The final Leg: Falmouth to Solent

We sat through the chilly rain and gales until Sunday 17th am when the wind suddenly stopped, leaving us just a bright chilly stillness. A quick refuel and we were away for the up-channel dash to the Solent.  Anchored in Falmouth roadstead was a newly arrived (from Horta) ARC yacht Chiscos, so we hailed them (a cheerful bedraggled gale-weary skipper John) a welcome and farewell. The first few hours gave us a nice day out with a gentle breeze. The asymmetric spinny is up for the first time in ages and takes us as far as Start Point and dusk. Skipper’s very last on-passage supper (after 9 months of crew-feeding) is a home-made chicken chow mein. It must have been OK because even Ken joined in and managed a second helping, without recourse to the black bucket.   Zero wind overnight so Betty Beta called to duty for the rest of the 150 mile passage. Our last full day and night at sea gave us a pleasant 20 hours of passage watchkeeping and ship avoidance, mostly under engine. We just made it into the solent against the growing ebb by mid morning on Monday 18th. We anchor in crazily swirling wind over tide cross eddies at Keyhaven to hide from the ebb tide and for a short snoozelet and lunch. Early afternoon, much hooting, cheering, waving, and blasting, saw the arrival of our welcome committee of Graham, Geoff, & Anne on Shiatzu, another Oceanranger 38, sailing fast around us in impressively tight circles. Their welcome present of a Tiffins apple fruitcake was well-thrown but skipper Mike’s butter fingers saw it lost to the oggin astern. A Fruitcake Overboard evolution was carried out but even the well-sailed Shiatzu failed to retrieve it.  Great afternoon downwind sail, in company with Shiatzu, against a choppy tide, for a joint Cowes harbour ceremonial entrance. By tea time we are alongside in Shepherds wharf with all flags up, cockpit table up, rum punch made, small eats out. Shiatzu team arrive with more party provisions. The Cowes Buggy team of sons, nephews, great nephews & nieces, dogs etc,  arrive to swell the party numbers and general chaos onto the pontoon. Food and beer follows later ashore in the Pier View.

End (nearly) of a great trip. Almost 10,000 miles in nearly 10 months! And we’re all still talking, and the  boat is still in one piece. Skipper, however, looks quite mad and has long wispy sticky-out hair.

Tuesday 19th in Cowes is a quiet break day to visit family and join them for an evening BBQ. Bill Lewis sadly has to leave us as duty calls at home. Michael and crew, brother Ken, plan the final assault on Hornet, at Gosport, on the morrow. With the help of Stewart at Hornet we plan to get Raparee back into a home berth, and so will finally end one hell of a trip. Rod and Christine Chadwick, our very able and supportive local helpers, will be there to meet us. Their help has been invaluable, even to the point of mail sorting, house and admin watching, and getting the car recommissioned and usable.  

About 20 countries/islands visited and about 20 visting crew over 10000 miles. Mostly sailing, but also 780 engine hours (about 7 years worth!!). 1.5 tonnes of fuel. Thanks again to everyone who helped with weather, provisioning, crewing, etc and for all your support and encouragement.

I may pen a final postscript later this week after arrival home.I will also try to post some photos on this site once I get on line at home.

Not yet decided on future of blogsite.......further travels are planned........probably Baltic exploration next year.

Slainte
Skipper MIKE
RAPAREE
at COWES

Thursday 7th & Friday 8th

Full Irish breakfast and shower at Mike McLaughlin’s excellent B&B, Desmond House. Farewells to David and his lovely McAvinchey family. Miraculously, David survived the skipper and boat for an astonishing 42 days!. Must be a record. Time for a brief crew-free day of work onboard and to get to know Noel on his boat next door, Brian the duty marina manager, and the staff and good folk at the busy and welcoming KYC.

In the marina I find the Swan 40 Quid Non? with skipper Nigel Philpott and crew Des Crampton, both of whom I knew from the AZAB (AZORES) race 5 years ago. They were in the Plymouth to Newport RI USA 2 handed race but had to drop into Kinsale due to engine problems. They are finally ready to go next day so I present them with some of Raparee’s store of whiskey and fruitcake to help them celebrate their (future) half way point.

Sun 10th Joined for the day by new crew Ken Buggy. Wife Kay, and brother Simon came along for the day to see us off. We walk the river bank and across the Bandon River bridge to the Dock Pub to see if Robby the retired jockey is still in charge and if the Guinness is just as good. It is. After a meal ashore Ken &Simon stay onboard overnight.

Marina full of semi-tame herons. Herons fighting seagulls. Noisy fishing boats. Grain loading and dust and trucks.  A brave Seal lives in the harbour and competes with the trawlers and oil spills.

Monday 11th is spent in familiarisation training for Ken and refuelling up-harbour at Castlepark Marina. PM 3rd crewmember Bill Lewis is kindly picked up at the airport by Mike McLaughlin, whom we join for a pleasant and talkative evening ashore.

12th June

0700 Slip and proceed into a windless grey and cold dawn. Sails up in the beautiful harbour entrance and set course 138M through the gasfield rigs directly for Lands End and the Longships Light. A very long day of motorsailing and slow goosewinging and gybing as the cold fickle wind goes up and down and dances around the clock. The lack of a beam wind means we roll unsteadily and poor Ken succumbs to Mal de Mer and gains a new best mate, the big black bucket. Soon back into our 3 hour watchkeeping routine, our rolling, plodding, progress continues for another tiresome 30 hours.

Early AM on the 13th saw us skirting around the traffic zone north of the Scillies, and trying to avoid wayward trawlers and tankers. By 1130, Longships is abeam with the tourist tat excresced Lands End ahead. Plod on across all those lovely bays and headlands and past the Manacles and by 2000 we down sails by Black Rock in Falmouth harbour entrance. Falmouth berths are crowded with weary waiting travellers like us because big dirty winds are expected and space is at a premium.  The Visitor’s Yacht Haven is the place of choice for proper cruising folk, the nicely wierd and wacky, and the less posh such as ourselves  Its tight but we squeeze backwards into a raft of bateaux and, that’s it folks, we’re back in the UKKK.

