Outrunning the Sun

Position 17:44.98N 32:57.94W

As we three Musketeer yachts, Jori ahead and Anna Caroline behind, came through The ITCZ I wondered if we had gone through a time warp, no ships, no planes, no vapour trails, no news, just almost daily chats with the other two yachts; us Three Musketeers, would we arrive in Horta, Faial to see people on horse back and donkeys carrying burdens?

Later there was a ship bound Eastwards for Gibraltar and another Westwards for Papau New Guinea, so that answers that question.

Wietze on AC alerted us to the fact we were chasing the sun as it appears to move north for the northern hemisphere summer, in fact the earth is tilting south which gives the same effect, the rate at which it does so is about 19.2 miles per day, from my astro tables, ie 0.8 miles per hour, one sixth of our speed so we would at some point pass it, and that happened two nights ago at 20.02 hrs and it was noticeable yesterday as we sat in the cockpit with the sun now clearly transiting behind us. It will be good for the solar panels, all mounted at the stern.

Milestones and Celebrations

As if that excitement was not enough, at 01.33 this morning 2nd May we crossed our outward track from Cape Verdes to Guadeloupe on the 4th January 2016 at a Longitude of 32.55.03W and thus by covering 35,584 miles we have completed our oceanic circumnavigation in 391 days at sea. Of course, there will be another circum. completed when we get back to English shores and then Guinness Book of Records purists would say we are not done until we reach Plymouth, our port of departure, but a pint of Doombar in the Chain Locker at Falmouth will do us fine.

Since emerging from the ITCZ at around 3 degrees north the sailing has been all thanks to the NE Trade winds that are blowing at 11 – 20 knots constantly from the same trustworthy direction, which is in fact bending our course favourably towards the Azores. That’s what Henry the Hydrovane does, he keeps us at a constant angle to the wind so as the wind veers clockwise so can we.

The auto pilot has had a rest since the Equator so the electricity produced by the Watt&Sea wave generator at up to 5 Amps is sufficient to charge the batteries to 100% if we are doing more than five knots speed through the water, the fridge and the computer and with the wind generator, and solar panels in the day we only run the engine if we need to while rig changing or to make water. In fact, apart from a one-and-a-half-hour water top up we haven’t used the engine for 8 days. Good old Watt&Sea plus Ruby the windcharger and the solar panels!

The orange Sargasso weed we have encountered has had Rob hanging over Zoonie’s transom plucking it off the Watt&Sea blade on frequent occasions but it’s well worth the effort, said she from the safe confines of the cockpit watching Rob’s progress.

Zoonie is promoting the off the shoulder look at the moment on a comfortable course 60 to 80 degrees from the wind. We haven’t sailed this close to the wind for a long time, maybe years and at the times we have used her full main and genoa it has felt like quite a novelty.

We are over half way between St Helena and the Azores now and should be two thirds the way in around five days’ time. I read in my notes of the gentle sailing and the warm winds, well things are a little livelier and cooler at night now and Zoonie is well reefed bringing her more upright and, in fact, faster than when she is burdened with too much canvas and healing on her ears, a state of affairs that is always short-lived.

I emerged into the cockpit pre-dawn the other morning looking astern to a coral grey twilight sky on our left and a world lit by the banana yellow full moon on the right. Also, in the night sky we can see both the Plough ahead and the Southern Cross low in the sky behind, confirming that we are not all that far from the Equator yet. 17 degrees as I type and the Azores latitude is 38 and the south coast of merry England around 51 degrees if my ageing memory serves me correctly.

Milo helps me get ready to write in the mornings; there’s nothing like a nice mug of hot chocolate at that time of day.

I start by going aft to collect the laptop from its safe home tucked down beside all the ‘goods’ on the aft berth. Then I lock it to the saloon table with two clamps so it doesn’t take off when Zoonie does one of her long drops off a swell. I have finished, with Rob’s help, the definitions for the glossary to go in the book (bow – front or pointy end of vessel, crew hair decoration) and now I’m back on compiling and editing the blogs for my WordPress site so I can upload them, hopefully in Horta.

Then there’s writing and replying to emails and downloading three weather files and by the time all that is done lunchtime looms. Rob sees to that meal and sometimes breakfast too if my nose is to the grindstone.

I have just put in the fridge the night-time yog of vanilla yogurt. I didn’t know if it would work with all this motion but I sat it on the gimballed stove and that did the trick.

So, we have already had cause to celebrate halfway with some nice mango, orange and lychee juice with a little addition and tomorrow being Rob’s birthday there will be more inventive ideas to ‘throw the boat out’. Then a few days on we will hopefully meet our two third point, after which all attention will be on our destination.

