Mindelo,
Cape Verdes – 17th November to 20th November
Sat 17th November
We spent the day doing washing and
housekeeping. In the evening we attended
the ARC+ welcome dinner at the Cultural Centre in Mindelo. We were able to catch up with crews from
other yachts and taste some traditional dishes. After the event we then caught a taxi to a
restaurant for dinner, as not all our crew had eaten!
Sunday 18th November – Day trip
to Sao Antao
We caught a ferry in the morning to Sao
Antao – When we arrived in Sao Antao we boarded a mini bus and were taken on a
day trip of the Island.
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| Vicki and Kathryn (La Rochelle)- about to board the ferry! |
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| Mindelo |
First stop was
up to volcano crater! We were privy to spectacular
views of ragged mountains, with sheer drops into lush green valleys on the west
side in contrast to the dry lunar-scape on the East side.
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| Cloud-fall in the volcano crater! |
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| Those spectacular Views |
It was a lot of fun talking to fellow ARC
participants and meeting some of the Cape Verdean locals.
Monday 19th November
We went to the local supermarket and purchased
3 trolleys of food as part of our provisioning for the final leg of the Atlantic
crossing. It took sometime to find where
to stow everything on Josie Maria, but we managed. We couldn’t find any bread or potatoes – so
will need to try and source these in the morning.
The marina in Mindelo had a lot of surging,
which caused some discomfort, and banging of rigging as the boats and floating
pontoons moved in the swell. The
movement and noise mean’t that it difficult to sleep and caused damage.
Just before the crew dinner and one of our neighbours
“Solo” lost their bow line as the rope attaching the buoy to the sea floor
broke. Fortunately everyone was on board
and we were able to tie their yacht Solo securely to us and their other neighbor,
while the marina personnel fixed the problem.
We also lost the lettering on our tender due to friction lines necessary
to stop the yacht Ninfea from surging backwards and forwards in the swell. Other yachts had more serious damage. This
marina is not protected and large swells occur. They really need to do
something about it at some point.
In the evening we attended the ARC+ farewell
dinner – this was delicious local fare and we were fortunate enough to met
Peter, Hans and Kurt from “Annamaria” (the other “Maria” yacht in the fleet!!)
who sat at the same table. We are looking forward to seeing them the
other side of the Atlantic!! We had
heard other yachts hailing “Annamaria” on the VHF several times, during the
first leg, and had done a double take….thinking we were being hailed - so it
was nice to put some faces to the yacht name!!
At this dinner prizes were given to the first three yachts in each
division – congratulations to those winners!!
Leg
2 ARC+ 20th November to 2nd
December
20th November
The morning was spent finishing last minute
preparations. John managed to pick up a fishing
reels from Zac the local fishing legend in Mindelo. He was able then to set-up
the lines and Alan and Vance managed to find some potatoes and bread!! Nothing
like last minute preparations. John and Vicki also managed a quick tour of
Ninfea!
We left the Marina Mindelo at 11.30am, with
all the other boats tied up on our floating pontoon.
Vicki entered the waypoints for the next
leg into the chart plotter and MaxSea program!
There were only 4!!
The rally-start was a real spectacle with
50 yachts at the start line. The start
was bought forward by 10 minutes because a cruise liner was casting it’s lines
at 1pm. So we not only had the start
guns but the horns of the Ocean Passenger Liner too!! What a blast!! All these fantastic yachts
sailing together as a fleet across the start line on to Saint Lucia !
The Rally starts at 12.50pm in winds
20-55knots – we were off to a good start!
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| Vicki at the helm! |
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| On way to St Lucia!! |
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| Vance - chilling with Mindelo in the background. |
Ship not in shape!! Shortly after the start we had incoming water
in the aft cabin as an aft cabin (not to opened while at sea) hatch was left
open - as a result we lost the Iridium phone a mini ipad, a kindle and other
electronic gear. While this was being
fixed, John’s camera fell into the saloon from the cockpit hitting Amit and
Vicki’s computer flew across the saloon making dents in cupboards, floor panels
and Amit! When one thing goes wrong on a
yacht things seem to escalate. While dealing with one issue, others happen…. This heightened tension on the boat and we
had a heated discussion…and some irrational behaviour…
A yacht is a very small environment and
crew morale is very important to maintain.