Plan A was to leave on the morrow for a welcome gathering on ther Yealm 40 miles away, but that big metrological spiral andromeda galaxy is on the way so I guess we’re in for a long wait in our raft. The Haven is toppers with gaffers and baggywrinkle, bowsprits and bumpkins, and blokes with dreadlocks. The Chainlocker is as busy as ever but the Doom Bar and Betty Stoggs are well worth the wait. Mmmm warm beer! Thats wierd!

Anyway the wind whirlygig arrived, and boy did it blow, and rain, so plan A, and our onward progression to the Solent has to be delayed a few days.  At least there are plenty of diversions in Falmouth....its the Shanty Festival (get your finger in your ear) and also the spectacular J-class boats are gathering for a week of racing. 

The final transatlantic days

Monday 4th June

A VERY rough and windy afternoon, with much rolling and crashing about, but making good speed under well reefed rig. Knackered so revert to large tin of Ravioli for supper. Total wind change by evening time sees us trickling along in a dying breeze from astern. From what we had read and heard about the weather, a very big depression, and future gale, was building fast to the south of us and heading toward Ireland, and it was imperative that we get in somewhere by Wednesday night. The problem was that we now dont have quite enough fuel, and it looks like neither will we have quite enough wind. if it falls as it is predicted to.

Tuesday 5th

Its 0330 and we have a rolling swell but calm big moon with beautiful sky. Wind up and down all over the place so much sail tweaking. Engine on/off. Eventually more on than off, so fuel usage become even more of a real worry. With much effing and blinding cockpit locker disgorged in the early hours to retrieve the last jerry can so we can jigger more fuel in. Well, mainly over skippers shoes, as usual.

Goosewinging all day and at 1500 we cross over continental shelf. Goodbye to the ocean blue’s quink-ink seas and hello to murky grey. Wind now really fluky and light and we are trying hard wth every ounce of sail to get a move on. We are now committed to almost continuous motorsailing while trying to find the most fuel efficient revs and speed. By evening, its grey, raining, and  overcast. Welcome to t’northern summer folks.

Wednesday 6th

0040 and lights sighted 20 miles ahead through the gloom. Double check on chart. Yes! Mizen Hd to port and Fastnet to Starboard. Wind now dropped to a zephyr right on the bluuuuudy nose. We decide to go inside the Fastnet so that we can  ‘round it’ before heading on for Kinsale. Slogging away, we make it by 0400 on a cold, clear, and calm night, with a full moon, we toast ourselves, our trip, and the rock, with a glass of Horta wine and a liberal dose of Jamiesons Whiskey. Photosessions with boat, crew, moon, and Fastnet Light.  

Skipper knackered and retires zombie-like. Time for Dave to take us on a dampish dawn cruise along this photogenic coastline of craggy islands, heather clad headlands and hills, and romantic harbours. Still no useful wind and fuel is now a real worry. We seriously consider Baltimore or Glandore as possible refuelling places.

Baltimore by the way was the victim of one of Europe’s biggest 17thC acts of piracy. A squadron of Barbary pirates arrived early one morning, alas, not for pints of Guinness, but to take away the whole population into slavery. Very few returned again to their old home.

Thankfully, the zephyr at last turns into a fine westerly by mid morning and soon we are running along the spectacular coast between 7 heads and Old Head of Kinsale. A couple of fast and hairy gybes later we find ourselves entering Kinsale, the mouth of the River Bandon. A lovely well protected harbour guarded on both sides by impressive 17thC fortifications. Kinsale was the site of the final stand of the ancient Irish chieftancy against the might of Queen Elizabeth. The Irish were only feebly supported by their allies, the Spanish, and finally they lost to the superior English forces. In the months after the battle, the old Gaelic earldoms were forced to surrender their powers and lands and most of the ancient aristocracy fled abroad to form regiments, and dynasties,  in the Spanish, French, Italian, and later, South American theatres.

Anyway, enough of that stuff. We finally raft up alongside Kinsale Marina at 1500 after 9 days,15 hrs and 1225 miles from Horta. (3927 miles sailed from St Barths, WI).Berth arranged with help from local man Mike McLaughlin, whom we’d met in St Lucia on his boat ‘Transcendence’. Ashore to YC for many pints of Murphys.

The rest of the week was taken up with family reunions and comparative tastings of Murphys, Beamish, and Guinness. Jury still out on the results. Also of course storing and repairing stuff.

Next leg to Falmouth, and UK south coast, begins 12th June.  Crew will be skipper, plus RNSA member, and Raparee No1 mate on earlier legs, Bill Lewis from Kent, and Ken Buggy, celebrated hotelier and chef from Waterford. Being a novice to this game, Ken is extremely apprenhensive......but once settled, the food will be great!.

More later.

Thurs 31st May-Sat 2nd June - The ho-hum days

 It's Thursday midnight, some 450 miles west of NW Spain's C.Finisterre, and boy, had we fallen in a hole!. Grey, wet, and cold, with variable winds. Main back up but genoa furled and we're going nowhere fast on an oily swell. Betty Beta working tirelessly. MB always on edge listening for sounds and symptoms. Was that gearbox oil change in Horta OK? Should I have done an engine oil change as well?. Whats that strange vibration? Our 3 hour night-time watches are drippingly and boringly unpleasant. Where is the scrimshawing and holystoning now? There is talk of thunderstorms. Hmm, we're not ready for that yet. Lightning is a major threat to small yachts, and a strike is likely to write off ALL electronics and most electrics, leaving no usable instruments or navaids. The engine and charging system are also likely to be u/s. Not only many £££££'s and time consuming to fix but navigationally challenging.
Half way (to Fastnet) possibly around midnight Friday but that seems an age away.
Fridge hoiked out and sanitised. No longer smells like dead animal. Our cockroaches are small and slow, and obviously don't like the weather.
Crew now reduced to quipping in half remembered school latin and torturing verbs in rusty RTE Irish. This is a boat full of old people and dead languages. On the whole, Thursday was pretty poo. Locked in a trough of despond with hours of motor sailing, gybing and crashing about the place in a cold grey mizzle. The sort of long boring day that stretches patience and leadership.
Friday 2nd is a vastly better day with some light SW zephyrs to play with. Sadly not all in the right direction or strong enough yet to give Betty a rest, but great for a gentle rolly all day goosewinged motor sail with all sail set. David fishes and reads while MB does time wasting DIY jobs and splashes detergent nonchalantly over his few shore-going rags, in the vain hope that he may cut a dash in Kinsale. A lovely evening and sunset on a big gentle swell. Beer and peanuts for sunset and and all-portuguese meal of spicy sausage, mini- potatoes and beans. All this food! We have now doubled in size and have finally realised that we eat too well and that circuits and pressups on the foredeck may soon be required. Also looking in the mirror, skipper realises that he is not only a bit old but also weirdly scruffy.
Talking about wierd....a question for any reader to google....why do dolphins like to ride and play in boats bow waves? They're actually smiling while they do it. And they look at you as if to say.....aren't i great, doing this? Are they just using the pressure wave to fish, or are they really playing?. Prizes for the best answers.
At 0100 Saturday 2nd, we got to our Horta to Fastnet halfway point and, as if to celebrate, a chilly 16kts breeze appears so its out genoa and time to give Betty a rest after many hours on the go.
Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day. Not much wind, chilly, and rolly, but a beautiful sea and sky. Goosewinged main and genoa most of day, but lost wind again by afternoon, so Betty Beta doing her stuff again. David takes on a noonsight challenge with the sextant.....but accuracy falls victim to the giant swells and our rapid rolling.
Our position on a cold but glorious jubilee Sat aft 2nd June at 1700 GMT 46D17N 17D41W. Slow moving in light airs some 450 miles SSW of Fastnet
M & D on Raparee

