RAPAREE - entering the Grenadines for New Year 26 to 31 Dec

PM 26th and we finally make our way southwards from the marina glue of St Lucia.  Coastal cruise down the hills and cliffs before passing Soufriere Bay and the photo-opp Pitons before anchoring under the stars overnight in a little rocky bay next to the village of Laborie on the south of the island. Interesting chain clunking and surf noises all night....just right for the skippers beauty sleep. Fast offwind sail, well reefed, southwards, down the exposed windward shore of St Vincent, in order to avoid the calms behind the islands. Lumpy seas and big wind acceleration zones at the tips of each island.
We decide to miss out St V on the way down, and head for Bequia as we had heard it was a great stop for New Year. Also some big winds are forecast and good shelter would be available there over the period. After an all day sail we enter a blustery and busy Admiralty Bay at tea time. We are ready to anchor but a one toothed chap chap in a rasta hat leads us to his mooring buoy which doesnt look too bad and which is probably safe enough for a night (4 days later we are still there!).
Bequia is NOT a small flat white coral place. It is a big Salcome/Dartmouth like yachty estuary/bay, with high hills, trees, villas etc.  Loads of yachts and boats from Abramovitch type jobbies to dugouts, and tugboats to schooners. Boaty stuff always going on. Traditional Caribe Veg and fruit markets all along the main street. A lot of souvenir type places as well.
We are now fully in Bequia routine with ladder down and dinghy and engine fully rigged for harbour ferry service. Very loud reggae, Steel bands, and Carib Beer are on the menu. 
Weather OK, apart from occasional heavy showers and big gusts in between very hot and humid bits. People very pleasant. Skipper slightly uneasy as the smell of new mown hay (grass?/weed?) is strangely pervasive at all social events. Keep getting offered horticultural samples round the back but not sure where to use it as we dont have a lawn on the boat and watering would be a bit of a problem.
2 crew are now wearing knitted rasta hats and balding old skipper has beaded necklace in rasta colours.
Now planning our New Years eve run ashore. Chicken Jerk on papaya and rice with avocado on board. Fireworks party and more steel bands ashore. 
Planning on leaving 1st or 2nd southwards for Tobago Cays. This will probably be our furthest south before heading via St Vincent back N to St Lucia base for maintenance and crew flights etc.

Anyway me hearties will keep ye all posted
Michael B & Raparee
Geoff Bell & Andrew & Charlotte

Raparee's short Christmas Message

Happy Christmas one and all.
After a good round of Christmas parties, and a lesurely mini-refit, RAPAREE is off again today on another little ramble. This time southward towards Grenada but with possible stops at St Vincent and the Grenadines en route. New crew is Geoff Bell, plus his son Andrew, and daughtter Charlotte.
Attended amazing Christmas eve Vigil/Mass thingie with Caribbean gospel music in large corrugated church in nearby village of Gros Islet. Service lasted about 4 hours and took a lot of stamina but certainly put us in the Christmas spirit. Great day out by dinghy on Christmas day to nearby beach hotel where we and 6 other boats had booked in for their all day buffet, Sun, sand, santa, and turkey with papaya.
Plan is to get away tomorrow to head southwards towards the Grenadines or Grenada. Weather has been very changeable and there is some big wind coming up so not sure where we'll be for New Year. Hopefully somewhere sheltered from the forecast 3 metre swell.

Boat rather chaotic and full of junk, so no change there.

Regards and Happy Christmas and New Year to one and all.

Mike on RAPAREE at St Lucia

Christmas Decisions & Stuff

Still at Rodney Bay Marina, St Lucia, getting through the post-T/A job list. David Mac (new grandfather as of this AM) leaves tomorrow so we'll have a farewell curry tonght. Geoff Bell and son and daughter join Friday night. Decision time whether to go to sea or leave it until after Christmas when all the pzazz has died down a bit. Weather outside boisterous, squally, and lumpy, but at least the wet bits are warm. Need to move on soon as I'm getting bored by jobs and am developing marina fever. A Rasta man has come to service the fridge and a bloke in a boat made of coconuts has take away my laundry. You have to LOVE Bob Marley to live here. He joins you every morning at 0700.
Its weird hearing carols and (seeing Santa Claus and Christmas trees here when its 36 degrees outside!