We have a really great crew and were able to work things through over
the next 24 hours or so. Vicki is really
missing the fact that Dai was not able be on the voyage and this as well as
overtired, overwrought and unwell crew, led to some misunderstanding. Fortunately we were able to forgive each
other for some heated words and moved on….but this is something best to avoid!!
We saw some pilot whales! We also hear on the VHF that La Rochelle has
broken their gooseneck and heading back to Mindelo for repairs…. At the time we
think that like Fernando and Daniela from Nefeli that we would not see them in
St Lucia…..
21st November
In the first 24 hours we covered 191.9
nautical Miles in last 24 hours. We can
see Karma Wins, Oda and Amaris on our AIS (Automatic Identification System).
After an initial 24 hours of strong to gale
force winds the wind reduces to 15-20 knots and we settle into our system of
sailing wing on wing with genoa poled out, staysail (to stabilise us) and the
main out, with preventer. As the wind
drops and goes N we need to drop the pole and head bear away.
At 1330 we gybe – John, Amit and David do
this!! Well done guys!!
22nd November
Winds 15-20 knots and fluky E-NE – we can
see Amaris. We continue sailing wing and
wing, although a bit slower than yesterday covering 176.2 nautical miles in
last 24 hours.
At 0600 we gybe again, as the angle is
better for our course.
We note on the yellowbrick race tracker
that La Rochelle is chasing the fleet and then receive a BGAN call from Col (La
Rochelle)- they are back on track and taking on one yacht at a time! We give Col what weather information we can –
but discover that we are now unable to receive emails and are not receiving the
ARC+ weather info. The guys on La Rochelle have a big task on their hands and
we are inspired by their tenacity!
We finished one of our two bottles of gas this
evening. This was much quicker than the
last one (either due to butane rather than propane or additional burner for
vege alternative of our dinners, so Vance was well fed too!!). We are mindful to conserve what we have left,
although we do have an electrical alternative!!
On Josie Maria, we have a plan B and C for most incidents!!
23rd November
Winds 10-20knots NE-E, we covered 183.6
nautical miles in last 24 hours and are sailing wing and wing.
Early in the morning – at 0400 - Vance
notices that the cockpit fridge and freezer had been turned off. We do not know how this came to be….either
accidently, or an electrical fault could have tripped them. They could have been accidently turned off by
someone’s head hitting the electric wall containing the bank of fuses, (which
is unlikely because you would know if this happened and no-one thinks they did
this) or the fuse switches tripped on their own and this could be a problem….
Our internet is down, neither VSAT nor BGAN
Fleet Broadband is working. Our BGAN is not
working because we haven’t signed up for a plan with more data as yet and have
used so much data that it has triggered our cut-off and the service is on
hold. This is now a real pain when we
are trying to download weather information and get our emails so that we can
work en-route!!
John was quite excited when he hooked a
fish that started taking lots of 110 pound line on his Tiagra reel. He then found it nearly impossible to stop the
reel from spooling all the line out despite what he did. Everyone thought we had a monster fish on and
wondering how we were going to bring it in. Fortunately it all suddenly stopped and he was
able to wind up some 600m of line taken out. In the end he found out that he had hooked a
large potato bag, made from strong material, which acted like a sea anchor filling
up full of water but finally ripped open releasing the fishing line. So much for a monster fish!
Smoke in the Galley!! After dinner , at 2130, we had white acrid smoke,
with an electrical type smell, pouring out through the vent underneath the
fridge in the galley. Vance and Vicki
grabbed fire extinguishers, Amit the fire blanket and we all searched for the
source but found none. Fortunately the
smoke dissipated within 15 minutes. This
was really frightening as a boat fire in the middle of the Atlantic can lead to
abandoning ship!! We still do not know
what has caused this electrical fire. John
suspects it has something to do with the tripping of the two fuses much earlier
this morning. We will need to report
this to Oyster as its quite serious. We
wish we had more data than white acrid smoke and had identified the actual
cause.