Thursday 31st May

Thursday 31st starts off boring grey and windy and becomes distinctly more unpleasant when the wind decides to drop in strength and go round in circles. The sky lowers to the sea so we are enveloped in grey drizzle. The waves stay huge and confused so we are thrown around without the benefit of a consistent wind to stabilise us and hold us upright. Our sails slat and crash around uselessly and poor old Betty the Beta is called up for a long slog of duty. So much has spilt in the cool box fridge thingy that a total empty out and disenfecting session is called for. A pain in the butt at zero heel, but at an irregular +/-30 degree fling, the job calls for patience.
As for progress, the current slow boring grey lumpy damp conditions are expected to last another 36 hours!
Note that at sea, we only use the radio spasmodically as there are only certain times when propagation for digital data is possible. When transmitting, we need to have both crew up, the engine running, and one of us on the wheel. Usually David has to extend his watch to do the steering, as Mike is the radio comms person. The engine has to be used because digital data transmissions use 100% full power continuously. Transmission can also cause much interference to navigation and autohelm systems. Finding and establishing contact with a sailmail base station in range and which is not busy can also take ages.
Progress has been disappointingly slow so far, but we will shortly be 1 month and over 3000 miles from St Barts, with 6 or 7 days left to go to the Fastnet Rock off SW Ireland.
M&D on R

27th - 30th May - Frustrating last days of a seagoing month

 Sunday 27th, was a rainy but pleasant day of preps, shopping, customs, immigration, berth payment etc and a final visit to Peter's bar for steak, chips, and beer. Also met many old friends and acquaintances. We slipped from Horta at 1000 on Monday 28th with waves and farewells to friends old and new. A pleasant rolly quartering wind and sea takes us goosewinged out between the islands to give us a glimpse of Pico, Terceria, and Graciosa. Pico's huge peak seems permanently covered in a cloud cap, and the island is often in shade and looking a bit gloomy. Finally clear of land by 1800 and back into a big ocean swell. We are overtaken by a huge modern ketch with carbon bowsprit, counter stern, and teak deckhouses. She is strange mix of victorian, edwardian and space age and not to everyone's taste.
Studying our weather advice in detail makes us wonder if it was wise to leave as there is a big low with a gale forming up just to the N and W of us. We will need to get some easting in PDQ if we are not to be hammered too much. Skipper's pork escalopes and spuds for supper and we get the storm jib lashed on deck. At sunset we are passed by Scandanavian square-rigger Gunilla, a jolly fine sight.
Night falls to give us an orange segment of moon, and a flurry of dolphin visits.
Tuesday 29th is a working breezy day starting with spicy mushroom scrambled eggs. We manage some poled out off-wind sailing and try to receive Herb (The famous Atlantic weather man) on the SSB hiss-box. During the day, the Atlantic rollers start building big-time, and we start reefing down as the wind rises before the large developing low northwest of us. By nightfall it is chilly and dark, as the skipper curses galley spillages and crashes needed to get out a chicken curry. Using all our balancing skills, we have our curry and beer below decks . Later on, rising wet and misty winds, and the occasional narrowly missed passing ships seen through the murk, and on ais, enliven our watchkeeping.
Wednesday 30th is hugely windy and rolly with mighty waves tossing us about scarily. The gale is set to last all day and well into tomorrow. Autohelm is doing a sterling job, although power use will mean more engine running. At least the rain is holding off. By 1800 we have huge following seas, so we decide to drop the main and run under rolled genoa . This makes us even more rolly but is less of a steering load.

22-27 May – Horta - The mid-Atlantic interlude

Tuesday 22nd continued squally and rolly but moderating enough to get the main up with 3, but eventually 2, reefs. A standard working day with average progress and more ships appearing.  Squalls and big seas reappeared on Tuesday night but with the wind now well aft on our port quarter so we are sailing at a good speed on a near gybing course. By the early hours of Wednesday, the distant glow of the Azores in visible and by 0400 we can see the peak of Pico (which, despite being 500 miles offshore is claimed as the highest Portuguese mountain). Our dawn approach to Faial is a bit tricky because we have constant showers and squalls, and a ginormous following sea, and are close to gybing, but we manage to gradually ease around to skim the south face of the island, and begin our approach to the capital, and major port, Horta.  So, on day 22 (21.5 days, 2700 miles from St Barts) we secure alongside the visitors pontoon at Horta marina, clear customs, and formally re-enter Europe, some 6 months after leaving the Canaries.

Our time in Horta is spent on boat work and provisioning, and eating normal solid food, always with chips.David got the job of painting the ship’s crest on the wall, along with the 10,000 others here. Every surface, bollard, structure, wall, jetty, etc is covered with 1000’s of badges and names. Dockside shops even sell the paints and brushes for the job.  

Alas the weather hasn’t been good enough for island sight-seeing, but Horta itself is a pleasant enough place with plenty of old buildings to see.