Not decided on mid Jan onwards leg yet. Laying up and flying home is a possibility, with a return in early Spring to sail home. This is because I have not as yet got any crew, and solo coral hopping is a bit dodgy, and also a bit depressing I should imagine.

Anyway, happy Christmas one and all.

Michael B & RAPAREE

One Final ARC Event at St Lucia

PM Sat 17th. Everyone went to the end of event prizegiving do this evening. A pretty well-managed affair with lots of talks and thank-yous to all and sundry. Also prizewinners and trophies in many categories throughout the 250 strong fleet. Sadly RAPAREE did not win a prize although we did aquit ourselves very well indeed. Of the 139 boats in the cruising class we came in at 61, so less than half way down. Not bad for one of the smaller and older boats in the fleet. Pretty pleased all in all.
Boat still chaoticaly full of jobs and junk. Haven't yet managed to escape for a full island tourist day off as too much to do before next phase.
Tootle-pip for now
Mike B

Wednesday 13th Dec and the start of our St Lucia fortnight

The first few days at St Lucia have been hectic and much work has to be done. And of course essential socialising as well!  We managed one final boat outing with the current crew, taking a day trip to the beach anchorage at Pigeon Island (Tuesday 12th) and a dinghy ride and walk ashore to Fort Rodney on top of Pigeon Point.  Nick Moody, who turned out to be a great addition to the crew,  flew home to Spain today and David Mac has moved ashore, he says to allow work to progress on the boat. He says its nothing to do with the comfortable beds, hot showers, hotel luxury pool, and the air conditioning .

The mainsail is being restitched, a fridge man is coming tomorrow. Skipper has dragged out his 3000 item job list and is grumpily working his way through it.  36 degrees today with 82% humidity. Getting more fans on board is a priority. Ventilation rather than human type, although would also apreciate the latter. Rodney Bay Marina is not a place for relaxing in serene silence. Every boat boy, pirogue, pirate ship, hot rod, and burger stand, has the world’s loudest reggae rap ghetto blaster to rend the night, or early morning, sky by. I guess boring staid old folks have to learn to wise up and get used to it....go with the flow even.  I’ll practice with some rum and see if that works ok.

There are still a few boats left to come in but the finish line officially closes on Saturday. Because the fleet was so spread out, working out actual corrected times will be  a little difficult so we will not know our final place for a while. I was happy that we did our best and we brought Raparee in fairly high up the field for her age and size.  Our motoring hours will of course knock us back down a bit, but we had no control over the weather at the end, so we can’t help that. She went pretty well in the first 2 weeks keeping up some regular 24 hour 7 knot averages. Not bad for an old cruiser.

The transatlantic element is over (ARC website blog),  but  Raparee’s own travel blog will continue.

Thanks to Bill Lewis for putting Raparee's blogs on the blogsite during the crossing. I sent them to him by radio.

There may be a slight delay in getting restarted though because getting good internet access is fraught with difficulty. Photos were originally intended as well, but bandwidth limitations have also made this very difficult.

Mike B and RAPAREE at St Lucia

Raparees’s final TransAtlantic day’s run

Sadly no more wind appeared on Friday 9th and we continued to burble on, motor sailing as best as we could. We try to keep the revs as low as possible, but yet another reserve fuel jerry can bites the dust by midday, and there’s only the small emergency can left now.   By mid afternoon we sight a sail ahead. It’s the big italian ketch ‘Futura’ bravely ghosting along under a big spinnaker. Embarrased, we put our spinnaker up, knock off the donk, and try to keep her company. A less than walking speed slow motion duel in the wrong direction goes on all afternoon, but she steadily draws ahead. Having already blotted our copy book by motoring for  well over a day, we decide to back off and get under way again, in the right direction.

As a tea-time treast we decide to put the clocks back, for the last time, to -4. No sooner had we done this than Nature came and put on a special little finale show for us. In quick succession:

1.       A short visit by choreographed dolphins

2.       A huge full moon rising in the East directly behind us, at the same time as:

3.       A glorious sunset lighting up the sky dead in front of us

4.       2 big bright planets also in line overhead

5.       Land appearing out of the sunset, port and starboard, ahead of us.

6.       A megga bite on the fishing line, bringing us a dorado as big as a hog alongside.

The moon hangs in a clear blue sky over a great silver-blue reflection in our wake. Ahead the horizon is a million colours.  The giant dorado thingy fights with zeal and our efforts with the gaff are puny. With one bound he is free, taking our best lure and trace, although he is likely to need some serious dental work for some years to come.

