry’s shouting “Slow bloody down will you!”

So January passes, we’re still pinching ourselves that we made it and feeling rather chuffed every time we look out to sea. There’s a lot more to explore, the next biggest job is deciding where to lay Sisu up over the hurricane season and get her there. First things first, perfect brewing Ginger Beer for Dark & Stormy rum cocktails, some jobs are definitely more fun than others………

 

 

 

ATLANTIC CROSSING, CAPE VERDE TO ANTIGUA, 22 DEC 2016 – 12 JAN 2017 22 DAYS 2,135 NAutical Miles PART 7.

PART 7. DAY 21 11.11.17

Our penultimate day begins, our moods and energy levels are boosted by the knowledge that ice cold long glasses of Caribbean Rum are not far away. We still have the engine running, the revs are set low otherwise, and get this, we’ll arrive too early, in the dark! We don’t want to tackle negotiating unfamiliar, coral coastlines and shallow waters when we can’t see what’s around, and more importantly, underneath us. Ironically it is land that sailors fear not the sea or the weather, most boats are lost at the coast. The sea is gently undulating and there’s very little swell. We like this! If these conditions hold for just two days, it will be our reward for the last twenty days.

We decide to give ourselves a bit of a grooming session. Terry desperately needs a haircut. Armed with a set of clippers, we go up to the bow and sit on the cabin roof. I’ve previously cut Terry’s hair in the cockpit, big mistake. Cutting his hair produces a surprising amount of hair and we were still swilling large tufts of hair out of the cockpit drains a fortnight after shearing him! Under a scorching sun, Terry takes the biggest risk of the entire journey and entrusts me to keep steady in a gently rolling sea, and manage a reasonable job with the buzzing, sharp blades ploughing up and down his scalp. I keep my fingers crossed there’s enough battery power in the clippers…….. many clusters of sun bleached silver hair are carried away in the Atlantic breezes!

Reading my diary now as I write it up for our blog, there’s a wonderfully innocent sentence which beautifully illustrates the cliché “hindsight is a wonderful thing”. I’ve written “we’re hoping for a bit of wind this evening, or tomorrow morning. If we can sail for thirty miles, that would save fuel, we’ve got enough but extra just in case would be good. 1420hrs a bit of a breeze”. Hold that last sentence in your thoughts as you will find we get what we wished for, and more…..

At 1400hrs we have 97 nautical miles to go and we’ve been catching up on some reading. At 1500hrs we take another reef out, we still keep the last one in as there’s a frisky North Easterly breeze. We’ve had a fishing line out pretty much every day, ever the optimists. At 1700hrs Terry gives the line his usual tug, not expecting to feel anything. His eyes suddenly widen, we’ve caught something, now on the 21^st day! Terry reels in the line, we catch sight of a huge sparkling lime green body, it’s a Mahi! I hand Terry a boat hook and he carefully hauls it alongside. A few capfuls of very cheap Gin and we quickly dispatch him. The Mahi gives us several generous steaks, there’s our arrival celebration meal with Tim, Gayle, Alex and Carla sorted!

Now, recall that whimsical wish for more wind. The wind gods had been listening, sat high above us in their kingdom of the clouds. They looked at each other, gently tugged their white whispy cirrus cloud beards, shrugged their shoulders and said “Ok, we’ll give you some wind”. Never has another cliché “be careful what you wish for” bitten us more on the bum. We had the night from hell. The low front which Tim Evans had advised us about was still causing mayhem right where we were heading. We quickly put a reef back in as the winds were rapidly increasing to 25/30 plus knots. The seas had whipped themselves into a frenzy and the swells were mounting up to 3 and more metres high. We weren’t going to be let off easily, Neptune had his tea towel out and was whipping our backsides all the way to Falmouth Harbour. I went below in the first part of the night, there was nothing I could do in the cockpit to help Terry and if, a big if, the seas settled then I could take over and relieve Terry. In the early hours, Terry called me up. I prefer to be in the cockpit anyway when it’s wild, the sound of the wind and sea is magnified down below and sleeping had been impossible in any case. We needed to put the third reef in. Sisu was reaching 9 knots, the conditions were running us, not us running her. With the amount of mainsail we had out, her boom was almost in the sea when rolling with the large seas that were hitting us from the side, it was time to reef down to our third reef, normally used for storm conditions.  I drove her head into the wind in extremely big seas whilst Terry quickly dropped enough sail to reef her. He was back in the cockpit within two minutes, our slickest pit stop ever! Terry had been absolutely incredible, yet again, he’d been up the entire night hand steering her, his mental and physical strength throughout our entire passage has never wavered, he really is indomitable and my love for him has grown even more over the miles we covered.

 

DAY 22  FINISH!!!! 12 JANUARY 2017

The final encore, or straw, was a long, dark front for the last 80 miles with heavy squalls and increased wind. At 0900hrs we rolled and heaved from side to side in huge swells as though we were mid Atlantic. The last sentence in my diary reads “What a bloody awful night”. Almost summed it up……  We are knackered. Terry hasn’t slept at all, the seas are still very lively and the wind hasn’t decreased much at all. What a sting in the tail. We had a rough first two nights and equally rough final night. When recalling our crossing in the future, we must remember the middle section was ok!

 

At 0920hrs our radio crackles. We’ve become unaccustomed to hearing it as the range is little more than 30 miles ship to ship, we look round to see where the noise is coming from! It’s Tim Evans of Wild Bird! To hear his upbeat voice is just the best sound ever. We almost burst into tears as we listen to him welcoming us to Antigua! He lets us know we are about an hour away from Wild Bird and there’s a welcoming committee awaiting us! Our emotions are all over the place, elation, exhaustion and generally just overwhelmed at how much our crossing has meant to us, but also, how much it has meant to our very good friends. Tim and Gayle have been unstinting in their support and guidance and they are as overjoyed as we are!

A welcoming committee too?! Yipes! I am covered in crusty sea salt, I am sweaty, my t shirt and shorts are filthy, and my hair hasn’t been washed for over a week. My daalings, I’m not ready for my curtain call! I need mascara and lip gloss at the very least! Terry despairs. He isn’t bothered with how he looks and says it doesn’t matter. Women reading our blog will fully understand, it bloody does matter! There will be photographs for goodness sake, our iconic, dining out on our adventure moment will be captured for ever!!!! We might even put a photo of our arrival on our wall at home. Does he not realise??!!!! He looks like a tanned, rugged, macho sailor, for him, it’s a very good and sexy look. Women would love to be taken in his bear like tattooed arms and ravished. I look like crap. It’s not fair. Ignoring his grumblings that I am fussing, I quickly wash my hair, it doesn’t really make much difference, but frizz is better than grease, and change my clothes.

 

Antigua comes into view, and the sun has come out, it’s a different day and it’s so exciting, we are virtually in tears and so, so excited! As we near Falmouth Harbour, there’s a high revving buzz of two Ribs, its Tim and Alex roaring towards us! They buzz around us, as excited as we are, tooting fog horns and shouting “Well done, congratulations!” We will never forget that moment, their big grins matching ours! We have a double escort either side of us as Tim and Alex in their Ribs guide us into Falmouth Harbour where we can anchor, and stop…. We can’t believe we’re actually here, at last! Tim collects Gayle and together they zoom over, Gayle gives us both huge hugs, kisses and congratulations, it’s so good to see her! We are wiping tears from our eyes, the tears are still there now as I write. Tim and Alex advise us on the best places to anchor, and finding a secure sea bed spot near to their boats, we drop anchor and with absolute relief we take off our lifejackets, our yokes of the last 22 days, we immediately feel tons lighter! Gayle’s parents, Joy and Len are here on holiday too, so it really is a welcoming committee! We haven’t time to get straight as we’re invited over to Wild Bird for celebration sundowners. By 1730hrs we are sat in Wild Bird’s spacious cockpit with Tim, Gayle, Joy, Len, Alex and Carla and bottles of fizz, we’ve arrived!!!! We spend a lovely evening swapping Atlantic crossing stories, as both sets of our friends have crossed the Atlantic, Tim and Gayle, three times! Now we can share our story, I don’t think our achievement had really sunk in, but now we’ve had time to go through our journey, and yes, we can be proud of ourselves!

 

Terry carried the responsibility and safety of us both from the day we set off. He looked after us, never faltering, always finding the solution to things that wore out or broke. “Where there’s a Hill, there’s a way” is his motto and he remained true to that. We were tested, we laughed together, boosted each other and yes, argued with other. But we came out with a deeper relationship, certainly an honest one and we love each other very much. We still test each other, we are strong characters, but we know that we will strive to find the middle way and always care and look after each other and most of all laugh with each other.

We all love a happy ending, and here is ours. We had briefly discussed the next stage in our relationship as we crossed the Atlantic, we had the time! Shortly after we anchored, Terry got onto one knee in the cockpit and asked me to marry him. Reader, I said YES!!

 

We may carry on the blog, it will be more sporadic, we intend to enjoy our labours, get Sisu modified for being out in the sun and visit the Leeward and Windward Islands. Thank you for reading our blog, I hope you’ve enjoyed it, we’ll update it as and when. We can’t promise you the edge of your seat stories we’ve written about, but you never know!

ATLANTIC CROSSING, MINDELOO ANTIGUA 22 DEC 2016 – 12 JAN 2017 2,135 Nautical Miles 22 Days

PART 6.  9 –  10 JAN 2017

Day 19. Mon. 9.1.17

This morning I woke up, immediately taking stock of how Sisu felt. She was only gently rolling, weird! Even as we sleep, we unconsciously brace ourselves, feet and knees against the wall, sometimes having to put our hands into the open cupboard space and hang on to the edge of the opening. When we awake, we often find we’re still gripping! This felt different for the first time. I could feel her skimming along the waves, her motion so easy, it was lovely, what had changed? 22 days of this sailing action would have been a doddle to live with! Terry advised me he’d been changing sail settings a lot due to wind shifts, then the winds stayed steady in one direction – which is what they’re meant to do out here! – he had Sisu creaming along skipping from wave top to wave as he said like a Moto Cross bike or a rally car when you get it right. Which was what was happening when I awoke. He’d also received a message from Tim Evans saying there’s a low over Bermuda Id  which is affecting Antigua, creating a big Northerly swell of over three metres and 20 plus knots winds, oh great…. For the first time, Terry is feeling down, he also bashed his nose on the heavy metal shackle on the preventor which prevents the boom from gybing across the cockpit, he’s tired. I hug him, this is the first time I’ve seen him on this journey even the slightest bit down. This is not welcome weather news and with perhaps only three more days to go, this could potentially mess up where we make landfall if the conditions worsen in Antigua. He gathers himself, he’s got such deep resources to dig from, and decides we get full sail out and try to beat the weather front. We also fire up the engine, not a decision we make lightly, we only have so much fuel! We’re achieving 6 plus knots, fast for us, her hull speed is 8 knots, though we’ve reached 9 plus on occasions, and that feels really exciting! By noon we have 346 nautical miles to go. Ha! 346 miles, what small numbers now! Whilst taking the opportunity of steady motor sailing, I write up my boat diary. In between writing I look back in my sailing log and read out to Terry entries from 2015. How our experiences have broadened, a 72 mile trip then was huge! Sailing to Skoma Island, I read that we had big seas!!! Mind you, we were in a Force 6/7 at that time, and the waves were high and choppy with very little in the way of intervals between them, plus rogue waves over the side were freezing cold! We also remind ourselves from extracts in the diary of the rain and bad weather during the Summer of 2015 when we sailed around the Hebrides with Terry’s sister Carole and her grandson Adam. At that time in Ireland, we had a bbq in the freezing cold and drizzle at Glenarm just to break the boredom of being weather bound. In the wet and cold the seeds were sewn in that we ought to sail to warmer climes! Forward to Spring and early Summer of 2016, we had lists of jobs and charts strewn over the dining room table, the rooms in our little cottage and the garage were filling up with boat gear, and now, in 2017 here we are doing what we’d dreamed of and promised ourselves! The boat jobs are always ongoing, there’s a fresh list of boat jobs and gear to be bought when we reach Antigua!! The difference from three years ago is that now we do boat maintenance in exotic locations!

With the calmer conditions we rest and sleep, banking it for when needed. Due to this hole in the wind, we may not reach Antigua, if indeed that’s where we land, by Friday. Bugger… At 1700hrs we discussed sail settings for overnight. We like to have Sisu settled down for the night, if conditions change we want to be ahead, so we put in the first reef, just in case. Perfect timing! I could see a rain squall, like the jet black velvet ink of a villains cape, being thrown across the sky, sweeping our way as we reefed. Boom!! The rain hit us, I chickened out and dove below, pulling the hatch behind me! It was a torrential squall too, Terry said it was a scene from The Perfect Storm! The seas were the darkest grey, the sky even more so, with only the merest slit of sunset giving any colour at all. He said it looked dreadful, the biggest yet, there was little wind! He was laughing throughout it, the rain was so warm he took off his wet weather jacket, dressed in just his t shirt and undies, the rain was so fierce his clothes had a good wash!

The squall, as usual, ended as quickly as it arrived and the night passed without event. We were able to sail and conserve fuel. We were blessed with a good sized moon, which set at 0320hrs, with dawn breaking around 0500hrs I only had a couple of hours of total darkness which makes my night watch feel shorter, makes such a difference. You realise on totally dark cloud nights what an insignificant little speck on the vast, empty ocean we really are! We are like tiny fleas on a dogs back, and could just as easily be squished if Neptune chose and these are the times when I feel slightly uneasy and very mindful at how miniscule we are. We were always perfectly fine, it’s the kind of thoughts and sensations that creep into your head during the dark soul of the wee small hours on a dark ever onward rolling sea!

 

DAY 20. Tues 10.1.17

We used the last of the eggs bought in Mindelo in an omelette for breakfast/lunch. They’ve lasted really well. Due to watch changeovers breakfast and lunch tend to morph or we eat at different times depending on what’s going on around us.

We’re still on the engine by 1245hrs, with 229 nautical miles to go. Huzzah!! There’s very little wind, we are trying to sail without the engine, no joy, the main sail slats about from side to side, the headsail not much better. We’ve about ¾ of a tank of fuel, enough. By 1340hrs the sun is blazing, seas steady, we’re doing 5 plus knots, so slow, but it’s a welcome breather to have these conditions, to relax and take stock. Writing up my diary, I’m just about to describe the colour of the incredibly blue clear seas. Suddenly, on my port side as I glanced over, an Eden whale broke surface and blew!! Its small, short dorsal fin and long grey back slowly and gracefully arced, fully rising out as it breathed. Where was my camera at times like these!!!! Dropping my diary, I rushed over to the side and looked down. Ten feet down through the sun’s rays shafting down, I could clearly see the whale’s gleaming, opalescent moonstone coloured underbelly as she elegantly turned and swam under our hull. An incredible sight! Time just seemed to stop for us both. Sitting back, in awe, then on the starboard side another whale broke the surface! I could clearly see in the clarity of the waters, her long snout and head just breaking the surface, then she dived down to join her friends. There was no time to grab a camera, the moment would have been gone and wasted, but what an absolute joy and blessing to witness! These are the times when every frightening, exhausting moment was so utterly worth it, and to be honest, now looking back, we had more good times than bad. Terry had been asleep during their brief visit, I hadn’t woken him as I knew that the whales would be gone and he’d have lost the vital sleep he needed. Whales are absolutely not like dolphins, they don’t come back to show off!

We have an easy evening with the engine running and calmer seas. Sisu still rolls, but making our evening meal is less of a challenge, pans retain their contents, the round veggies like onions and tomatoes become relatively docile when handled. Life relaxes and it’s a blessed relief to feel your muscles release some tension, having become accustomed to days of constant bracing. The night watches pass uneventfully. The now nearly full moon sets around 0430hrs with the sun rising around 0530hrs, there’s very little total darkness which makes the nights seem to pass sooner. Terry comes up from his sleep at 0600hrs and we sit together in the cockpit watching another day crank into action. With these conditions and speed, we anticipate to reach Antigua in two days’ time, we’ll be seeing other people again. After 22 days of just each other’s company, we’re both unsure if we’re ready for the outside world and lots of people!

 

ATLANTIC CROSSING. MINDELO,CAPE VERDE TO ANTIGUA. 22 DEC 2016 – 12 JAN 2017 2,135 nautical miles 22 days PART 5. 7 – 8 JAN 2017

DAY 17. 7.1.16

Still with us so far? If so, well done!

The morning was full of 25 plus knots of wind and Sisu was going like a steam train. I’d given up on sleep down below due to the noise of the wind in the rigging and the sensation of the waves against the hull was like having a double decker bus slamming into us. Poor Sisu, I could feel just how affronted she was, as shuddered as each wave dared to hit her. Terry said the waves earlier had been huge, they’d were bloody big now! Writing my diary was difficult, cooking even more so! Tim Evans, our weather forecasting friend advises us that calms are due Wednesday so make haste now, we certainly are!

The sun is rising slightly earlier now as we head East, so rewarding to see the optimism of sun rise before I turn in after the graveyard shift. We are still wearing our oilies as waves are still poking fun at us, wetting us and then running away. Where’s all this sailing in our swimming cozzies??!!! We are goose winged out at 1300hrs, which is better rolling wise, though we are still sliding down big waves, still making me squeak with alarm, which elicits a rebuke from Terry as my squeak startles him, making him think something serious has occurred. It’s quite funny really. We slide down a big waves, I squeak, apologise for my girly squeak, Terry tells me off, I grr back, we slide down a big waves, I squeak, apologise, Terry once again tells me off, I grr back, and so it continued for a while till we changed course by a degree or two! It passed the time….. At noon our mileage was 559 nautical miles to go, huzzah!!!

As head chef, I made an executive decision regarding lunch. To lift our flagging spirits, nothing could beat….. tinned Rice pudding!! Terry’s face lit up, his eyes fairly twinkled, bringing out the little boy in the man! In the cockpit we opened two tins of rice pud. Gorgeous! We spooned the rice straight out of our tins. The rice was warm in the sun. The sweet, unctuous goodness would never had reach such sensual heights at home, in a bowl. Terry wolfed his, grinning like a man possessed, I took my time, we even ran our fingers round the inside of the tins, not wanting to miss a grain of rice! Aaaah!

Meals like that keep you going. With our tums and moral boosted we were better able to deal with the conditions today with the confused seas and heavy rolling. Overnight on our separate watches we kept tweaking our mainsail, letting the mainsail out as winds made us heel too far, pulling the sail back in again when the winds eased. We had to keep our speed up, we were doing over 8 knots and whilst this is a bit fast for Sisu, the autopilot and sails were comfortable, so we cracked on. In the small hours we moved into a new time zone and had a generous half moon shining down on us till 0100hrs, it was an exciting and enjoyable night!

 

DAY 18. 8.1.17

At 1000hrs, after sleeping after my night shift, I poked my head out of the hatch as usual to greet Terry. What a sight…. He was in the nude! If there’d been any whales around, he have scared them off! He hadn’t lost his marbles, I could see that ..….. he’d got drenched in the drizzly rain earlier so decided to have a shower as the rain was warm! The wind had died away and we were dragging along at 1 ½ knots. Not good. Fortunately, by the time he got dressed and refuelled his coffee intake, the wind had picked up and we were doing a reasonable 4 to 5 knots. Tim Evans messaged us to say a low to the North of us could be sucking our wind, trying to fill the low. Yup. By noon we’d covered 104 nautical miles making it now 455 miles to go. The numbers feel like they’re really ticking down now, we feel far more energised.

At 1300hrs Tim messaged us. There’s a 17metre yacht with a broken rudder which has been abandoned in our area. There’s a $10,000 if sighted!!! Tim suggests we share the reward if we see it! We put on the radar, whilst $10,000 would be extremely welcome, we are more concerned that an unlit vessel is drifting around. If that were to hit us in the night……. We keep a keen look out, then, we see something very large and orange floating past us a couple of hundred yards away! It passed by quickly. Could it be the rudder of the missing yacht? We made a note of where we saw the object, but we suspect that what we actually saw was a deflated weather balloon. We never did see any sign of the yacht, mind you, it passed the time deciding what we could spend on Sisu with half the reward money!

The wind picked up by 1340hrs and Terry decided we should put the third reef in. Terry went up to the mast whilst I switched the engine on, disengaged the autopilot and turned her starboard into heaving seas. Holding her steady and true, I watched the mainsail begin to flap and loosen so Terry could quickly lower the main enough to put in the reef. It felt like riding a horse over high jumps! Up and down Sisu soared, it felt euphoric and powerful! I even let out a Yeeha! It felt so good holding the wheel, flexing and bending my legs and body with her, feeling her move. For the first time in ages I was rather sorry to turn her back onto her course, switch off the engine and turn the autopilot back on. Looking back, I still want to do that again, Terry understands, it’s why we sail, it’s for those times of full engagement with the elements and boat.

Terry rests later in the afternoon. We always know when each other is up. From the cockpit you can hear down below the metallic jangle of the lifejacket harness clips. We are like dray horses getting ready for their work, hauling our harness back on, the chinking of metal upon the harness. I find it comforting in the night watches, it means that in a few minutes there’ll be company in the cockpit whilst we changeover. At noon we have 346 nautical miles to cover, we begin to daydream of Antigua and rum!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ATLANTIC CROSSING MINDELO, CAPE VERDE TO ANTIGUA 22 DEC 2016 – 12 JAN 2017 22 DAYS, 2,135 nautical miles PART 4 5 – 6 JAN 2017

DAY 15. 5.1.17

I’m sure that on long passages such as these, there must, surely even on easy, straightforward journeys, be dips in moral fibre. This morning was our low point! We were both shattered, and when we do get a couple of hours sleep, we are sleeping separately at different times of the day, so perhaps my rather dry, dark humour is not appreciated at these times. At 7am I peered up out of the hatch and looked over to a very bleary eyed Terry and said, with my tongue obviously not far enough in my cheek for him to see…….  “So, have we broken the fun barrier yet?” Terry stared at me, through the rain, weighing up what I said…… My following sentence was going to be would he like a cup of soup. It never emerged….. Guess I engaged mouth before brain as the nurturing sentence was left at the brain’s starting gate, wondering where the hell the “humorous” sentence had come from. He stared at me, picked up his mug, snapping that I could have asked how he was and would he like a coffee???? Reader, it wasn’t a pretty scene. A brief fierce exchange with baaad words followed. We made up quickly however, and he got his soup and all was well. Extreme tiredness takes its toll and you can’t let things fester, especially when you can’t really go anywhere!!!

All through the day we had heavy rain squalls and 25 plus knots of wind. We took it in turns to sleep below when possible. A diary note reads “will it ever end?!”

By noon we had 762 nautical miles to go. Antigua was within our grasp, this is a mileage we can comprehend! Terry had to put better ties in the mainsail reef, we don’t want any loose sail gathered along the boom catching extra wind. We set a course further North to escape this foul weather.

We had another long wet, and for me, a scary night. I came on watch at 0200hrs and within half an hour a big wave came over us, Terry hadn’t had one for an hour and a half! Then…. in the dark of the night, we heard a roar, this was a big boy of a wave breaking very close to us.  We instinctively braced ourselves. A huge wave broke over us.  It came over the starboard side, where I was sat, Terry was on the other side to me. I took the force of the sheer volume of water across my back and the cockpit filled around our legs with the Atlantic. I screamed with terror. We were not in any danger, we didn’t have a knockdown, we were fine and we occasionally had waves breaking over into the boat. It was just the sheer solidity of the wave slamming into me that shocked me. In the dark, in the middle of the ocean, this new experience of sailing was at times a very, very steep learning curve and even Terry said that was a scary wave!

DAY 16. 6.1.17

A sunny morning with the usual big seas, so we dried out our wet oilies, jackets and salopettes in the cockpit. I came up at 0930hrs from my previous 0630hrs end of watch, so good to see some sun! Terry went to bed at 1030hrs after bringing me up to speed. I was sitting in the cockpit, looking out over the all too familiar Sea, sky, sea, sky panorama, watching what the swells were doing and how they were rolling. When….. I thought it was another subtle shade of sea area, quite near to Sisu on the starboard side. I continued to watch my brain trying to make sense of what it was seeing. Hardly daring to believe my eyes, I realised I was looking at the back of a large whale!!!! At least 35 to 40 feet long, and about 20 feet or less away from us, the sunshine was reflecting off the whales white underbelly as it cruised past us! I thought it might just be a one off blessing so I left Terry resting. Then even more incredibly, I looked to our stern and there, unbelievably there was another whale surfing in the high swell just behind the swell we were surfing on!!! I could see the full length of his dark grey body, the size of a single decker bus! The swell was so high that there was actually room for him to surf his full length with a big margin of swell below and above him! He was surfing down the bright blue sunlit swell, coming towards us. Time was suspended, there was just us. A sight never, ever to be forgotten and the times I questioned why the hell are we doing this, the answer was provided unequivocally, because of witnessing nature in its full glory like this. He, it could of course have been a she but there was no way of knowing, glided, in full control of his speed, towards our towed generator line. He then slowed and took his time examining the propeller! He then decided it wasn’t of any real interest to him and he cruised at a steady pace alongside and swung beneath our hull, turning his body towards our boat, taking a look. The sun bounced off him, making his underbelly gleam a pearly, luminescent creamy white, this time I cried it was with sheer joy and thankfulness. I didn’t have my good camera, not wanting to risk damaging it in fickle over the side waves, so I only had my day to day camera. The shutter speed just couldn’t capture the whale, he didn’t wish to show off like a dolphin! Looking back at the stern again, our whale had come with company!! I quickly woke Terry. Two more whales were following! I’d spent days trying not to look at these big seas, yet in these circumstances I was eagerly scanning the swells looking at them and seeking more. Again, the whales came up to our towed genny propeller, slowing down to study it. I could see their gleaming dark bodies a few feet under the water, occasionally quickly breaking for breath. In the two hours we saw over 15 whales (!!!) over half took their time to check out our towed propeller. Had they felt the vibration of the rope twisting and generating energy? I tried so hard to capture a photo, but the sea was too rolly, and the whales had the edge as they could decide whether they chose port or starboard to go past us. I managed to film them on the Go Pro, but as yet, haven’t had the opportunity to see what I’ve caught. The whales would break alongside of us, their black backs and small dorsal fin glinted under the sun, but all too quick they would glide under us. I did manage to catch a whale as it disappeared under us, sometimes it’s best to remember these times in our heads, place them in our memory treasure chest and live in the moment. For sure though, they demonstrated that they are at ease and are masters their world, we are no more than bits of flotsam bobbing around their home. After checking my photos on the internet when we reached Antigua, what we saw we think were Sei Whales. Twelve hours prior we had been soaked and I‘d been terrified, now fast forward those twelve hours and we were utterly elated, wishing to be nowhere else in the world.

ATLANTIC CROSSING – MINDELO, CAPE VERDE TO ANTIGUA 22 DEC 2016 – 12 JAN 2017 2,135 Nautical Miles, PART THREE. 30 DEC 2016- 4 JAN 2017

DAY 9. 30.12.16

Faithfull followers of our blog asked for the story of our crossing, so here it is you’re getting pretty much, the full story and the journey continues!

The wind is on our starboard beam, and we have the Trade swells we expected. At 6am just as I came off my watch, there was a faint glimmer of sunrise, so good to see, I don’t hang around though, and jump into the bed, already warmed by Terry. Now here’s another thing, the difference between Terry and me. He will climb into bed, no matter what state it’s in. I can’t do that. I will always take 5 minutes or so to straighten the sheets, swap pillows (I like my pillow!) no matter how tired, I like a tidy bed!

By noon we’ve got 1,475 miles to go, only 4 miles more since the previous 24 hours due to heading South to escape the calms. We change course to 270 deg West to catch up. It’s a game of snakes and ladders. Due to the low off the Bahamas, the Atlantic has not been as predictable as previous years, December and January in particular have been very up and down weather wise. This afternoon brings rain squalls, we didn’t sign up for this! We can get rain at home!!!! The squalls bring fluky winds, so back in with the reef in the main, I steer Sisu up into the big swells and during a short but intense squall. I can see Terry up at the mast, his turquoise underpants, hey, I’m not much better dressed……. are soaked. A second squall rapidly follows on our starboard side, we’re prepared, so sit in the cockpit, turn our shoulders to the torrential rain and put up with it, it’s warm rain and doesn’t take long for our meagre clothing to dry! I’m amazed though that our lifejackets didn’t inflate with the downpour!

I’m tired today, it’s hard to be motivated and cheerful. It’s hard, and best not to think about the number of days ahead, just live in the moment and day by day, we are getting there. We receive a message on the Delorme from Mick and Tom on Artic Smoke, friends we met in Mindelo who left on the 8^th Dec. They arrived at Martinique on Christmas Eve, 17 days, they said it was challenging! A comfort, it’s not just us then! All through the day and night we have regular squalls passing over us. The squalls bring wind ahead of them, so on each of our watches, we were regularly letting the mainsail out to slow us down when the winds increased, then pulling the mainsail sheet back in to speed us up when the winds eased back to normal. The squalls continued into the night, on each of our watches we were kept busy adjusting the mainsail. It helped make the night go faster and I rather enjoyed it! A flying fish thudded onto the deck out of my reach. I felt bad, I couldn’t rescue it. We clip on at night, and I wasn’t going to take the risk that night, even clipped on to the safety lines, going to the bow to put him back! During the daytime squalls I took refuge under the sprayhood, sitting on the steps down to the cabin where I could still watch, Terry sat in the cockpit, both of us had full oilys (wet weather gear we wear in the Irish Sea!) on. I broke into song “Always look on the bright side of life!” Together we sang “Ta daa, ta daa de daa de daa”. It seemed an appropriate time for that song! The wonderful upside of the squalls are the truly incredible rainbows. Full circles of glowing colour, the ends of the rainbows reached into the sea and conjoined. We’ve never seen anything so humbling and wondrous.

A big Huzzah!!! During the day, the mileage counter suddenly changed to 1,234 nautical miles! We’d been at 1,405 miles for seemingly days. Terry realised the mileage counter was expecting us to return to a way point which he’d pre set however we had passed it and due to our detour to find wind, the counter had become confused and had now realised that we were heading for the next waypoint. We were in fact nearly half way!!!!!

 

DAY 10. New Years Eve. 31.12.16

I got up at 1030hrs, 4 hours after tidying the bed and crashing out. I’d like to lie in for longer but then too much of the day is lost. Sometimes we awake and forget where we are. It takes a minute, I lie there, staring up and through the middle hatch, it’s so bright, I can see bright sun filled oblong shapes of the side portholes swinging to and fro across the cabin walls, back and forwards, Sisu’s creaking, her morning voice marks what kind of day we may have and I lie for a few minutes, taking in the sounds. On the day when I can hear the winds are blowing hard or sails flapping or the seas crashing into her hull, I just have to man up and be as gritty as Terry. If I’m not, I’ll just get a friendly rollocking.

It’s a bright day with big regular seas. We are speeding along and Sisu is happy and steadier. Terry says if we keep this up, we’ll be half way tomorrow! A big psychological boost, we then start to count down. We must remember amongst the hard bits of this trip, the wonderful times and how we are gelling, taking care of each other and working as a team. Moving around the boat can be hilarious, down below, we inhabit rooms which are moving side to side and up and down depending on the point of sail and conditions. A trip to the heads can either be carried out at a brisk trot, hurtling you towards the bog, or, and this usually happens when you’re desperate, you have to grasp handholds, fighting your way against an invisible force, like the mime artist Marcel Marceau, trying to walk against a gale of wind, struggling your way uphill past the sink and hob!

We have our best mileage day so far, covering over 100 miles, we tack West, North,West to keep our speed up. New Year’s Eve saw us sleeping in the cockpit due to it being so rolly overnight. Terry kept watch whilst I dozed, then I kept watch whilst Terry dozed, we both gave up trying to sleep down below. There’s no New Year toast either, but we don’t mind, we are going to celebrate when we reach Antigua!  Happy New Year!!!!

 

DAY 11.  NEW YEARS DAY. 1 JANUARY 2017. HALF WAY!

The weather has settled and New Year’s Day is bright and beautiful. The first decent day we’ve had for ages. We are half way too! 1,161 miles to go! What will 2017 bring? We didn’t wake up with a hangover, that’s for sure! Sisu’s sailing well, 4.6 knots to 6 knots. Terry’s task today is deal with the creaking steps. The creaking as we climb down them is driving him nuts. This could be due to the heat (oh what a problem!!!) making the wood expand. We hear the eak, eak, eak, day and night, another one of “those” noises we finally traced down. He tackles them with a screwdriver and spanner, he’s happy when taking things apart….. He works his magic, and by loosening the side screws, the steps can now flex fractionally and bingo, no more creaking!

I tried to read in the cockpit, a rogue wave over the side put paid to that, soaking my book. We occasionally get a rogue wave. Our cockpit is deep and comforting, but just now and then….. you hear a wave just to your side, and we become good at deciphering them, the wave begins to break, you shut your eyes and lean forward. Neptune likes to play games, sometimes they break harmlessly against the hull, or he chucks a wave over, just to let you know he’s around!

At lunchtime we celebrate New Years Day by getting out hooters and blowing them to our hearts content! Tea is pretty good, I’m a convert to the pressure cooker! We enjoy rice, peppers, onions, chorizo mixed in a blend of spices, yum!

Overnight, the moon finally stops being coy and like a burlesque artist, only reveals the merest hint of her full beauty, just the slimmest of a crescent. She’s a tease, we shall have to wait a week for her finale! At this latitude though, her crescent is at the bottom, how appropriate!

 

DAY 12. 2.1.17

Today we tackled washing clothes! We rinse our t shirts and undies every couple of days, they are going to be binned when we reach Antigua, as we are in them 24 hours a day, they take a bit of a beating. We’re doing 3 to 5 knots, not as good as yesterday but we have to remember for every snake we slide down, there will be a – non creaking – ladder to climb up as we work our way up the game board to Antigua. We enter a different time zone too, losing an hour as we nudge further West. We have more daylight, huzzah! I see from my diary we had pasta and pesto for tea, and I’ve written “we feel fooded out, the meals are very samey, all cooked in one pot, still, they’re good and fill us up”. Despite Terry having a fishing line out, we haven’t caught anything yet, so our diet isn’t about to change anytime soon!

The night watch is easy. We are motoring as there’s so little wind and the sea is mild. It seems incredible as you read this, but we had days where the seas were very benign! I check our overnight hamster hoard. We have Gummi bears and biscuits. The chocolate ran out some time ago. Once these are gone, there’s only healthy nuts left and Extra Strong Mints, oh no! We appreciate these calm night watches with the engine running. But the downside is we are using valuable fuel and it’s bloody noisy. We have more flying fish in the cockpit, one landing on Terry’s hand in the dark, giving him a real fright!

 

DAY 13. 3.1.17

Or Day 12B as I called it. I wasn’t going to tempt providence! Terry runs the water maker and changes a filter so I again use the purged undrinkable water to wash my hair again, yippee! We’re still motoring. Terry’s emptied two jerry cans of fuel into the tank. We now have a full tank of fuel and one jerry can. We can’t keep motoring obviously, but we certainly don’t want to wallow in the calms. However, the calms give us a chance to relax and recharge. The engine goes on again in the afternoon and through the night till 0645hrs. We have also broken the 1,000 mile reading and have only (only!!!) 948 miles to go. An easy day and night, wonderful!

 

DAY 14. 4.1.17

Well, we had a surprise this morning. Terry had caught his fishing line in the towed generator rope, so had to pull in the rope and line to disentangle them. When he reached the end of the generator rope which was attached to the propeller, he discovered the line had almost severed with chafe!!! We could have lost the propeller! We carry a spare, but what a blessing the fishing line became tangled. An easily fixed job and with new line, Terry cast out the rope and our electricity source continued. The seas are bigger today. I sit in the cockpit, trying not to look in the direction of the stern where the swell rears up past the height of our bimini shade. It’s not dangerous, just rather unnerving. I find myself staring, like a mouse caught in the stare of a snake, my eyes becoming wider as the waves climbs up and up, in a form of morbid fascination, I cannot tear my gaze away. The wave reaches its mountainous peak, then bundles up, tucking under Sisu’s stern, picks us up, surging us along a couple of knots faster, releases us, then, tired of playing with her little toy, rolls on towards a distant paradise.

Our night is not one of our better nights. I see from my diary entry I’ve written “tea was pasta and carbonara sauce, I got thrown round the galley. By 7pm it was raining heavily, no chance of sleeping under the stars tonight. We had the crappiest night!