Good bars and restaurants with local Portuguese fare, and we even happened on a great Fado night in a local cafe, with great singers and musicians. Wasn’t a fan before but now truly converted.

The harbour is rapidly filling with ocean travelling yachts as this is the beginning of the Atlantic return crossing season and Horta’s busiest time. We are lucky to get a decent berth as more recent arrivals are being rafted up by day 3. We’ve managed to catch up and renew friendships with lots of familiar faces and boats from our trip out and from the WI’s.

By Sunday 27th, its raining heavily and we’ve delayed our sailing date by a day so far as a great big low is forming up and we are all waiting to see what it does. Time for more jobs below.

We are still looking at a 10 day dash to Kinsale, probably with big following winds, so we need to have our downwind procedures well organised. More poling out practice when the rain stops.

M & D

Raparee, Horta, Faial, Azores

20th - 22nd May - Last few days 'afore the Azores

Sunday continued totally windless in the big High below thw islands, but with a big swell and sea so we are rolling heavily. After days of headwinds, everything on deck is salty and stiff. Ropes and canvas are rigid. Wires are frosted white.
Managed some jobs on deck like tightening rigging, albeit with great difficulty due to boat's motion. Celebrated our totally windless respite with lunch in the cockpit and managed to have music all day. Also managed our first ever Sundown G&T, followed by skippers best curry, followed by a flat calm motoring night under a huge starry sky.
Monday morning early, and up comes a wind from aft which makes us very rolly in a queasy and noisy jib collapsing way. Skipper suffering painfully from Ibuprofen back...due to yesterday's deck work..
Wind develops rapidly during the afternoon and to an alarming level by tea-time. Jolly big waves and much moaning in the rigging. Our fault, we have entered the fast east-going airstream between a very low low just above the Azores and a very high high just below them. The barometer starts to fall rapidly from an astonishing 1038 and stayed falling all day and night down to 1016. It was clear that we were in for a bit of a blow so talk turned to storm sails. Eventually, the thought of battling with these on a wildly heaving deck made us go with a simple sail reduction to start with. Eventually, after a struggle, we got the main down altogther and wobbled along all night under a well furled genoa. The evening and night turned out to be very rough, very windy, very cold, very noisy, very wild, and very wet. Emergency sustenance was a huge tin of M.Carrefour's Ravioli, with just a bit of Carib spice. Monster waves all round. Ambient wind was 27 to 33 knots, with squalls to over 40 knots. Cabin washboards in place against uninvited wavy visitors. Working below a bit like being in a NASA centrifuge. Really nasty off-putting session.
Tuesday 22 showed some moderating, although still rolling in a big confused sea Managed to get the main up and fill ourselves with skipper's special spicy porridge and coffee. Sun is out at last and we're on course now for Horta, only 90 nm away, so may get there for tomorrow (Wednesday) lunch. Spoke to our Danish friends on Dania by radio and they are just 60 miles behind. Hopefully we can have mutual Azorean beer sampling sessions once alongside.
Position Tue 22 2040Z now 38n; 30w. just 90 odd miles sw of Horta.
Mike & Dave on RAPAREE

18th - 20th May - Not long to Horta

Position 1800 GMT Sunday 20th: 34d16N; 33d24W After a hectic few days on our ear sailing upwind into 22 knot easterlies in big seas, the wind has just,....sort of.....gone!. Totally windless. All we're left with is an annoying swell. We're in the middle of a huge 1035 High and now we're motoring NE along the 400 miles left to go to Horta on the Azorean island of Faial. Of one thing we are certain though...the wind will be back - with a vengeance. From Monday evening onwards there will be a jet blast of westerlies (up to 30 knots) passing south of the Azores and we will have to pass through this, probably on Tuesday and Wednesday. As for the last few days, not much to report. 1 more Dorado, now eaten. Much watchkeping and sleeping at crazy angles. Much pounding into waves and spray. Big skies, inky black seas, scudding squalls and clouds. No whales. Lots of jellyfish. Lots of reefing and unreefing. No rest for the wicked. So maybe today, motoring Sunday, can be rest day. On the other hand there's all those jobs on the skipper's list to be done

16-18 May: The (upwind) Struggle for the Azores continues

Our position at 1300 GMT on Friday 18th is 32d24N 35d23W.
This position puts us right in the middle of the creation point of Atlantic tropical depressions and storms. All around us great towering cumulus clouds gather strength and create huge air movements and torrents of rain. Our wind speed varies from 15 to 25 knots in seconds. Each mini-system is individually hand-crafted and sent majestically off onto the western horizon. Some may coalesce and pick up energy from the warming sea as they travel towards the Caribbean. This, after all, is the start of the tropical hurricane season, and the reason we are making a timely exit eastwards.
Now we are getting used to this ocean passage thingy, we have finally got ourselves into some routines. Our formal 3 hour watch-keeping roster covers the night hours only, starting at 2100. The first person on alternates nightly, so that we stagger our sleep patterns, and this seems to work well. Only half the day is now spent in tired irritable bickering. The other half is spent dozing, mumbling, and dribbling.
Our only long distance comms is by an old ICOM 710 HF Marine SSB radio. This can be used for normal voice via a microphone, or as a data transmitter using a Pactor digital Modem and a Netbook computer. For the digital service we pay an annual subscription to an Association which runs several receiving stations round the world. These stations post and receive our e-traffic on/off the internet e-mail system. E-mail can only be passed slowly by SSB radio and even short ones take a long time if reception is poor. Because of the time and power taken its often necessary to run the engine as well.
With long established north-easterlies we have been battling along on Port tack now for over a week. This is awkward and means that everything onboard gradually drifts in one direction. Water finds its way into lockers that have been dry for years and once-tidy shelves and cupboards become chaotic. David is offering cheap left leg shortening operations if this continues.
Whatever the conditions, we always have our main meal sitting at the saloon table, but cooking and eating at extreme angles, as in squalls, can be very testing, requiring heroic balancing acts and great ingenuity in the use of such things as wedges and rubber mats. Clean clothes don't stay that way for long.
Monty Monitor, the servo windvane, has been hard at work for 3 days and, as long as the boat is balanced properly, is an amazing machine in operation and to watch. Under the Monitor, we closely follow the twists and shifts of the wind, rather than a compass course, and therefore wind forecasts need to be taken account of in our navigation. Using the monitor also means the engine needs only be run for half the time. An odd downside of this is that the fridge gets charged less often.
David has made a chunky fishing rod using a pipe and a big reel and a length of bungee to tether it to a winch. With it we are using a strange yellow heavy lure thing. Our handline is trailed to stbd and the rod line to port. On Thursday night, waves caused us to heave-to twice and turn 360 so that both lines became terminally tangled. One line is now covered in alien goo, the result of a nocturnal knock-up with a PMOW. The goo produces instant rashes, and the line is now quarantined.
On Wednesday and Thursday, David tried his hand at two Ciabetta loaves. Although both were aesthetically pleasant neither was edible by humans and they have now been donated to science as the highest density material known to man.
Last night, we had a big black sky with the mighty arc of the MW above us. Huge plumes of phosphorescence stream aft into the blackness and all the star stars have come out to play.
Our position at 1300 on Friday 18th is 32d24N 35d23W. We are well reefed down, making about 5.5 knots Easterly in big boisterous seas and are about 540 miles SSW of the Azores. We are awaiting a slight wind shift which may make it favourable for us to tack to the North. We think we will stop at Horta (poss 23rd or 24th) on the small island of Faial to reprovision and prepare ourselves for the 1200 mile Atlantic flog to SW Ireland.
M & D on R