 We steadily plod on over a glassy sea with the distant glow of Martinique visible on the horizon.

By midnight, there is a very slight wind so we have main and genoa drawing but with the donk still assisting.  By 0200, there is a strongish current in the channel between Martinique and St Lucia so we need to crab and tack our way upwind across to Rodney Bay. As navigation lights are pretty rare around here, we have a little difficulty in the darkness identifying the various headlands and hills before we can make out Pigeon Island and the entrance to Rodney Bay.  Eventually we make out the commitee boat and the finish line, so we knock off the engine and do our best to tack our way across it.   

Lots of hooters and cheers and we are across. Photo Rib boat alongside for happy snaps by moon light.

Sat 10th Dec 03h47m41s is our finish time, just over 19.5 days elapsed. 2921 miles at an average of about 6.25kts since Las Palmas, and 4968 miles from Raparee’s home berth.

After a warm rum punch welcome alongside we commandeer the rest of the rum bottle for medicinal purposes and finally get to bed after cock-crowing time.    

Mini-blogette - St Lucia at last

Muchos apoliogos folks.

This is just a short fill-in blogette to update fings. Very slow internet connection here. so it has been difficult to get on line. I will try to do a proper blog to fill in details later.
We drifted across the line at Rodney Bay st Lucia on Sat AM at 0330. 19 days 15 hrs or so elapsed time although our 60 hrs motoring in calms will now have to be added to this.
Raparee did pretty well, as did the crew, so all are pleases. Now I have to stick ther bits back together again,
must go as batt low.
Back later,

Mike

9th December - Possibly RAPAREE's last full day outward a l'Atlantique

Made a mitsake there on last blog. Of course day 19, yesterday, wasn't 12th Dec. To be sure it was only the 8th Dec. Anyway it was a most remarkably windless day. Surrounded by a great curving panorama of sky with huge distant cumulus clouds hull down on the horizon. A big slow easy swell gives the illusion that our horizon is tilted down to the south west and that we are gently sliding across a huge sea-meadow down into some distant valley. Its hot and sticky so we stop to allow us to jump into the clear blue sea and swim around the boat with 6000 metres below our toes. The after waterline and counter are covered with barnacles so skipper sets to with the brush.
Under way again, lunch of marinaded tuna chunks in couscous with homemade bread. No wind and much motoring forecast so we top up the main fuel tank from 3 jerry cans using a jigger-ball syphon tube.
Teatime and another bite on Nicks line. No fish but plastic squidlet thingy bitten half through. No problem as Dr D gets surgical kit out and sews squid together.
Night comes on and its eerily quiet. Occasional wind flurries so we keep trying little sailing bursts under main and genoa. Visited by some bored teenage dolphins at midnight. They kick some tin cans around and then go home.
There are still a few (useless) rain squalls in our areas and we experiment successfully with steering around them using our old radar.
Day 20 (Fri 9th) and its still bizarrely quiet. If we have to motor along the whole way with main up, we'll just have enough fuel to make Rodney Bay at St Lucia. Now only 115 miles away 1st thing this morning. Should be there with luck about 0400 tomorrow Sat AM. Time to put some wine in the coolbox and dig out the flags.
Late development: Stopped the motor and spent the late afternoon in a high seas drifing duel with a beautiful Italian 48 footer, Futura. Both of us with spinakers up and on the limit for close reaching. Wind only 5 knots so our duel is colourful but in very slow motion. This fun will delay our arrival and push us back further but as its the last days sail,its got to be done.
We'll try and blog tomorrow. Don't know yet what the wifi/mail/phone/hotmail situation is until we get in so not sure if our radio sailmail address, or Raparee's own hotmail e-mail address will be the way to go over the next 2 weeks. Will try and keep some kind of bloggette going either way.
David Mc will be staying in St Lucia to help for 1st 10 days or so, but Nick returns to Spain this Wednesday coming. Geoff Bell & Andrew & Charlotte fly out to join Raparee on 23rd for a Christmas inter-island tour. Anyone else who wants to do a bit of sunshine island hopping during the winter months, starting early Jan, is also welcome.
Mike
Nck
Dave
On RAPAREE