Rob has requested a cream tea followed by ‘veggie beef stroganoff’ for his birthday fayre so I am on to baking bread and pizzas again today plus scones.

We have finished all the salad veg and fresh fruit now, leaving just 5 bags of carrots!, not quite sure what happened there, white cabbage, sweet and white potatoes, onions and spring onions and a butternut squash. So, lunch is now bread for Rob and Ryvita for me topped with either grated cheese and Marmite or peanut butter and jam followed by tinned fruit salad and half a can of beer each.

A delightful small black whale came alongside the cockpit the other evening, either a Pigmy Right or Northern Minke, so close I think he touched us as they sometimes do and the odd tern and petrel come to see us; luminescence at night sparkles in Zoonie’s wash and we cherish each lovely sailing day as they move seamlessly into our past.

The Shy Child

29:01.76N 31:18.11W

The moon, like us is a little tired as he rises later every morning leaving the stars to fill the night sky with their silver light.

Rob did have a good birthday, starting with a special delivery card, followed by lots of emails from family and friends. Excused from his washing up duties was a special treat and, in the afternoon, as we tucked in to our modest cream tea, we marvelled at the cloud formations, stacks of lenticular clouds like human rib cages, puffy summer day clouds and more threatening towering grey white cumulus clouds all around the horizon.

The weather was on the change again. We were moving towards the other side of the lovely constant NE Trades where squalls warned of a change and then dreaded calms and hours of diesel sapping engine time; four hours at first, interspersed with some more sailing, concern over whether the fuel would last, balanced by the knowledge we were covering the miles in the right direction.

Then when we had to use the auto pilot because the engine was on it played up once more by taking us many degrees off course. We discovered that under the fixed bearing mode it is fine, only the go to waypoint mode is affected.

At 11.00am on the 5th May we left the tropics at 23’ North and a red-billed tropic bird came and flew around us as if to say ‘Come back soon’. We started to need more clothing and a blanket at night. Horta is on latitude 38’ so quite a ways to go.

Our fruit now has morphed into the dried, tinned and crystallised modes, which makes a change, but we need to be a little careful with the apricots and prunes!

One afternoon the wind was around 6 knots and still coming from behind us so we tentatively hoisted the Diva, our caches of confidence needed a boosting and she delivered in style. The only obvious sign of repair being the uneven line across the pale blue fabric just below the head. I can’t tell you how elating it was to know she would yet give us many relaxed and efficient miles of travel.

As evening drew in and the Diva was back in her bag, safe and sound, we determined to put her back up first thing the next day. But of course the wind dropped right away, thwarting that idea, and the engine was back on.

The weather is beautiful; blue skies and that wonderful mid-Atlantic blue ocean with the sun penetrating just the top few metres, but there is little life. Just the occasional bird and not any fish of bigger creatures, just lots and lots of Sargasso weed. Rob has given up on picking it off the Watt&Sea prop because as soon as he stands to return to the cockpit the next pom pom grabs hold.

We sit under the bimini, meerkats watching all around for signs of animal life and doing the calculations on when, in engine hours we should reach the SW Trades (the same winds as the NE Trades but on the other side of the circle.) The grib weather files, for a number of days, suggest 30’ north latitude should give us a straight run across them to Horta, but the weather changes of course and it has and the dreaded windless centre is moving slowly eastwards. Days caught up in there would be a problem, we might just have to stop and wait until it passes over and allows in some wind. But the centre is sausage shaped and we could be in there for days!

At 3442 engine hours we must turn it off to retain just a little fuel for entry into Horta. Our estimates have been conservative and we have had to factor in the current that has been against us at a rate of .05 to 1.0 knot since the outset reducing her speed to 4.6 miles for every one and a half litres at 1500 revs instead of 5.00 miles. So as you can imagine this last quarter of the voyage does not have the same lack of stress as the first three quarters.

Ironically Anna Caroline has been experiencing strong winds up to 30 knots where we had perfect trade winds and Jori has sailed for most of the time a little further east than us.

A couple of days ago I was trying to download the weather gribs and the third of three just would not come. When Rob checked our data supply he found we had used all our valuable minutes. The length of the passage and downloading three weather files daily had taken its toll. We could neither receive nor send mail. This was a matter that needed to be resolved quickly before our family would be worried and we could not watch the weather.

The hours were mounting on the engine gauge and now no internet. By way of distraction, I went and put the kettle on and set a load of towels washing in one of the big white buckets, after all we had plenty of hot water and our motion through the water would soon dry them hanging beneath the bimini.