Sat 12- Tues 15 May - Still doing the slow crawl

Hello from way in the mid Atlantic by the wonders of young Mr Marconi's new radio telephony.
We are slowly tacking our way north eastwards towards the Azores. We are about 750 miles SW of them. The wind is dead on the nose so its painfully slow. Fortunately not horrible weather though, just slow. May have to throw the horses overboard. I've starting practicing for this already but using cockroaches and tea bags as we are great friends with the horses now. Not so with the goats as their butts are very annoying.
Hopefully we will get to the island of Faial (wasn't he deposed and shot?), capital Horta, in about a week to stock up on salted weevils, barrels of brine, hard tack, and tallow. We'll leave there heading North towards Ireland, a 1200 mile trip of about 10 days.
Every morning, Dave dons his ancient medieval red Doge-hat (as in Venice) and sets the fishing line astern trailing its pink plastic squid-skirt lures. This only seems to bring on squalls & rain. Certainly no tuna or marlin. The sea herabouts seems only populated by Portuguese Men-of-War jellyfish. Large pink jobs with errect sails and huge long near lethal tendrils. Probably not a good area for swimming.
Although we're only at 30's latitudes, the stiff easterlies mean it's chilly at night and early morning and for the first time in a year the heater has been brought into life. Skipper's blood certainly has become thin.
Using our shore weather support and occasional snatches on radio of Herb, the weather guru, we are trying our best to work our way North and East, but our progress to the Azores has been drastically slowed by consistent easterlies on the nose, and we have had to continuously revise our planning dates.
Alas, 2-handed sailing, and its alternating 3 hour watches, does not give much whalebone carving time, but we do lighten the day by inane conversation and entirely forgettable philosophising. The sort of mental and verbal rubbish you might expect an engineer and a medical man to trade in. With David's dictionary we also dabble haltingly in the old home tongue, and yesterday translated 2 filthy jokes and the whole of Ozymandias into our best school Irish and thought ourselves the bees knees. Skipper's mixed music machine is now allowed to play daily, although David winces visibly and goes into hiding at the sounds of Dylan or Black Sabbath. He nods approvingly to that Wagner chap's opera and its nehbehlungs (sp?) and chuckles to Mozart.
Now out of mainland bread we have been baking with excellent results, and may even diversify later into pastries and other delicacies. We are already making the paper doylies.
Monty the Monitor wind vane has at last been called into service after being sidelined for misbehaviour last year. Despite a severe battering against the wall in St Barts, he is now performing very well. One advantage Monty has over Ray, the electronic autohelm, is that he naturally exploits windshifts and will follow any changes that will allow us to claw our way north easterly.
When the skies are clear, we are lit by Venus shine and phosphorescence, while above us there is an unbelievable cloud of stars of every colour and type. Don't know what it all means. Must get a star map and learn some of this stuff.
Ho hum. Time to get back on watch and carry on the uphill crawl.
Position: 31 North, 40 West. 0530 utc Weds 16th
M & D on R

Friday 11- Saturday 12 May

The plod goes on. Our position today 1200UTC: 31d20N 47d42W Thursday and Friday night provided some very rough passage making against some big trade-winds seas and very variable winds and squalls. By today, Saturday, morning we are bashing along upwind on stbd tack doing our best to get at least some easting and northing against this steady Easterly nor-easterly (ie from where we want to go!). As long as we can manage to keep some easterly slant in our course we'll keep on this one. Whenever it changes and heads us we'll tack and try to head further east, or even better east North east. We will also need some 'catch-up' time shortly to attend to minor defects and adjustments and to water and fuel ship from containers. With a heavily slanting and very wet deck its not safe or easy to transfer such stuff. Perhaps we may heave-to later today.
Weather info from UK has been terrific. Obviously quite a bit of effort involved. I share it with our 'chummy boat', just in sight about 10 miles abreast of us, Dania, a steel Danish sloop with 3 youngish persons aboard.
We've done about 1350 miles from St Barths, and about 1100 to go to Azores, so we allowed ourselves a halfway beer with Skipper's Friday night Chili.
We've finally ditched the last of Doris the Dorado and now trying for more sealife. Dave has promised to do a seafood Risotto with whatever we catch (Japanese knotweed and polystyrene risotto anyone?)
M & D on R
-