7th & 8th December - Raparee's exciting-ish Days 18 & 19 at sea

Onnyway (as they say in Nornairlond) we carried on ghosting until the dogwatches when suddenly our trailing line thingy sort of went all twangy, like big time. Nick goes to Don Gloves (one of our stowaways)to help with line hauling while Mike gets out the gaff from the loo. After a bit of hauling, in comes a meaty blue tuna neatly landed in the deck bucket. Some smart-ass suggested an alcoholic aerosol would send the fish to sleep (and I've known a few alcoholic aerosols in my life, so I can vouch for that). Anyway we tried gin in a killa-spray bottle but it no workee and made the poor crathur dance around like Michael Flatley on speed. Skipper resorts to the old mackerel method of breaking the neck and this works a treat, although it does mess up the deck shoes a bit. Fishy-wishy was about 7kgs, so quite meaty. Dr David then gave a public demonstration of his surgeomechanical skills by producing some huge uneven fillets and other unspecified lumps of gore. Nick our Chef de jour marinaded some raw lumps for a teatime sushi jobby which were indescribabababbbly delicious. Dropped chute before dark, and we try to sail on for a bit, but wind drops again to zilch, so sadly, time again for Betty Beta, our iron topsail. Great supper of tuna steaks with the remaining Canaries potatoes, and some old 90 cent portuguese plonk (shouldn't be drinkin' at sea but this was a special treat). Leftovers pickled for later sushi-ing.
All night we steadily motored on, skipper very morose and hacked off. Motoring is anathema to his Zennist ideals. We should be living off strained seaweed and propelled only by butterflies wings. And then there is the handicap system which is excessively penal for engining, pushing us even further back in the ranks. Mutter mutter. However, foremost in our minds is the Jazz evening Saturday....we MUST get in for it, even if we have to recruit some passing Minkies to tow us.
Here we are now, Day 19, Dawn has been and gone (she comes and goes stealthily by Rib and does a great cleaning job), its morning of the 8th Dec, motoring along between sullen clouds on a flat oily sea. Hot and humid. You know the sort of thing. Bored sailors making whalebone models of Salisbury Cathedral while being flogged into holystoning something or other. Anthony Hopkins and Russel Crowe staring steely eyed at each other across the creaking cabin. Noise of mosquitos. That sort of thing.
Suddenly Nick's line goes twang again and away we go with gaff and gloves. This time its a big bright yellowish thing with a swallow tail. Same colour as a fluorescent donkey jacket and about as attractive. Do we eat it or use it as an aircraft beacon. Fish (if that's what it is) has better ideas and does a quick On Y Va and is gone from the hook. Oh well. Back to the days motoring and jobs. On the bright side our daily HF chat shows most bateaux in our group are also avec moteur so I guess we all will have the same handicap anyway. Nick reading. Dr D dozing. Skipper making lists, but must go as he needs to tidy the back cabin (not a euphemism) and do some canvas work (fashioning an attractive holder for miscellaneous useless nameless objects, a statement of his life really).
Au revoir mes amis
Miguel le squipeur irlandais
Nicque le Chef de Poissons jaunes et etranges de Jour M.Le Medecin avec un grosse barbe Et la grande barque RAPAREE 15-23N 57-14W