Vicki’s 3 major “nightmares” are 1. Man overboard, 2. Fire and
3. Sinking
24th November
Wind 10-20 knots – covered 177.4 nautical
miles in last 24 hours. Sailing wing and
wing.
John spent much of the day trying to fix
the satellite-internet issues, and was on the phone to Gavin using the
emergency Iridium handheld satellite phone. Gavin increased the data limit of the BGAN
account and the BGAN Immarsat was up and running. Nothing was actually wrong with it as such. However the VSAT was another story. The engineers at the VSAT company are working
hard to figure out what is going on, but it looks like there is substantial
error data loss on the line.
In the evening we can see another ARC+
yacht, Oda, about 4 miles behind us. Will
they overtake us? The competitive spirit
fires up!
25th November
Wind 12-25knots - we cover 200.9 nautical miles in last 25
hours (25 hours because we put the clock back an hour –so the sun rises at
about the same time as we head further west!).
John determined that the VSAT was simply not
reliable enough as we have experienced a lot of unreliability with VSAT. BGAN is very reliable but it’s a much slower
and older system, as well as probably more expensive. John has decided to go with the slower Sailor
150 go with a BGAN plan because ultimately its not the speed but the ability to
rely on a stable solution – looking forward to getting on the net again!!
When we can log in we see that Josie Maria
is in 11th place!
We notice that some of the metal thread of
the screws that screw the gooseneck (the section which holds the boom to the
mast) in place have lost thread and become loose as the washers have probably degraded
in the heat. For the entire trip the
weather has been warm, t-shirts and shorts all that is needed both day and
night!!
26th November
Winds 5-18knots, we cover 173.9 nautical
miles in 24 hours. Seas settled and wind
more NE.
At 0400 we pass another ARC+ yacht , Ninfea,
our Italian friends skippered by Roberto!
0600 we poled out genoa .
We also got our first real squall and
shower – although not much wind associated with it. There is no moon, so the night is very dark
and the stars bright!!
27th November
Winds 10-17 knots, we cover 154.1nautical
miles in 24 hours and finally receive weather forecasts because we have the BGAN
internet. We realise that we have no
wind to the east of us and this area of light wind is going to be nipping at
our heals the entire way if we don’t move west in a hurry. VSAT is still not working and our main phone
is linked to it which means no more cheap phone calls coming in. We will have to use our ridiculously expensive
$5/minute BGAN phone to make calls. Ouch !
Vicki decides to motor for 24 hours, in an
attempt to motor sail into an area with wind above 5-15 knots. In less than 10 knots of wind Josie Maria
doesn’t move very far….and the movement of the sea flaps the sails about
potentially causing damage and definitely causing discomfort for those on
board. Everyone is happy that we are
moving along at around 8 knots again!!
We have our second plotter Master data
error. It basically crashes, and looses our data.
We also finish our first log book!!
28th November
We cover 202.6 miles in 24 hours wind is
9-17 knots.
John bakes bread – yum!! The issue is that
the oven does not seem hot enough. We are not sure if it’s the butane gas we
are using, as we were using propane before.
We start sailing again at 2030 as the wind
picks up!
29th November
Wind 15-25knots overnight, we cover 189.1
nautical miles in last 24 hours.
0400 starboard gybe, with genoa poled out.
We have a total power outage when the
generator is turned off. They call this
a Dark Ship – you have no power, are dead in the water and nothing works. It’s quite dangerous as you loose autopilot and
could accidently gibe. The most
important thing in this situation is to quickly hand steer and call for help so
that power can be restored. The power
was switched to inverter prior to generator being turned off – we also had a
data lost on GPS error (still a few electrical gremlins lingering!!).
At midday John manages to hook and haul in
a beautiful blue marlin measuring around 20 pounds. David, Amit and John take
turns in bringing it in.
John then cooked fresh fish fingers!!
Delicious!! We also put some marlin steaks away for cooking later tonight and
some for tomorrow. Nothing is going into
the freezer.
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| Now that's a fish!! |
We sail until 1700hours, when the wind
drops again 9-15 knots and start motor sailing again…..still trying to keep
that easterly lull well behind us!!