Tue 8th May

A busy rolling along day on a big quartering sea with very fresh but variable winds. Constant course and sail tweaking required. With just 2 on board, this trip would be many times more difficult without our autohelm which is doing a fantastic job in these conditions. We always check to see that sails are set so as to make the boat as balanced as possible and this helps to relieve the load on the autohelm. We do also have a Monitor wind vane system but this can be time consuming and complicated to set up so we need to wait for more settled conditions before tackling the job. For supper tonight, skipper produced yet another variant of the remaining 40 tons of slightly mouldy Dorado on board and any future Dorado based meals will be of the curried variety.
Like an ant crawling across a hangar floor, we have a long way to go and haven't a clue what fate has in store for us. Cerrtainly the incessant awkward and irregular boat movement can be maddening, and any thoughts of endless hours of carving whale tusks, holystoning, and hornpipe jigging must be put aside.
Not only have jumpers and thermals appeared, but also, god forbid, a sleeping bag. We must have gone soft as we're still only 29N. It just feels damn cold in the Atlantic squalls.
MB still sweaty palmed and stomach clenched about continuing mast noises. This would be a lonely place to have any major problems, as no boats, ships or planes for many 100's of miles from here. Have to man up and face the challenge I guess. Have to keep telling ourselves there are people who do this sort of thing multiple times and still appear sane.
Trying with difficulty to keep going due East to remain on the correct side of any systems wich may be forming just ahead and N of us. Difficult to do because the quartering wind and waves make a our easterly very broad reach hard to manage. We keep slewing north and therefore our track may be in danger of meeting with or even going the wrong side of weather patterns ahead. Ideally, we need to keep south of these weather systems until we can be 'slingshot' up to the Azores after they have passed.
Midnight/End of Tuesday position was 29d08n 53d00w. Course East about 5.7 to 6.7 kts.

Monday, 7th May

Firstly, thanks for help and advice from shore on routeing and weather.You know who you are.
Anyway, In the early hours of pitch blackness this morning MB climbs the rocky rolly mast to investigate the lower spreader area knocking noises, and brings with him a can of WD40 to lubricate any moving parts. On reaching 1st crosstrees, after much struggling, discovers the complete nozzle has gone from the can. Loud cursing and descent.
Early AM David catches large Dorado and is exultant, but skipper grumpy again as this means his off-watch sleep has come to a premature end. Big handsome fish is 6kg and is well beyond our needs. David sets off butchering with saw and bolt-croppers. We end up with 6 enormous chunks, almost too big for our fridge.
The morning is squally and rainy with gusts up to 30kts, so, in desperation, we are forced to have an early lunch of 2 huge dorado steaks. The sudden intake of such vast quantities of protein renders the crew useless for the rest of the afternoon.
All advice seems to be to go east with an unusual westerly wind while it lasts, so instead of the traditional northerly climb past Bermuda and out of the trades we are now running easterly along about 28 north. There is a slight worry though that this could result in us being dumped in the Variables later next week too far south of the Azores.
Under a breezy and starry sky, and a bright full moon, our end of day position (770 miles since departure) is 28d30N 56d14W

Sunday 6 May

A beautiful sunrise and the start of a pleasant and busy day. Winds lightish so still motorsailing through a boisterous chop. Good Sunday morning job of clearing a fwd heads blockage. David did his daily mangle of sun, horizon, and plastic sextant, but his 4 hour morning watch had left him no spare neurons to do the sums. A lunch of dorado and philosophy was followed by a lecture on Wagner. David gives talks on Opera, philosophy, and Irish language, in return for skipper's weird culinary efforts, filthy jokes, salty dits, and lessons on Astro-Nav.
Wind freshens finally so by noon we allow Betty/Bertha the Beta (now at about 450 hours) to have a rest. We need help on which of these to call the engine. Superstition requires it to be a respectful name for a loyal friend.
Sunday aft is Grab Bag sort out day. We don't actually put anything extra in the grab-bag, you understand, we just make a list. The list will be useful in the liferaft as it'll give us something to read or eat or set fire to. If we had any matches. And anyway, having a list makes us feel good.
When we transmit on SSB radio the boat goes round in circles. The autohelm computer is jealous of the power the radio takes. They've never liked each other. Sending e-mails and talking to Herb or other boats requires all staff to be up and about. Poor reception and noise means that radio stuff seems to take hours and it would be quicker to take written messages by pedalo instead. Things improved drastically today when skipper found that switching everything electronic off, particularly the radio's own digital modem for the laptop, drastically improved reception, and stations that once sounded like a 1st WW dictaphone broadcast through a bucket of gravel now appeared to be feet away. Daily BBC News available at last, and we should be able to talk to Herb properly tomorrow.
By evening, at the end of Day 5, we've covered over 600 miles from St Barts. At only 5 knots average this is not fast for us, but no disaster either. The wind freshens and swings around astern so that by nightfall we are reefed and rolling along on a quartering sea and wind under full moonlight.
Our current worry, and there always has to be one, is that we have been haunted by strange and loud creaking and knocking noises from the lower mast spreader areas, pretty much since departure. No amount of searching has found the cause, so skipper rests uneasily in a sort of hollow in the pit of stomach way, when off watch. Understandable, given we are in 7000 metres of water and 650 miles from the nearest land.
End of Day 6 position 27d00N, 58d37W.
PS: does anyone know the date of the annual bull-running festival in Terceira Island, Azores?. We think we might be in time to take it in as we pass through.
M & D

Saturday 5th May

Apologies for wrong date on previous blog Saturday was a somewhat frustrating day with mix of engine-ing and sailing as the wind came and went from various directions.
We speak daily by SSB to our 'neighbours' for this trip, Dania, a steel 39 footer with 3 young Danes aboard. They are about 80 miles away to starboard and are also heading for the Azores.We have also been on the radio net of Herb, the weather-man, but it's been difficult getting decent reception to talk to him properly about his recommendations for our route.
David caught a nice 2 kg Dorado for supper, while M minced around petulantly complaining about blood stains on the deck. Fishy put to sleep by the garden sprayer method (aerosol of gin to the gills) and cut into steaks and roasted with red cabbage and garlic. Our Pos at 2100 Sat night (0200 BST Sun AM), the start of our 5th day, was 25D28N and 60D7W. Rig, boat, and bones all now making creaking noises as we plod bumpily NE by motorsail at 4.6 kts. Night sky lit by a bright full moon and the waves lit by brilliant Venus-shine.