Poking the towels around in the bubbly water I realised we would need to call up a ship and ask if they would be kind enough to forward three emails. So, Rob and I sat down and I wrote out three email addresses and two different messages, one to our providers, Mailasail and the other to Emily and Henk and Marjolein on Jori. Next, we waited, watching the chart plotter screen to see who would be our ‘victim’.

Aha! The Federal Crimson; a cargo ship bound for Takorado and measuring 623 feet by 105 feet and 32 feet draft, she’d do. Any shorter and I might have second thoughts!! She would pass closest to us in 10 minutes, this being a half hour after I first spotted her, and our VHF would easily reach that far out here with no obstructions.

Vince Conde was on watch and firstly took our position and asked if we were in need of anything. I confirmed we didn’t need to be rescued but could he do us a favour. I explained what we needed and he confirmed with the master that he could do this. Then a few minutes of fun ensued with me dragging the phonetic alphabet from my memory to help him write the emails his end. He read them all back, said he would send them straight away and would call us back when he was done.

Message to Mailasail:- Run out of airtime on satphone. Please top up with usual amount and reinstate urgently.

Message to Emily and Jori:- We are fine on Zoonie. No internet, so may not be in touch until arrive in Horta 14th/15th May. This being sent through a ship’s internet.

We had turned the engine off for this procedure so I could hear and think so when we were through it went back on again. A few minutes later Vince came back to confirm the messages had gone and when I thanked him profusely, he just said, “Any time. Safe Journey.” The kindness of strangers eh!

That lifted our spirits and distracted us from the fuel issue for a while.

The next morning Rob checked the internet and Sue at Mailasail had done her stuff and we had another 600 minutes to use; so I emailed Vince and let him know.

That was yesterday morning, and at around 8.00am a breeze came along like a shy child brought before a maiden aunt, that we could use if only it would persist. It faded again, back through the doorway, maybe to build its confidence and then a few minutes later it returned and stayed and so after 69 hours of motoring we were sailing again, not quite sure if we were finally in the SW Trades but with the wind from the NW as it should be, we now hope it will back SW so we can A. sail and B. head for Horta. Hang in there shy child.

Rob thinks we have enough fuel anyway but I will not be happy until we have done 200 more miles under sail. As I type was have done 54 so fingers crossed this wind continues. 587 miles to go.

Tacking is Boring

38:31.84N 28:37.37W

Ever since my Grammar School days at Worthing Girls High School I have thought, from the sewing classes in Domestic Science, tacking to be a boring waste of time. Just pin the fabric and carefully machine sew always worked for me. The same with modern fabric, as with mending the Diva, we used this amazing double sided glue tape, so that once the tape is removed all that is left is flexible, durable glue holding a seam ready for sewing.

The same again for tacking in the sailing context. When we were racing our heron sailing dinghy, Little Zoonie, off Worthing tacking was to be dealt with as quickly as possible, of course, after all we were racing; so, when we found ourselves sailing directly towards Gibraltar or Madeira, while we wanted to head north to Horta you can imagine our frustration. We were moving north slowly in a lateral sort of way and it was better than using the motor so we persisted, like the squalls.

What this slow sailing did give me was time to reflect, with nothing else to think about. So, what if tacking delayed us, were we in a hurry. Not really, it was still early in the season to be looking at a sail back to England with the Lows still powering big and fast across the northern part of the North Atlantic. My sense of boredom at the slow progress was anxiety over the fuel situation. It was still too early too be able to accurately assess if we would have enough fuel, and that was a worry.

Sue from Mailasail told us how we could send an SMS message to an email for free using the Satphone, but I’m glad of my chat with Vince on the ship, his kindness eased the stress for a short while.

During the night of the 10th May we tacked again onto a port tack and Zoonie headed much closer to Horta, what is more we had done more than 100 miles of the 200 miles that was our comfort zone for the remaining fuel.

We learned that one of Jori’s jib seams had opened so they were using their storm sail instead which was slowing down their progress. Furthermore, the next day we learned that Henk was in trouble, unable to pee he was, as you will all understand, in agony.

I suggested aspirin to reduce pain and inflammation as it had worked for Rob once before. They managed to improvise a catheter from a length of tubing which gave some relief but their arrival in Horta could not happen soon enough. I said we would call up a ship going in their direction if one came by and ask it to check on them; but in fact, Marjolein did the same and a cargo vessel floated some catheters across to them.

Not a single ship appeared on our screen that night, in fact we had only seen about five since leaving St Helena.