6th & 7th December

Well folks, yesterday, Tuesday, day 17, was a bit pooey to say the least. It rained, it poured, it blew, it stopped, we went backwards and sideways, but not forwards. Sails up and down again and clothes from foulies to shorts on and off again. Finally becalmed all evening, so after a few hours of angst (and we know what this skipper is like about angst)we sadly decided to bend on the iron topsail for a bit of chug-chugging. Megga penalty points at the end of course, but probably better than going backwards and meeting the back end of the fleet.
Anyways folks we put-putted for a few hours and stopped at ohcracksparrowfart this morning so we could drift a bit and ponder fings under Orions belt. Nothing in sight. No whales. No wind. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Other yachts have seen pirate ships, fin-whales, nuclear submarines, lost 2nd WW Flying Fortress bomber squadrons, seals, the kon-tiki raft, Lord Lucan, and suchlike.
So it went on drifting until brekky time this very day, when, inspired to action by our intake of vorsprung durch technic black Rye bread, we ups and bends on the big coloured spinmaker type sail. Our speed (or velocity to be precise. Although as we know the mass of the boat and its speed and position, we can never be entirely clear as to its precise velocity. See Heisenberg) ups to a stunning 4.3 knots, mostly in the right direction.
Now its midday Day 18, Wednesday, its hot and perspiry, and tomorrow is our last payday on board. We are ghosting under our chute. Nick the Lofty GM is fishing with a huge plastic lure thingy. Dr Beardy Mac is writing his memoirs and musing on the use of newly discovered quasi-crystals, and the skipper is making lists about where to store various pieces of string and small dusty items of no intrinsic value. If anyone can tell David of what use Nobel prize winning quasi-crystals are can they please let us know. There may be a reward in it. Or not.
As far as we can tell, using bog-roll tubes, sellotape, and string, we have 370 miles to go to the tip of St Lucia, but at this stage this could take up to 6 weeks to cover. Our original ETA was for Saturday sometime, so we could attend the jazz party that evening. Perhaps if Nick catches a big enough Reef Shark we could get towed in.
Mike the Skip
Nick (Lofty)
David McA (Beardy)
RAPAREE. Day 18. 15-37N; 54-53W.

Sunday 4th to Tuesday 6th Dec - Facing up to the final week (possibly?)

Its early hours on Sunday and RAPAREE has been running all night under goosewinged main and genoa. Beautful moonlit night, but skipper sitting below fuming as it's a pain in the bum trying to get the sailmail and pactor modem HF comms system to work. It's incredibly slow and takes hours to download. Call the hands 0730 and its a pretty morning....excellent for big floppy coloured sails. After some frantic efforts, the chute is once again pulling us along and by 0845 we are having our boiled eggys and toasty bits. Our very first foreign visitor is a lone hungry young gannet who circles Nick's trailing lure several times. We start reeling in and he loses interest (the bird, not Nick). Our daily radio conference shows most of our group have now gone south of us, although we are still holding our position. Late morning and its on-deck body washing time by the sea-water bucket over the head method. Skipper, who only ever washes manually, or once a year, actually joins in. By now we are well into the third 15 degree sector of our crossing so its time to put our watches back to UTC -3.
Pleasant lunchtime of Nick's freshly baked bread and spanish ham, followed by the skipper's special fruit melange (today's selection of dodgy bits of fruit with green furry bits from the chainlocker).
Afternoon forecast shows wind going SE so we need to gybe south before this happens as we don't want to be caught out later. Rather than dropping and rehoisting , we decide to make our gybe a complicated 2 pole affair. This involves a lot of knitting, every rope in the boat, and much shouted instruction, but once done, this set-up keeps us going at a slow but steady pace until evening, when we drop the kite and re-pole out the genoa and get the boat safely secured for the night. Another cockpit Sunday evening gathering, this time with music and with gin and warm flat tonic and slightly off lemon, followed by dodgy Chinese-ish type gunge by Mike for supper.
Overnight Sunday the wind is fickle and frequently drops, leaving us uncomfortably rolling slowly as the enemy lights threaten to reappear from astern.
Monday was a busy working day with much sail changing, but pleasant and sunny. Good spinnaker hoist at noon and down at twilight, in time for skipper's fish and chip supper. Pretty average really: lump of tuna shaped like a fish (the one that fell off Nick's line today), and some flaccid home made chips and tinned peas. Monday evening through to Tuesday morning was pretty dark 'n 'orrible with incessant squalls, heavy rain and wind changes. All are soaked through like drowned rats (particularly the now-bearded David). Sails up and down and in and out. V exasperating.
Now Tuesday midday and crawling along with wind in wrong direction and 2 e-v's in sight. Would you Adam & Eve it? A WESTERLY wind in the NE Trades. Less than 500 miles to go, and in our final week, we can start calculating our ETA at St Lucia. Even though for 1st time in 2 weeks we're almost becalmed, we need to see if we can put a spurt on somehow and avoid coming in embarrassingly far down the list.
RAPAREE @ 16N, 53W (midday 6th)
Cap'n Buglet, Dr beardy Mac, & Lofty the Gringo Miller