3rd May - Slow progress

Slow progress on a big (mostly) blue sea Making very slow progress Northward in now light airs. We had a pretty rough first 36 hours I'd have to say. 3 reefs in and up to 30 knots and heavy rain and big seas over the boat. Into long trousers warm tops, and even foul weather gear for the first time for 6 months. Boat inside very wet and David and I knackered. Stomachs now a bit more settled though. A lot of lovely books got very wet and these are now being dried on deck. We have to work our way up north until we start to find some winds in our favour. We are now (Thursday 3rd 2000 GMT) at 22 degrees North; 61 degrees,53 mins West. Not very far up really, only 280 miles NNE of Antigua. The wind is not quite on the nose though, its about 50 degrees off, the result of the trade winds on our right. This will hold for another 450 miles or so, so we can't really go any further east yet. Our aim is to keep going on our northish track of about 015 to 025 to a point about 250m east of Bermuda where there should be favourable winds and then doing a slow sweep to the right towards the most N part of the Azores. After our scary and windy start, we are now down to walking speed this afternoon, so we should be in the Azores in about 400 years.
　
Mike
(& Dave McAvinchey)
on RAPAREE

Tues 1st May - Wed 2nd May: Departure for the Northwards flog.

We left the last of our provisioning for 1st May...and what is it? Its Mayday of course!...and everything is shut. Everything apart from the expensive restaurants. So, our great cargo of mangos, papaya, bananas, bread, eggs etc, is not to be. We decide to go anyway rather than spend more time in rolly harbours. The forecast is pretty awful with the Grib files showing geat sworls and rainy bits for days ahead right in the area we're going.
After showers and a cafe lunch we deflate & store the dinghy and then Kedge ourselves off the rolly and exposed jetty with our trusty fortress anchor (amazing feats of seamanship I can tell you). Motor off to an outer harbour buoy for final preps and stowing. Scary stuff. MB has Crowhurstian collywobbles. Sad to be leaving WIs after so many months.
Our 1700-ish departure from St Barths is our last from a caribbean port. Soon we are in very dark and choppy seas and stomachs are not liking it. The ocean out there is big and dark and the tradewind seas are all of 10 ft high. The last few islands, St Martin, and Anguilla slip by during the night. The rains come on. Only 2500 miles of this to the Azores!

1 May 2012 Leaving St Barts

Panic day dawns. Much sorting and prepping. Dinghy storing and dhobeying. Critical last minute shopping and storing scuppered as its MAY DAY here!!!. Everything closed. We will have to sail with only 1/3 of our fruit and veg and no or very little bread. Ho Hum. We'll be living out of tins sooner than planned. Anyway its raining. And gusty.
This lunchtime is MB's last run ashore in the WIs (well thats the plan anyway)
We will try to get away at 1600 so we should have finished throwing up by nightfall. Seasickness also saves us cooking.
Future blogs will be via SSB radio using our shore supporter Bill Lewis to cut and paste onto the blogsite. Thank you Bill.
Mike and Dave
Nervously scanning the darkening horizon
St Barts
WI

Sunday 29 – Monday 30 Apr at St Barts

AM Sunday move into harbour to do battle with the 1000000 moorings therein.  Spend hours picking  up random buouys and getting told to piss off. Eventually come alongside jetty, but swell and gusts make it pretty uncomfortable. Anyway, unhelpful mr harbour man tells us to moor stern to with an anchor out in the harbour.  This is pretty difficult to do in 24 knot crosswinds but we eventually manage by using our trusty fortress and kedge warp. Our stern is sweeping in huge scary arcs above and below the parapet of the jetty. Another sleepless night for thre skipper! All this and no power (broken) or wifi (broken) or showers (shut) or water (piss off) or bread (closed) for a mere 30E a night. Nice.

Monday dawns sweetly with fresh croissants and a dose of real coffee. May be ok after all. Still rolly and dodgy but crack on with preps fpr transAt. Productive day despite the drawbacks.

Sat 28 Apr Nevis to St Barthelemy (Barts)

Sat 28 Apr Nevis to St Barthelemy (Barts)

Pissing rain and very gusty with heavy lowering skies. Lovely day for a sail! MB queasy after last night. Neither crew has the sealegs for protracted ops below decks. Great views of St Kitts and in the distance Saba and Statia (thought they were regulars in Asda Gosport?). Joined by Dolphins for lunch, including a mum and baby. David tries singing awful Northern Irish song to them but this makes them veer off sharply to starboard never to return. Got to Barts PM. V Crowded,. Eventually anchor in 3000 fathoms in picturesque bay.  Bay suffused by gusts and williwaws (isn’t he the bloke who ran Aer Lingus?). Skipper slept fitfully as we edged backwards towards the catamaran moored behind.

27 Apr Antigua to Nevis

27 Apr Antigua to Nevis

At anchor outside Jolly Harbour. Up early for Dave Mc to outboard over to improve Mike Clear’s morale (bad engine problems) on Irish Oyster 51  ‘Oysterhaven’.

Get away late morning for a bouncy trip downwind, with seas all over the place. Got in to Nevis late and pick up a mooring off a strange dark beach. We have no flags to honour our new hosts and we haven’t cleared immigration. Recommendation is to go ashore to Sunshine Beach Cafe, wherever it is. Dodgy call. Rolling around at our (illegal) mooring. Tired. Get dinghy up and in water and engine in.  Cant find dinghy keys. Cant find outboard switch so MB decides to make one. Ass over tit scenario getting into dinghy with big swell. Pitch blackness. Where to go ashore? What if we find a windswept concrete pier with barbed wire or a shelving beach with a surfbreak, glass bottles, tree roots and dog turds?  We do find a big pier so we lock up to it. Man in immaculate whites comes to tell us to buzz off. Dave falls into dinghy and cuts foot. Blood everywhere. Motor to beach and carry dinghy beyond shorebreak. Sunshine beach cafe is great so MB has spare ribs (muskrat, moose, or marmoset though...not sure). David Mc has lobster. Chips all round. Good meal.

Some difficulty relocating dinghy...and boat but get away with it and return on board very knackered.

Fretting at Jolly Harbour Antigua

Les now gone and safely back home. David Macavinchey our outward leg 2nd mate-surgeon has rejoined and is now No. 1 mate as other locally promised crew has so far failed to turn up. Antigua is tied up with racing for the next 10 days and loose crew volunteers are few and far between. Skipper needs to get more organised and await further reinforcements from home or go with the 2-handed solution for the return trip. Decision time is nigh.  In the meantime David is acclimatising to the mozzies and time lag and skipper is fretting and writing endless lists of things from turnips to turning blocks and radishes to rigging. Tried to get helo trip over to Montserrat today but not enough people to fill the flight so went shopping in St Johns instead, to look at Chinese souvenirs with Antigua written on them and also to buy strangely shaped brown vegetables which taste like stewed socks (David wanted to try them).

