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22/10 - 1/12/2003 - Villagarcia, N.W.Spain.
Siobhan has proven she
can still sail, be wet inside and out, destroy equipment.... and can still
persuade the wind to be on the nose....
As departure time
approached and Robin decided not to come sailing,
Lorinda and Javier (Lorinda’s spanish brother-in-law) did.
We left Inverness 3 days before the canal closed
for maintenance.... on the 22nd of October. Two days of beautiful calm in
various lochs, cold but spectacular scenery, just to hit the sea and proper
salt water at Cranach for even more spectacular scenery. A day at Oban
installing radar and connecting various other pieces of equipment while a wee
spell of serious wind blew by, and down to Campbelltown on the peninsula of Kintyre. It turned out that something
had happened to my charts of the Irish Sea, it’s still not clear
what, but they could not be found. As it happened, an engine water hose burst
just before we entered the harbour, leaving the engine turning over in water
and splashing salt everywhere, the bilge thoroughly rinsed, and the emergency
bilge pump tested and proven. A day of changing oils (gear oil and engine oil
breathers had both taken in water) and filters, running the engine warm, and changing oil + filters again followed. Luckily
Siobhan’s collection of spare hoses supplied the correct replacements,
because Campbelltown isn’t quite your well-equipped recreational city.
Next step to Land’s End, the south-west point of
England. In the Bristol channel the most spectacular
northern lights, no kidding, lighting up one third of the sky (third time in
one week already..) which also sent the GPS up a
creek for a while. Roughly in the middle of the Bristol channel we decided that rather than
struggle with the increasing wind and swell on the nose it would be better to
turn back a bit to Milford Haven, some 60 miles north. During the turn the
mainsail split a seam, so it was probably a good thing to turn around at that
point anyway... After on night in harbour (and putting on the spare main) the
wind changed from south-west to north, which was exactly what we needed and
we had a blistering sail around Land’s End to Falmouth which was the intended staging
point for crossing the Bay of Biscay.
Here Javier went back to
Holland, and an interim week in Paris to help Lorinda sort out some business
related troubles was followed by a few more days in Falmouth and the arrival
of another crew member Harry who I’d met 1.5 years before at my brother
Wouter’s 40th birthday party...
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A few days in Falmouth saw some crew changes (&
days off). Then as the weather forecasts all gathered round to forecast at
least 3 days of northerly and easterly winds we departed, together with two
other boats (“Voyager” and “L’Isme”), and with
south/south-westerly winds... which is exactly the direction we wanted to
sail into. A beautiful sail the first day, and then winds increased further
during the first night which brought with it quite some waves (this is
Biscay, remember) and quite some frustration at the difference between
forecast and reality. From the next morning however, we managed to maintain a
very much wind-on-the-nose close-hauled course, occasionally backed up with
the engine when the wind wasn’t strong enough, until we passed
Finisterre and stopped in Portosin for one night. Dophins escorted us
practically continuously, which always works wonders for the mood. All in
all, some beautiful seas, and even some time to relax..?!?! We found out a
few days after arrival that both Voyager and L’isme had stopped near La Coruna, i.e. just prior to the cape.
After one night in Portosin we went down to Villagarcia
where Harry left us to go back to work in Holland, and Lorinda and I have where
we spent nearly a week getting Siobhan in better shape, visiting Santiago de
Compostela and Paul of Voyager in LaCoruna, and generally breathing.
Haven’t managed to repair the heater yet which worked so fantastically
in Falmouth but died when we really needed
it here...!!!!
As it looks now
we’ll leave in the morning for Lisbon, but we’ll see where we
end up. Wind is forecast from the north so it can be anything really...
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12
March 2004...
12 April 2004
22deg N, 26 deg W, i.e. the North Atlantic.....
and from Ste.Anne (Martinique)
Some time since last
entry, and meanwhile a lot has changed. Very soon after the last message from
a cold and wet north Spain we left for Lisbon (1/12/03). Amazing: 3 days downwind! And we were just
looking forward to sailing straight into the impressive harbour of Lisbon
(river Tejo) at first light, when at the last cape the wind changed to
easterly 6, which was once again on the nose... though without too much swell
at least. Siobhan sailed very well and though the river Tejo is not the
cleanest of waters, it was a lovely little beat in the dark between anchored
ships, fishing nets and sand banks.