The weather was beautiful and still warm as we sat in the cockpit watching the long swells, thirty metres or so between them, pass southward and Zoonie would rise high on one, maybe three metres up in the air, and we’d look down into the smooth watery valleys from our lofty viewpoint until we sank gracefully downwards. Looking out over the vast miles of water our minds wandered like the lonely Cory’s shearwaters that had become our new companions.

Never before had we studied the engine hours slowly rising in relation to the increasing Latitude, 36 degrees North, before 3442 hours please?

We assessed we would be able to fly the Diva again the next morning the 13th but the wind would increase by early afternoon so it would be back to the white sails; but in the direction of Horta, yippee. With the Diva’s help again, we should be able to achieve that 200 miles.

In the meantime, I occupy myself chopping vegetables and allowing my mind to become absorbed in one of my writing projects; blogs both types, mailasail and WordPress ready for uploading, book which is now ready to go back to my Editor, Rachel and emails. My mom always loved reading and keeping a diary. In her later years the cruelty of dementia forbade her from remembering what she read, following the storyline of a book, but right up to her last days she loved reading words in her native language, even though she would read the same one’s time and again or turn randomly to any part of the tattered book she was reading and set off on her next verbal adventure. Sometimes I would change the book just to give her a different front cover to look at.

A sight for tired eyes was the Diva flying high and full with confidence and true to the weather prediction her morning performance ended at 15.55 and the poled out genoa and reefed main set to work and got us our 200 miles just a few miles out from Horta, so we were happy.

In the last few hours of this marathon I started to feel the same emotions that I remember were common amongst the 68 of us back in 2004 as we approached Barbados aboard the Stavvy. Our harmonious marriage with the elements, away from all of the influences of humankind, was coming to an end, and we were emotionally digging our heels in. We liked the ocean master and were its humble servants and were not at all sure we wanted the trials and trivialities of land life back again quite yet. There is no artifice at sea, no hierarchies, no laws to prevent man’s bad behaviour and excesses, no commercial greed and no wanton destruction of nature.

5 + knots speed and 87 miles to go and it was our last sundowners at sea for a while, we were nearly there!

15th May my watch started at 5.00am and I wasn’t surprised to not be able to see Pico, the beautiful clean peak on the island next to Faial as it snuggled beneath its grey quilt. Flocks of Cory’s shearwaters were with us now and a big pod of fishing dolphins, nearly as big as the one we came across off the Scillies on our return from Ireland in 2013, sped across us paying scant attention to the copper-painted whale in their path.

Just five miles off and a tiny slither of the slope either side of Pico peeped out to say ‘Hi’ and the faint green hillsides of Faial showed through the dismal grey. We followed another yacht in and, unable to raise anyone on the VHF decided to anchor well in and await instructions.

As we turned into the harbour an orange rib came along and waved us to an anchoring spot. After 4107 miles and 36 days we arrived. The wind and sails had worked their alchemy to get us in with 12” left in the tank, around 120 litres, enough for another two and a half days motoring. It was good to be back in this pretty harbour once more with its pastel buildings with their terracotta roofs but we were soon to find out that all was not good holding in the sand beneath the water.

All Bent Out of Shape

After rolling gunwale to gunwale for the last few miles at sea, imagine the relief an almost flat harbour water surface brought to these three weary souls. Having filled in the arrival form for the covid test we knew we would be waiting another two days before we would be tested, as we arrived on a Saturday, but to us that was fine because what is another two days on top of 36 eh??

We completed some chores; it’s surprising how mucky a boat gets just from the two on board, imagine if we were six arggh. The washing fluttered furiously beneath the bimini as the fresh, gusty wind blew hard all day and it is cool now. The floor is cool to the bare foot and the air outside requires a fleecy top to combat the chill. I was grieving for our lost tropics, the warm Polynesian sun and the South Atlantic warmth. Rob’s hand touch no longer felt like a steam iron and we rummaged for our warm leggings. When we leave here, we could head north, or we could head south. Worry not, we are homebound.

Pretty, red-hulled Jori is alongside the harbour wall with the two masted schooner Avonhuur moored ahead of her with her 20’ bowsprit looming above Jori’s decks. Henk and Marjolein will stay in a nearby hotel for a week before flying home for Henk to get his essential treatment.

Monday afternoon we are collected, along with the crew from two other boats and taken to the cruise terminal, where armed police march us around to the small areas cordoned off for the tests to be carried out, one up the nose and one down the throat.