1st & 2nd December - A mid atlantic rest day

Some quieter days at last. Someone's switched off the fairground ride. One or 2 more 30 knot squalls on Thursday morning but settling at last. For the first time song-books come out and Mike even tries a bit of guitar practice....a bit difficult as its still very rolly...well that's his excuse for being execrable. The on-deck sea water bucket showers have started...although David lost the bucket. Wrong kind of knot on the line. First ever (honest) glasses of wine this (Friday 2nd) evening with Nick's Spagh Bol. Also managed in a quiet moment to eat at the cockpit table under the stars...again a first for this trip. We've gybed a few times today to try and regain our great circle track course...this takes time and planning due to the number of lines and poles involved in 3 sails. Tomorrow morning early, our 14th since starting, we will cross the '1000 mile to go' line, and can start the 3 digit countdown. We've been lucky with winds from aft for 2 weeks, but who's to say what lies ahead. Calms, winds on the nose, gales?.....anything can happen in our final 1000. Forecast for tomorrow is light so we will have to steel ourselves for hoisting big bertha the cruising chute.
Mainsail looking war weary with broken battens, a big clumsy patch, and frayed seams...but everything else mostly ok. Still on the stbd water tank only. Port tank and jerry cans not touched.
Anyway must go, so tootle pip old things.
Mike, Nick, David....Raparee.
Pos: 16:43N, 43:26W

31st Nov & 1st Dec - mid Atlanic

Raparee's halfway day yesterday went by quietly with little time for whooping it up. Nicks home-baked olive bread was twoderful and a sight to behold.
Wind is a fluky 25 knots and we had 2 or 3 gybes as the swell knocks us around. All sails are preventered so no major dramas. David achieves a burst of 10 knots although our average is 7 or 8. By early afternoon, we have a further chain of gybes caused by the autohelm not responding. Major problem as we depend heavily on him (sic) for downwind sailing with one watchkeeper sailing. Skipper goes ino the bowels of the ship, heart in mouth. Commands in the cockpit give no response at the ram below. Panic. Handsteering for a hour or so while skipper rubs his remaining neurons together. Wheelspinning with a press of canvas in big rolling following seas is hair-raising and a better workout than any gym. Mistakes can be dangerous Skipper has feeble brainwave......perhaps the problem is due to interference when we had SSB radio on in the morning. This is common on many boats, caused by RF radiation screwing up the autohelm computer. A quick switch off and restart causes it to reset and we are saved. Phew! New Rule: only transmit when steering system is off,ie steering by hand.
Wind rises more by supper time, so Mikes halfway beef stew and canary spuds supper is by bowl in the cockpit. A 2nd reef in the main and more rolls on the genoa help a little, but we now have 2 crossing seas to contend with and a succession of squalls from astern. Speeds 7 to 9 knots but slewing all over the place.
Log extract:
"Awe inspiring sled riding down a moonlit path - big swell, loud roars, hisses, big bright foaming breakers around bow and stern. Corkscrewing into silver troughs and swells. Jupiter on top, Orion behind, and a crescent moon ahead, lighting our path. Powerful swirling images, with great silver and black shadows".
By 2000 it's blustery and gusting 30 knots and we are glad we fitted running backstays to the rig.
Early AM 1st Dec
0200 and skipper on watch. Hit by megga squall, and heavy downpour. Call the Hands and put 8 more rolls in the genoa. Off-going skipper like drowned rat. The rest of the early morning watches (Nick, then David) were equally boisterous and noisy with 30 knot gusts , and still holding 7 to 9 knot bow-slamming speeds.
Dawn breaks 0615, and below its a bit like living in a washing machine strapped to a fairground ride. Nothing stays where you put it. David and Skipper have head bumps from bulkhead battering while sleeping. Nick appears unbreakable.
Anyway tootle pip one and all as we must don frogman outfits to do deck and rig rounds.
AM Position: 16-46N; 39-05W
Mike (Buggy)
David (McAvinchey)
Nick (Moody)