Lisbon is a beautiful lively city, and
with one thing and another we ended up spending nearly 2 weeks there (one of
which I flew to Cyprus to visit an old friend) before
setting off to the Canaries. We once again set off at the same time as
“Voyager” (though Paul was this time on his own) but soon lost
contact. 5 days of beautiful sailing of which the middle 3 were downwind
(again!?!) brought us to Gran Canaria on the 25th of December (having duly
installed and decorate a mini xmas tree on the back-stay in the midle of the
night), just a day before my brother Wouter showed up fully overworked,
under-sunned, and worn out from flu. A week of recovery for him included a
trip to Tenerife, up the Teide with rented scooters which was an
excellent and spectacularly beautiful day out, and New Years Eve back in Las Palmas which was fun but a bit less
spectacular.
Miscellaneous work on
Siobhan, lifting her out for the new echo sounder, speed log and
anti-fouling, plus my visit to Holland for Leendert & Marcherie’s
wedding in January (at long last!!), connecting up all the electronics,
adding a few coats of varnish to all the new wood, and waiting and looking
for crew ended up keeping us busy for quite a while... In the meantime I
started thinking about the whole journey, the pro’s and con’s of
solo-ing back up to Scotland for the summer instead of making the Atlantic
round, and it very nearly won. However, the time in NL with a few friends
made me sway towards the Caribbean and especially Canada again.
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Then for my birthday end
of February Mariette came over from Holland and we spent a few days sailing
to Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, testing the new wind/water generator (Duogen)
which was supposed to keep the fridge and everything else running on the way
across the Atlantic, and showing a potential new crew member Scott the ropes.
An interesting little circumstance brought seawater into the engine (while it
was off..), though I managed to clear that without
any serious damage though it cost me a few oil changes and a collection of
filters. Scott decided not to come with us in the end for reasons best not
disclosed in public, so we were back at square one.
Now however I was
committed on a date since Han, cousin-in-law (?),
had booked time and flights and was on his way... Javier, Lorinda’s
brother in-law who you may remember from the Scotland to Falmouth episode, volunteered and there
we set off on March 5th with 3 from Las Palmas to pick up Javier in Tenerife and continue onwards to... Martinique!
So here we are as I
write this, sailing downwind and rolling tremendously, usually between 7 and
8 knots but never yet under 6, tried the beautiful new yellow-green spinnaker
and it works!! After settling in to the routine of 4 hours on 4-off for all
of us, screening fruit and vegetables daily, listening for water and other
unintended noises, nursing various small wounds, catching fish (1 tuna so far
and only a day away from Martinique, but enough bites to have eaten away all
our lures and wires bar 1...!), generally eating well and watching stars a
lot. The experience is probably comparable to an old-fashioned washing
machine: moving incessantly to and fro (not around luckily) and open on
top... Lorinda really got into the hang of constellation spotting, which we
all (had to) share in. And when the last of our Canarian bread ran out, I
think all were a bit amazed that making bread was not much more difficult
than I had let on (but never proved) earlier... though it took a few days for
all to realise that in order to have fresh bread daily one needs to bake it
every day?!
The duogen gave up the
ghost after a week of bliss (with fridge, autopilot, and without running the
generator at all!!) due to the “weed-protection” rope being worn
through, the thing catching the propeller, and shearing off the drive shaft
of the poor machine. Meanwhile a new shaft was ordered and should hopefully
be accompanying Annemarie (Muscat, Rome, Amsterdam, Aberdeen, Antigua... the jetsetter!) as hand
luggage... since the thing is probably too big for the hold! Apart from this
annoying and unnecessary little failure without doubt the best purchase of
the last 5 years!!!