19 -20 April - Bottom scrubbers and Farewell to Les

At anchor in Falmouth Harbour watching all the world's classic yachts go by. Ranging from the humdrum, to huge jobbies, 150 footers with crews of 30 or 40. All beautifully kept. Varnish and brass sparkling in the sunlight. Anyway, there we are slightly hung over and waiting for Maurice Underwater and his crew to turn up to scrub our bum. They do turn up, fairly late and also fairly hung over. Their diving system would cause a British H&S man to slash his wrists. They have a rusty petrol compressor which lives in a swimming pool-type inflated circular tube. This is set floating in the sea by the boat. A rusty pipe with 6 or 8 connections comes straight off the compressor. Each diver has a long and patched hose and mouthpiece and is connected up straight to the compressor. They all jump in and untangle and tow the contraption along. The scrape and scratch for 40 mins or so. Maurice gives the anodes and prop a good burnishing and checks the log. The fee is 320 EC, about £80, which is fair enough compared to a haul out cost. I jump in afterwards to check the results out. OK but boat looks like a freshly shaved skinhead underwater. In the crystal clear water I notice we are hovering 4ft above turtle grass, so I can stand on the bottom and pretend to hold the boat up.
Underway by noon we are soon crashing along between Antigua's S.Coast reefs with our new found clean-bottom speed. Back to our anchorage off Jolly Harbour for Les' last sundowner, Carib Curry, and nightcap whiskey tots.
Up early 20th in very heavy rain. Up anchor and enter harbour. Alongside immigration for Les to check out. Into our Jolly Harbour marina berth for Les to finish packing, grab lunch, and organise taxi.
Final farewell at noon. Always sad to loose a good crew. Amazingly, Les survived his pedantic and obsessive skipper for a full 25 days. Almost a record. 
Now onto RAPAREE's TransAtlantic preps.

Antigua party time and stuff

Tonight 18/19 Apr,  after a night, and a good run ashore, one would have to say, up Mud Creek, English Harbour, we have moved through some vertiginous seas and are now anchored in Falmouth Harbour Antigua. Earlier this evening we were forced to walk to Nelsons Dockyard for beer and then to an all night 25th Antigua Classics Opening Party with free rum and a big rock/reggae band. Had to endure hundreds of millions of pounds of classic yachts all round us. Such hardship.Go Sport will never seem the same! At anchor overnight unless the nearby reefs take us. Diver Maurice comes tomorrow morning to scrub our bottom.

13-17 April Antiguan Antics

PM 13th April anchored off Antigua.
14th Enter Hbr and make crappy alongsides to customs wharf. Then even worse alongside between piles in marina. Average marina with 1970's loos and rotting planks. Staff good. BBQ's quite good.
15th blustery alongside working day. Raining. Windy. Shopping
16th Busy day of networking other boats and crews and doing preps.MB to boatyard and chandlery. Still very windy but pay meggabucks and slip and proceed PM.  Anchor outside in bay in evening twilight. First attempt drags scarily between boats in high winds. Eventually manage to anchor, but quite close to scowling old swiss couple on old trad steel (.'.. we've done it all before and are VERY experienced' type boat). They continue smoldering and scowling at us all night and dont respond to waves from us. Consider rowing over and terlling them we're gay and would they like to come to an all night sailors party onboard.
Quiet night. Beautiful pork n apple with potato wedges super by Les.
17th Up early. Still windy. Scowling still in force. Slip and proceed after brekky. Decide to go outside reefs and tack all the way along S Coast to English Hbr. 22 knots and 8ft seas. Lumpy. Reefed main and Genoa. Motor and sail needed. Reach historic English Hbr and its posh megayachts at noon.Classy entrance with many old Georgian buildings. 'Nelson's Dockyard' etc all now restored and WHS tourist icons.
Anchor way up harbour from the crowds. Amongst the mangroves.
Still need more crew for TransAt. And a big strong neoprene clad diver to scrub my bottom smooth.
What will tomorrer bring?

13-15 April: Guadeloupe to Antigua - by the middle (inland) route

Friday 13th April. Always a good day to sail. After a short but busy stopover at the useful litttle Pointe A Pitre marina, its time to struggle free again. After a slow start due to a bit of a hangover, and much keffuffle, we back out of our bows-on stern-to-buoy berth. Non-anglophone Frenchman next door perplexed at being presented with MB's written departure plan, a plan worthy of a battleship requiring several pilot gigs and whalers. Our plan is tinglingly exciting. Up harbour to the start of the river Salee, in the mosquito mangroves, to anchor at dusk in 6ft of mud right next to GDL's premier motorway road bridge. Then escape northwards straight through the middle of the country.
Up 0415 Sat 14th and prep to move towards the bridge, in company now with 4 other boats. 1st bridge opens at o'cracque sparreau fart. Wonderful little procession throught the mangroves towards the reefy north coast of the island. An inland cross country cruise. Squadrons of egrets buzz us at every corner. In deference to the little sparrow,  Oui we had plenty of egrets. In a bright dawn, once clear of the final bridge the riviere took us onwards to the reef spattered north coast and a clear route to Antigua.
We drop the hook for brekky and a short snooze in the middle of the reefs. Les has a swim but finds it barren below.
A fine and steady offwind day's sail takes us 30 odd miles to Antiguas S coast and then around the coast to Jolly Harbour. Being too late to enter harbour we drop the pick amongst the Pellingtons and Frigates and Tropics. Lovely starlit evening on a milky blue sea. Sleep well after a long day. 
Sun 15th we make our majestic entrance to Jolly Harbour marina and its shoreline of villas and private docks.

7-12 April N Dominica, The Saintes, and Guadaloupe.

Sat 7 April
At a buoy off Portsmouth Town in Prince Rupert Bay. N Dominica.

Sun 8 Apr - Easter Sunday
Busy day. Long rain forest walk to Indian River source springs. Huge bannana and mango trees. Geckos and land crabs aplenty. