LOG
From Gibraltar to the Caribbean

January 02, 2010

We arrived off Jolly Harbour in Antigua at 2.0am and had to delay our entry a bit as we had a large squall just as we were approaching. The whole sky turned very dark, we had torrential rain and the visibility was down to less than 100 yards. Once the squall passed we slowly and carefully followed the long channel into Jolly Harbour, it was made more confusing as there were lots of boats anchored in the bay, some of them actually in the channel and obscuring the channel marker buoys. We got in safely and tied up to the Customs and Immigration pontoon. We then had a couple of bottles of champagne and a wee dram before conking out. We woke up at about 10.0am, by which time Camomile had also come in, and by the time we had gone through the admin of Port Authority, Customs and Immigration, Fai Tira had also arrived. Five of the bigger boats had arrived before us so we had a pretty good welcome when we berthed in the marina.

We had a bit of a party on our first night, but still managed to get up at 8.0 am and go for a swim off the beach just round from the marina - just wonderful and just the way to waken up in the morning. We had BWR brunch at one of the restaurants and this was one of several BWR events.

On the 9th we had a guided tour of the island laid on by the tourist board, it was a real contrast to the tours we had in Lanzrote, it was typical caribbean - very laid back and a bit chaotic. The 9th was a public holiday so most of the capital, St Johns, was closed however we did get a feel for the island.

Doug left us on the 12th and on Monday 13th we left Jolly Harbour and headed down to Freeman's Bay outside English Harbour. This was a very welcome change as we anchored in the bay, right off the beach. It meant that Susan could swim ashore (much too far for me) and we could complete some of our outstanding jobs, such as get the watermaker working. The problem turned out to be my wiring - I know it is difficult to believe.

We headed back to Jolly Harbour on the 18th to welcome Scott & Kathy who were flying in on the 19th. They had a very trying journey due o a 4-5 hour delay, but we managed a wee celebration when they arrived and still got up at 8.0am next morning for a swim. On the 21st we headed out to anchor in the bay outside Jolly Harbour and had a celebration with Paul and Derry from Jackamy, they had just relaunched their boat after repairs, following a little incident with a reef, and it was also my birthday.

We went back down to Freeman's Bay on the 22nd and tied up at Nelson's Dockyard on the 23rd. It was a bit fraught as they have a fairly unique way of mooring and the marina people changed their minds on what we needed to do when we arrived there. We did however get in without incident. On the evening of the 23rd we had a very pleasant surprise when several of the boats turned up at our boat to do a few Xmas carols and we followed them along the harbour to other boats as they were so good.

We booked the whole of a restaurant for our BWR dinner on Xmas eve and there were 66 of us partying and dancing in to the night. At lunch time on Xmas day there was a Champagne do in Nelson's Dockyard, with a steel band and a reggae band. People came from all over for the event and many of the dressed up in a great variety of Xmas outfits. After a few drinks many of the BWR crews headed over in our dinghies to a quiet beach and had a barbeque - it was a great way to spend Xmas.

On Sunday 27th we went with Scott & Kathy and a number of other crews to Shirley Heights, which is a great place to watch the sun set and there is a barbeque and an excellent steel band followed by a Reggie band. Before we new it it was 'Old Year' as they call Hogmanay here and we booked up they same restaurant, although there were only 27 of us this time. After dinner there was a great fireworks display in the harbour and another Reggie, which played through to about 2.0am.

It is now the 2nd, Scott & Kathy have left with their heavy jumpers at the ready and we have moved out to anchor in Freeman's Bay, ready to set off tomorrow for Guadaloupe and the next phase of our adventure. (Antigua Pictures)

November 30, 2009

We now have less than 750 miles to go and have an eta of either late Friday or early Saturday. The forecast is for steady reasonable winds for the next few days, so hopefully we can make good progress.

We have had an interesting few days with forecasts of severe squalls with high winds, torrential rain and thunder and lightening. On Thursday night we had lost of thunder and lightening about us with some right overhead and part of a squall. The heavens opened and we had winds of 32/33 knots and gusts of up to 40 knots. Susan was on shift and she invited me to join her!!. I however missed the worst of it by the time I got dressed. We shut off most of our electronics including the VHF and AIS systems to try to protect them in case of a strike and we put on the engine as once a diesel engine is started it doesn't need electricity to continue running. We continued to have some electrical storms on Friday and last night but nothing as severe as Thursday. Most of the Blue Water Rally boats had similar experiences with some having much higher winds than we had, but all have come through relatively unscathed.

During the day we have had light winds and have been flying our cruising chute to help us keep up a reasonable speed. It is quite unreal to have a night of storms and then in the morning to have blue skies and light winds, but it certainly cheers you up.

We had our regular quiz night on Friday, but lost our on a tie-break. Maybe next week if we are still at sea. 

We will have a little celebration on Tuesday night as we will have less than 500 miles to go and we will start to anticipate the finishing line.(Atlantic Pictures)

November 24, 2009

 We have just had our first glass of wine at sea to celebrate passing the halfway point and have about 1450 miles to go.

We have had very good sailing for the past 3 days and achieved 164 miles in a 24 hour period. The winds are slightly less now but we are still sailing along at about 6 knots and it looks like this will continues for the next 2-3 days. We have had our twin headsail arrangement up now for 3 and a half days and haven't needed to make any sail change as it works so well. We have been using our autopilot to do most of the steering for the past couple of days as there appears to be a slight problem with the wind vane steering. This is not a problem for us as we just have to run the generator 3 times a day to recharge the batteries and we have plenty of diesel.

The shift arrangement of 3 hour on and 6 hours off is working very well and we get plenty of rest -  Doug however could sleep for Scotland as he manages to conk out whenever he is off shift.

We started to do some fishing today as we have now consumed all the vacuum packed meat, however we didn't catch anything. Doug tried to use one of the flying fish we collect on deck as bait but obviously a dead, dried up fish is not attractive to other fish.

We haven't seen any other yachts on the trip although we must have been within about 10-12 miles of one or two. With the waves we have had the horizon must be really quite small, maybe about 6 miles. We have only seen a couple of cargo vessels in the past week so it is easy to imagine that we are the only ones out here.

It has been a bit cloudy for the past 2 days although it is still very warm. It is really nice having dinner in the cockpit in shorts and tee-shirts.

November 22, 2009

We have now done over 1000 miles and are fully down into the trade wind area. We have had strong trade winds for the past 2 days (20-25 knots with gust into the 30+ knots) and have had large seas of up to 5 meters and breakers coming across from the side, so it has been a bit uncomfortable at times, but no one said it would all be easy. We are making good progress, frequently travelling at over 7 knots and have even touched 10 knots when the boat has been surfing on a large wave, quite exciting at times. We are sailing with our down wind rig of 2 headsails poled out so they don't collapse when the boat rolls. We reduce the sail area at night to make the boat easier to control and to allow for squalls.

The weather is very warm despite the wind and we are in short sleeves and shorts until about 10.0pm and only need a fleece for overnight. It is difficult for us to remember that it is winter at home.

We have a roll call every morning at 10.0am on the SSB radio and all the yachts report their position. We then have a chat session on the SSB radio at 6.0pm. On Friday nights one of the boats run a "pub quiz" and we won last Friday's quiz. Our team name is "Three Jocks in a boat". It has to be said that our performance was largely down to Doug's remarkable memory and large variety of knowledge. 

We are doing very well on our supplies, we have used less than a quarter of our diesel and will soon be half way there (Tues/Wed), we have lots of water left, despite not getting the watermaker going before we left. We still have a few packs of vacuum packed meat and quite a few packs of bacon. Our fruit is beginning to go off as it was difficult to get unripe fruit in Lanzarote but we still have quite a few apples and oranges.

November 20, 2009

Doug arrived on the 12th and Helen came on the same flight for a holiday in Lanzarote. We did our safety briefing and made final preparations for leaving on Friday 13th (good job we are not superstitious). We waved off Fai Tira, Camomile, Amber Sea and Briet, all of whom left a day ahead of us on the Thursday. We set off at 10.0 am on Friday morning and had a good send off from Helen and the rest of the boats, which were mainly due to leave on the Saturday, although a few were later. We had a good sail for most of the first day and started our 3 hrs on and 6 hrs off shift pattern after dinner. By this time the wind had dropped and we were motor sailing. We had very light winds for most of the first week and had to motorsail a lot of the time. We did however make good progress and headed down to the 2030 waypoint before turning west.

November 6, 2009

We stayed in Gibraltar for 2 weeks, although we did have a weekend trip to Smir in Morocco. We did get to like it a bit more as time went on and we went on a number of excursions including a cycle run round the Rock and met some local inhabitants! (see the pictures). A trip into the lower caves was a highlight as it was both an adventure and had very interesting and spectacular stalactite and stalagmite formations. On the middle weekend all the boats sailed across the straits to Smir in Morocco and for a change we had a really good sail. We had Pete from Fai Tira with us as John, the co-owner had to go back to the UK. It was good to get moving again and the guided tour of the huge market area in Smir was very interesting, although you wouldn't want to buy much of the food. We had 2-3 "secret" police to protect the group from pick-pockets etc. We had to motor back on the Sunday as once again there was no wind, but we had blue skies and a hot sun. The trip also gave an opportunity for most of us to get some action photographs of our boats.

The second week was largely taken up with getting the boat ready for the start of the Blue Water Rally, however we did have a trip to Ronda which is a remote village in Spain built in spectacular scenery, with very large cliffs and gulleys. We also had some more parties and briefings. (Gibraltar Pictures)

We started the rally on Sunday 25th October with a formal crossing of the start line, which had a gun salute from the shore and a small naval vessel at the end of the line. This is the only time in the rally where we will have a start line or even a set time for leaving. The start is fairly muted compared with the ARC but then it is a much smaller affair and not a race. We started off fairly far back but as most of the boats turned to go behind a large tanker we noticed it was stopping and went in front of it and leapt towards the front of the fleet - but it is not a race!!!

We once again had a trip with very little wind although we could have sailed more if we had been better prepared for overnight sailing. We ended up motoring most of the way to Lanzarote, but so did most of the fleet. It did however give us a good estimate of our motoring range with the 730ltr of diesel. We think that we can do about 1400 miles if we had to. The trip was fairly uneventful although we had a few challenges - we experienced 2 nights of very bad fog and on one of them we hit a "tunny net", which slowed the engine right down and we had severe vibrations from the propeller. After about 5 minutes the rope cutter on our shaft managed to cut through the net and the problem cleared - good decision to put on the rope cutter, and we were  not the only boat to experience this problem.  On the good side we saw lots of dolphins and about 40 - 50 turtles.

Once we got near Lanzarote we were contacted by one of the Discovery 55 boats (Roundabout), who we were catching up to ask us to take some photos of their cruising chute. They were however doing 6.2knts and we only catching them very slowly, so I decided to take the opportunity to give the engine a blast and check that the net was fully cleared from the propeller. We were doing 8knts at 3000 revs so managed to motor round Roundabout taking photos. They did the same for us a little later when we raised our cruising chute. This provided a nice end to the first leg of the BWR.(Gib to Lanzarote Pictures)

We arrived in Puerto Calero in Lanzarote on Thursday afternoon (29th)and spent the next day helping in the slower boats - they were probably more patient in sailing in light winds than we were. The young and old kids from some of the boats treated us to a trick or treat session on Halloween and visited all our boats. We managed to organise and apple ducking session and it was really good fun. This was followed by a welcome party, the first of quite a few we have had so far in Lanzarote. At the beginning of this week we had a really interesting tour of the south of the island - all courtesy of the tourist board and we will have a tour of the north of the island next week. On Wednesday we went on a trip to an amazing cavern in one of the lava mountains, which had an inland sea and had been turned into a restaurant and we were treated to a session of folk dancing. We were supposed to have a race night on Friday and some local boats were going to join in, however the wind had picked up considerably and the race night had to be cancelled. We had to make do with the curry and beer session which was supposed to follow the racing.

We are now doing final preparations for the Atlantic crossing and looking forward to Doug joining us.(Lanzarote Pictures)

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March 31st, 2011