Though a good second for best purchase has to be the new
(green+yellow!) spinnaker, 180 square meters of manageable power (by Kemp, in
case you’re interested!) though we’re still finding a way to
manage the sock a bit more elegantly. As the wind is gradually dropping from
steady 15-25 knots down to 8-15 knots (5-6 down to 3-4 Beaufort) we’re
trying to maximise daylight hours of having it up... Since the nights are
accompanied by miscellaneous clouds with rain and wind from varying
directions it seems more prudent (and restful for me) to take it down around
sunset!
In fact, apart from one
crew member’s lack of initiative and another’s lack of diplomacy
with this fact, there are few clouds over the trip, and the sunshade is
absolutely necessary: daytime temperatures have been slowly rising from 22°C
to the current 28°C and the duvets have been replaced by flannel sheets at
night.
We of course had our
little day from hell with the generator failing on dirty fuel filters (due to
the incessant rolling stirring up the fuel tanks), replacing all of them
(again), flushing the day-tank and filtering the fuel, followed by the
spinnaker boom rail coming off the mast, which was duly riveted back on for
the night, followed by --during the process of preparing our “this is
enough” glass of wine!!—explosion of one duralex glass followed
by hoovering it up followed by explosion of our thermos flask followed by
hoovering.... followed by our “now this is definitely enough!”
glass of wine... what can I say but thank god for grapes!!!
One hundred miles before
Martinique and we’re still eating our
daily fresh fruit salad for breakfast, fresh veg for dinner, yoghurts
whenever, and an amazing array of snacks in between, cappucino, and basically
all the essentials for the (not so very..) simple
life!
Personal hygiene was guaranteed (!?) by weekly bucket
baths on the deck, followed by a flower spray with fresh water to rinse.. and midway the first proper
shower with fresh water was on offer... though this was greeted with less
enthusiasm than I had expected by some..! As the water from the Canaries is
considered non-drinking water we had a good supply of bottled water, which
duly relieved the stress on the main water supply.
We arrived towards the
end of day 16 in Martinique, luckily too late for customs
clearance so we had to anchor off in Ste Anne bay, typical tropical exotic
beach with spectaular views and sunsets... and luckily not too late for a
swim in 29°C caribbean bathwater! The canaries were something different to
arrive at, but still rocky and in some way european. Martinique however leaves no doubt that
this is lush tropics, warm, sunny, green, often small showers at night to
keep everything fresh, relaxed atmosphere. Wind from a constant direction so
no challenge to find a good anchorage.
A few days here for
miscellaneous reasons, the main ones being crew needing flights to Holland in the short term. We lost one
and gained one in Martinique. We left Javier in Martinique
while Lorinda, Han, Marina (picked up in Martinique) and I left for St.Lucia
to give Han a wee flavour of another kind of sailing, and for the rest of us
en route to a few days of nothing much in the Grenadines, which is the stuff
post-cards are made of (they’re not sold there obviously!). Managed a
full two days of doing nothing on Siobhan, snorkeling a bit, grilling lobster
(supplied by a fisherman), and reading.
Then back up to Martinique, skipping St. Lucia this time, where we are now. I
am preparing Siobhan for solo-ing north to Antigua, and then on to Canada. Anyone interested in a trip
from St.Maarten to Halifax via Bermuda (depart mid-May, 2 x 1 week), or from
St.Johns (Nova Scotia) to Scotland departing around 10 August (2 weeks), or
possibly a few weeks cruising around Nova Scotia during the month of June,
let me know.
Today is Easter, of
which I was reminded by the church service held here
near or on the beach, with a lot of rather terrible but presumably
well-intended singing for which they’ve been practicing for the last
few days, clearly to no avail...! However, it’s a lovely setting and
all these things are needed to complete the rather decadently colonial
picture...
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Siobhan Update 1 June 2004: Martinique northward
The previous note saw
Siobhan (and me) in Martinique, looking forward to going
north... Meanwhile Lorinda has left for France, and Marina decided not to go for this
“work”-thing and sail with me to Antigua instead (is it contagious?)
So that is what we did,
stopping over(-night) in Dominica and Guadeloupe on the way. And then we arrived
in Antigua, where unbeknown to me, we landed in the middle or rather the end
of Antigua Race Week, which was an excellent opportunity to see all the
impressive super yachts described in the magazines (the latest two
Mari-Cha’s and three J-classes for example), and also confirmation to
me that this is not really my scene...! Customs and Immigration there have turned
their bureaucracy into a genuine work of art, so that after two days of
trying to get Marina transferred to another yacht going back south (which
Sunsail had available) but failing to get the paperwork done to the
acceptance of immigration, who feared that Marina might actually want to stay
and work there illegally (Marina, work?!) she ended up taking a flight back
to Martinique.
Meanwhile Annemarie and
Sarah had arrived, and Siobhan was anchored exactly in front of the
hotel-beach where Annemarie was staying... That ended up being a relatively
inactive and fantastic week with amazingly excellent food, wine, and
especially company. Did anyone ever tell you how important good friends are?
We did manage to get an afternoons sail into our schedule, if only to prove to
Annemarie that she can really move if she wants to. “She” Siobhan, that is. After less than a week Annemarie left
for Aberdeen/Rome again, And Sarah and I took the slow route to St.Maarten (Netherlands Antilles).
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First
stopovers was Barbuda, a little island part of Antigua politically (and economically
not really part of anything it appears!) where we went to clear customs which
took us the better part of a day... First stop (as we were instructed by the
immigration officer) was the Port Captain. Barbuda has no port, there are no harbour or other fees, but I guess government
officialdom was never one to be distracted by practicalities. We were
instructed to ask at the “super”market, where we were directed to
his home a few houses down... Though in the garden was an impressive pile of
empty beer bottles, he wasn’t around and we ended up dragging him away
from a game of dominoes -plenty money and beer on the table on Monday
morning- at which must have been present most of the rest of the male
work-force of Barbuda, i.e. six or seven reasonably fit men (still). Back to
his home to fill out an official paper stating the lack of harbour fees etc
we were sent on to the Customs office..... well.. house. No sign to speed up the process, just ask a few
times... and when we were invited in the extremely efficient customs officer
was actually the cleaning lady, or perhaps the mother of the officer, who
subsequently surfaced from a bedroom somewhere dressed like you would expect
most of his drug-laden adversaries to be dressed, though clean, very cool,
and pretty efficient. Final stop was immigration, the only true office there,
female officer in uniform, and though there’s not many boats officially
clearing out here (clearing in is not possible) I got the distinct impression
that this (female) officer was probably busy enough by being the ring leader
of the drug-smuggling adversaries of the cool customs guy living around the
corner!
Next to Nevis and St.Kitts, where they do one
step better: Politically one nation, and less than 5
miles apart, they have separate customs and immigration check-ins and outs.
You check in in one place, get a license to sail to the other island, which
upon arrival you hand in at the customs office, who replaces this with a
proper clearing paper apparently... We did not wait to find out because after
a pleasant “shop”, sail, and snorkel we made up our mind to use
the French bureaucratic attitudes to our advantage and head straight for St.Barth
the next day without clearing out. This gave us an extra day of quietly
looking around St.Barth and eating out, not looking forward to Sarah’s
departure and return to sailing reality...
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For the non-initiated:
the French are so good (and I have to say efficient) at this formalities
thing that they tend to dismiss everyone else’s paperwork as valueless
and just concentrate on their own. They don’t even look at
exit-clearances of anyone else.
So that brought us to
St.Maarten where Sarah got a plane out the next morning, and I got a new
cooling pump for the generator and a lot of other necessary work done. The
pump was badly and expensively rebuilt in Las Palmas so truly knackered. I also managed
to get miscommunication up to a new level.... with the Spanish laundry lady.
I thought I had it sussed, explaining in Spanish (not bad in an
english-dutch-french enclave) that all the laundry could go together at
40degC, but having omitted that the (Thai) bag containing it all was not
included in this instruction... so she ended up washing it all twice to try
unsuccessfully to get the grey stains out of everything, and hot as well to
ensure that even some well-proven t-shirts now have belly-button revealing
proportions.
Marina arrived a few days later for the
trip up to Halifax, having left Martinique permanently and intending to
continue afterwards to Corsica (for work!).
So now we’ve
arrived in Bermuda, less than 6 days after leaving
St.Maarten, and though the planned duration here was only a day or two for
weather-screening, the work-list now includes:
- - source and install new hydraulic pump for
autopilot (fast approaching end)
- - flush fuel tanks. No idea how to organise
this, but at the moment I need to replace fuel filters every 5-10
running hours which not only increases the cost of fuel by an order of
magnitude (filters are expensive) but also means neither the engine nor
the generator can be relied upon anymore... I will personally strangle
and slice the b** who sold me this dirt if I find him. Main fuel seller
in Falmouth or Las-Palmas.
- - apart from the usual
laundry, water, weather, internet cafe, and repairing the mizzen. The
water/wind generator self-destructed again (different method) but I
managed to have a spare part lying around so fixed that on the way...
So from Monday 1/6
it’ll be all go. Pray for inspiration on where to store and let settle
1500 litres of fuel... and on how to rinse a closed tank.
But Siobhan sails well,
I’m healthy, the weather went nice and cool (25degC) and overcast, and
I’m looking forward to Canada (and Scotland afterwards..)
PS: Still spaces for Newfoundland to Scotland, 1800 miles, 2 weeks, asap after
4 Aug.
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Siobhan update january 2006: North, North &
North
Where I left off, July 2004, on the way from the Caribbean
to Canada...
Bermuda was(/is?)
bizarre. An ex British colony, yet so American it’s unbelievable. Two enormous
fresh cruise-ships daily refresh the pink-and-blue contingent of Americans
who swamp St.George, and it’s a much more diverse group than what used
to be “the newly wed and the nearly dead”. The whole island has a
Disney World atmosphere, which must be a large part of the appeal for them
all, with perfectly restored and painted little old buildings all converted
to cafes, restaurants and shops; including the Disney World pricing scheme...
Friendly helpful people, apart from the one who promised to help
me sort out my contaminated diesel that is: friendly and helpful in words,
but in the end just didn’t show up. So after a few days of minor jobs
and preparing for the big fuel pump-out, I ended up flushing the small
day-tank, refilling it with clean diesel, and taking a few jerry-cans spare
for on the way to Canada... just to make sure we’d have enough clean
fuel to approach and enter Halifax in fog, with sufficient battery charge for
the radar. Getting the autopilot fixed was impossible, so we just hand-steered
most of the way, which was not a chore at all.
So we left Friday noon, with some basic shopping done,
Marina’s flight tickets booked and hopefully waiting for us in Halifax;
looking forward to mainly westerly winds as we headed due north... and behold:
that is what we got!!! A beautiful few days cruising with 25 deg daytime
temperatures, then on day 3 the temperature dropped to 12 degrees... which
actually felt good!!! All the layers of clothing came on again, the sea went
grey/black, rain came with squalls and spectacular (if somewhat scary)
lightning for a night, fog appeared, a massive variety of sea-birds cruised
around us continuously, huge dolphins joined us sometimes, ... so there Tam
hand- steering, fully clothed up, watching this dark cold sea (7degC by now)
and grey sky with a smile from ear to ear... what is this?!?! It feels like
coming home but I've never been here before?!?!
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A touch of light fog the day we arrived, and with all our senses
prepared and our charts not quite complete we entered the port of Halifax and
went straight for the Northwest Arm, which is a small sea-inlet with a couple
of marina’s.., to stay with the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron.
Friendly and helpful, beautiful location, and what more can I say: this is
what it’s all about (apart from the sewage smell occasionally). A
weekend visit from Mairead Boland from Houston, departure of Marina for
France/Corsica, and a very long weekend with Sarah up from Houston, a weekend
of me returning the honour in Houston, and general boat stuff such as
draining the dirty fuel, oil and filter changes, installing a bilge sensor
and alarm, and sailing around the coast for a few days on my own, a few
evenings with Grant & Sue & fantastic kids (Sarah’s friends who
live here), and before long it was time for Adriaan and Sandra to show up
followed a few days later by brother Wouter and off after 4 weeks inlaround
Halifax for me. Great friendly town.
With our departure the fog came, with the typical forecast
being “visibility moderate in showers, poor in fog” and winds
always planning to show up the day after tomorrow, we motored, spent a day
doing nothing much but a bit of canoeing & walking, another day motoring
(the odd hour of spinnaker in the middle) and generally seeing very little
apart from fog. Anchoring in gorgeous bays but only the
radar-image to show for it. But blind navigation works, and just for fun a
bit of traditional navigation is thrown in. This is in fact quite interesting
due to the large number of scattered (submerged) rocks everywhere. Loads of
respect for the old seafarers who didn’t put their boats on the rocks
here (very many did....) And excellent crew which is good company, sails,
navigates, cooks, drinks less than I do what more can I ask for.
After some beautiful weeks sailing with Adriaan, Sandra, and
Wouter which ended up with W and rushing to St.Jobns to arrive before
hurricane Charlie came tearing up the coast, I found myself in St.Johns (Newfoundland)
with no crew. Meanwhile Sarah had stated her intentions (to join) though with
a minimal time-slot between conferences and work, and after having left notes
with harbour masters and talking to many a passerby, nearly calling in at the
local radio station, Siu showed up. He’s a lecturer at the university
there, just about to start a sabbatical, keen, fun, fit, and very much
interested. Various other options wavered past, but Siu stayed and after
having spent some more time with various newfound (..) friends all was prepared
for the off.
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Weather appeared good in Sarah’s limited time window,
and on the back end of some bad weather we left with 45 knots tailwind
towards the east, to get out of the ice berg zone before heading north east
to Scotland.
As hoped but not expected practically the entire journey was done with strong
westerly winds, in 12 days. The last 4-5 days were rather windy, but having
set sails and prepared all at around 50 knots, there’s a limit to how
much more you can do when the wind increases further.., so when Sarah asked
before her watch at what conditions I wished to be woken up, I said 60 knots
or over. I have to give her credit for letting me sleep as the highest she
recorded was 59knots.... which for the non-initiated is well into 10
Beaufort.
Loads of sea-birds each day, and just when you thought
you’d recognised what they were the whole flock would be replaced by
another type! All seriously skilled at flying close to the wave-tops,
clearing them by millimetres -even if they suddenly break- and amazingly
beautiful to watch.., as is the sea. We haven’t worked out what Siobhan
does that helps the birds to fish, but they do tend to stay around the boat
and particularly the wake.
Arriving in Scotland
was beautiful, and felt like coming home (which it was of course) though it
would have been nice had we been able to see a bit more from a distance in
the very Scottish weather. But once we were under the isle of Mull
the weather was gorgeous (if cold) and with the traditional final stretch
against the wind we cruised lightly into Oban. Sarah’s parents had made
the trip up from Chester (area)
to welcome us, but I’m not sure we made the appropriate weather-beaten
impression they were expecting having all had warm showers before arrival!!!
(Having been used to boats with hot tea and hot chocolate since I was a kid,
I keep on being being impressed by the ultimate luxury of a hot shower on
board... heating will be next!)
Since work was lined up once again at short notice, Siobhan
was left at the west coast and later moved to Inverness
in stages by self+ Robin.
A few points on the Atlantic round:
Caribbean is great for chartering (2 weeks is enough G&T,
lobster & beaches for me)
Going south from UK
in winter is hard work.
East Canada, Nova
Scotia, Newfoundland
is beautiful for cruising. “Long” passages are not very
interesting though Canada-UK was best one yet.
Work which started October 2004... was interrupted by xmas and new year in
ArubalCuracao/Bonaire for a family reunion and a visit to the surroundings of
my youth, then by a month of walking in Patagonia in February, and then by
Sarah moving over to Scotland and in with me.
Meanwhile my very good friend Annemarie left for KL, and Aberdeen’s
not the same anymore.
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