Back on Zoonie we decided to try and find a mooring spot a little closer to the harbour and circled a few times finding that space was very limited. From leaving South Africa to arriving here our windlass has decided to stop functioning, after all the hours and effort Rob and Werner put into fixing it, it was a mean blow.

Rob suggested one spot and despite my saying we would drift back too close to a French yacht, he wanted to try it. The visual perspective from the cockpit is different to that from the bow. Pulling in twenty metres of chain and then the anchor is more than I could do and Rob was struggling. What about his heart I wondered, my faith lay in the surgeons’ skill? This was the third time we had to retrieve it and I did what I could by motoring Zoonie forward so she would sit directly above the anchor, as far as I could see from my position behind the wheel in the cockpit anyway and Rob would not have to add Zoonie’s drag to the equation. It was beginning to look as if a return to our original spot was the only option.

“Anchor’s clear of the bottom, you can start moving,” Rob said, so I cautiously started to circle back over an area I knew to be safe in readiness to turn and re-position us for anchoring when suddenly Zoonie’s bow plummeted towards the water surface; I put the gear lever into reverse in a cloud of blue smoke so we would not ride forward and get further ensnared, Zoonie obediently came to a stop. Rob commented later that he thought the anchor was much further off the seabed than that, but of course who knows what obstructions were sitting on the seabed, like a massive chain.

Our faithful Delta anchor was not quite the shape it should be when it finally surfaced, the shank well bent over so that when viewed from above on board it looked as if the flukes were saying ‘Are you coming down with me then?!”

Just then the harbour launch arrived and a confident mariner told us we could not anchor there as it was too near the small ships’ quay. This I understood having watched the very careful manoeuvring of a small cargo ship as it left, backwards down the narrow channel remaining between quayside fishing boats and other anchored yachts.

Rob said we could not anchor for reasons that were staring the harbour master in the face from our bow, so the HM said we could pick up the buoy, no problem.

So that is where Zoonie is comfortably and securely moored now, the only yacht out of the two from St Helena and the many yachts and catamarans from the Caribbean to be on a mooring. And here we will stay for as long as we can; while everyone else is desperate for a marina berth, Zoonie as usual is quite happy relying on her own resources. Ironically, as we have discovered, our mooring buoy is most probably attached to one of those massive chains that lie across the harbour bed to the outer quay and on which Zoonie’s anchor became caught up and bent out of shape in the first place.

A new day, a new start; yesterday we prepared to go ashore and while I wrote a blog Rob inflated and launched the dinghy and then I lowered the motor down to him using the billy.

With just a little fuel in the tank I noticed it spreading over the water and commented on the leak. The motor started beautifully but Rob turned it off quickly and found the leak in the fuel pipe. “It would probably get us just across to the harbour.” He said optimistically, “Tell me you are joking,” I implored.

Rob rowed us ashore with the ships papers and passports and clearing in was conveniently done all in the one building, the marina office with the help of three charming Portuguese officials.

Armed with information on the location of Mid Atlantic Yacht Services, ‘Your Azorean Connection’ we went to see Marjolein for a coffee and chat and then made our way to MAYS who were all positive, it not being the first time a recently bent anchor was brought to them I am quite sure and it won’t be the last!!!, they could help us with both of our problems and we should bring them ashore to the marina where they would be collected by Marcel in his little white van.

You can just imagine this on a speeded-up film. We then rowed back to Zoonie, I lowered said anchor over the bow into the tender using the free drop of the windlass and the lever to control speed, didn’t want to add a sunken dinghy to our list of woes, and did the same (again) with the motor. A quick lunch of peanut butter and jam on Ryvita, remember the film is still on fast forward, and off we row back into the marina.

You can slow the film now; with the delivery complete we made our way along the pretty, typically Azorean street, cobbled with dressed volcanic rock, around the corner away from the harbour and on to a conventional tarmac road up the hill a short way to Continental supermarket for fresh fruit, salad veg, bread, paprica and most importantly, this time, tonic water!

Our legs were loving the exercise as we detoured on our return toward the quay and straight into Pete’s Café Sport and here you can slow the film even further as we settled into our seats on the raised outside veranda overlooking the water for that very long-awaited beer, in this case San Bock Dark Stout and cake, a thoroughly decadent chocolate donut that even had the cheek to stick its tongue out at the camera lens.

Marjolein’s hot, home made soup with a fresh soft, drooling yet? white bread roll, comprised supper, followed by a shared sweet orange and the two US Election episodes of West Wing accompanied by Bain’s smooth South African Whisky by way of a nightcap and you have our first day of freedom ashore in Horta after our mid-Atlantic odyssey. Cheers.