30th November
Wind picks up at 0300 (17-25 knots) and we start sailing again! We
cover 185.9 in 25 hours – another one of those days where we put the clock back
an hour so the sun rises at about the same time (0700)!!
0330 gybed to Port tack.
Its John and Vicki’s wedding anniversary, so
celebrate at sunset with Mumm Champagne
- great setting!!
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| That sunset!! |
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| Happy Couple!! |
1st December
Still Sailing! Winds 12-27knots and we have
headed north of the rhumb –line so we have better angels to sail into St Lucia,
which means that we go faster. We cover
180.9 nautical miles in 24 hours.
John catches a great barracuda in the
morning, unfortunately these fish are linked to toxins, so we throw it back in
the sea.
Vicki books family and crew accommodation
in a resort hotel in the Caribbean!! We will need a break and some solid
ground, fast internet is also important so we can catch up on our work
requirements!!
The wind drops again around 1800 so we
start motor sailing again. We put the
pole down as the wind is very light and the apparent wind (that generated by
the motor) is too high for it! We
really want to arrive in St Lucia while it is light, and in time for dinner if
possible!! The end is in sight and
everyone is looking forward to landfall in the Caribbean!
2nd December
Wind is very light overnight 7-9 knots so
we are motor sailing again – at this point we have sailed over two thirds of
the way, so will still be in the Cruising Division, regardless of how long we
run our motor for. The last thing we
wanted was to be using our engine for more than one third (an ARC+ rule) and
find ourselves in the Motor Sailing Division!!
Everyone on board wanted to arrive sooner
rather than later so Vicki decided that once the boat speed dropped below 6
knots we would motor sail! Yeh!!
In the morning we can see lights, a fishing
boat, and birds – we must be close to land.
Alan has seen birds throughout the trip on his morning watch, but it is
the first one Vicki has seen since leaving Mindelo!
By midday we can see the coast of
Martinique, and later St Lucia. As we
approach the land there are dark clouds with rain under them. They are all too far away from us to rain on
us, but some of them do produce an increase in wind speed and we are able to
maintain boat speed and sail again!
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| Land Ahoy!! The east coast of St Lucia. |
As we come into the lee of the island (the
side where there is no wind) we decide to motor sail again, Amit and David
prepare the fenders while Vance puts up the St Lucia courtesy flag.
As we approach Pigeon Island, ARC rally
control radio’s us (as Vicki is trying to radio them, on the VHF channel
72). We are expected to call 5 miles
away from the finish, then 2 miles……we didn’t fully understand why until we saw
Suzanna and Paul from ARC+ in a tender marking the southern end of the
finishing line!!
As we rounded Pigeon Island we had to beat
(sail as close into the wind as we could) to sail between the buoy and tender
that marked the finishing line! We
didn’t want to have to tack (turn the boat through the wind)….so finished very
close to the tender! I think that Paul
and Suzanna were getting ready to release more anchor line!! Our official finishing time was 15h 39m 32s
St Lucia time (-4UTC).
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| Vicki and John - crossing the finish line! |
It was a relief to have made it across the
Atlantic (although only a quarter of the way home!!) and we are looking forward
to a more leisurely schedule going forwards. There was also a professional photographer in
a tender who was taking lots of shots as we finished! Alan was anxious as the photographer passed
very close to our bow in a tiny tender…. fortunately all OK!
As we tied up to the dock we were assisted
by the ARC+ team, and given a friendly island welcome with two local women
bearing gifts of a rum punch for all the crew and fruit and rum platter! We were also greeted by a local reporter who interviewed
us for feature on the local news!
A
recap on the Atlantic crossing.
What
did we do each day?
For
Entertainment….
In down time we read, played computer games
and watched movies! The boys watched
movies and played Grand theft Auto on the Playstation3 that we bought in Las
Palmas. Vicki tried to play Candy crush
– but didn’t have much success, so started playing Plants Vs Zombies game that
Rhiannon had downloaded on her ipad!
Thanks Rhiannon!!
John put the fishing lines in every morning
and took them in in the evening – the boys (David, Amit and Vance also helped)
Occasionally the lines would start running (you could hear the whirr of them
from the saloon) and he would bring the
lines in!! There were a couple of false
starts but the big success of our crossing was the marlin!! A couple of times the lines were caught on
each other, a sign that there were fish out there – this took time to sort out
too!!John was also into Plant vs Zombies . He is also spending a lot of time
cataloging a life time of digital photographs and movies, trying to sort it all
out.
While John was on watch he would shine a
high power torch on the water and flying fish would jump and be gobbled by
bigger fish – so we knew there was a lot out there! We often had flying fish jump on the boat – we
put them back in the water!
To
keep the boat moving….
For the entire voyage we needed to ensure
that our sails were set for optimum speed and we were on the optimum course. These both depend on the wind direction at
both the present and future with the aim that the yacht is in the best position
for the quickest trip to the final destination – in our case St Lucia! Alan was invaluable with this.
An important part of “keeping the boat moving”
is to ensure that the rigging is OK – when things go wrong they escalate
quickly so you need to be vigilant and find a minor change before it becomes a
problem. We undertook twice daily deck
checks – morning and evening to assess any changes. The loose screw and melted washers on the
gooseneck fitting were one of these. Once
highlighted as a problem they were checked every watch. Catherine and Colin on “la Rochelle” had had
to turn back to Mindelo, after their gooseneck (fitting of boom to mast)
broke….so we were mindful of this!
Fortunately these guys were able to fix their gooseneck and started
chasing the fleet down with a 30 hour handicap.
They did an amazing job and my hat goes off to them – well done guys!!
The smoke we had in the galley mid-trip
could have been a show stopper….fortunately it dissipated and nothing seems to
be wrong, and could be related to the faulty ice maker, but we still don’t know
the cause. We really need to sort this before we leave St Lucia.
We also had to ensure that the motor and
generator were well oiled and the fan belts OK regularly. You tend to spend a
lot of your time lifting up cushions and grab tools or food stored inside the
seats, or even dealing with equipment like the VSAT and BGAN hidden away in dark
places underneath the boat. We also
check hoses and seals occasionally to see if there is any chaffing but this is
hard to do all the time. There are so
many little things that break or fall off while at sea that you are not far
away from a screwdriver. Maintenance is
ongoing, and while at first it was unwelcome, now its just part of daily life.
Another activity we did religiously was to
keep a logbook. This is very important
because if we were to loose all power and not be able to reset we would need to
navigate from our last known position.
The logbook has also proved to be an invaluable resource in writing the
blog as the days merge into one another when at sea! Its so easy to forget what
day of the week it is.
Activities
of daily living….
Doing anything on a boat en-route take 2 to
3 times longer than on land because you constantly have to fight the movement
of the boat. Doing any sort of work on
the boat is quite tough.
Personal
hygiene….
We had to run the generator and water maker
daily for a couple of hours to replenish our water. As such we had plenty of water for everyone
onboard to have a daily shower. Having a
shower involved propping yourself against the shower walls and turning the
water on and off after soaping/shampooing up.
It was also necessary to hand wash some clothing and drying-up clothes
on a regular basis as well. It was
easiest to wash clothes in the shower!!
We were able to hang these to dry on the heated towel rails!!
Eating…
Cooking and washing-up was also a challenge
– Vicki wore food twice as it flung around the galley. She also had the ditch a pot of pasta after a
handful of weevils ended up in the pot
too!! Food goes off far more quickly at
sea – I guess the storage conditions are not optimum, with the heat and
bouncing around!!
John did the majority of the cooking, as
his watch was 9pm to 12pm, he was creative in cooking both meat and vegetarian
alternatives every night but we went through gas a lot faster. John had little prior experience in cooking a
variety of vegetarian meals – but Vance enjoyed them so it was worthwhile. We
had delicious evening meals every night!!
Celebrations…
We also celebrated David’s birthday! We
managed to bake a cake of sorts and celebrated with champagne and good food. That night we had an amazing roast dinner.
Yum. Happy Birthday David!!
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| Roast Dinner.... |
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| and Birthday Cake!! |
John and Vicki celebrated their wedding
anniversary…
We celebrated our catches!!
And we celebrated arriving in St Lucia!!
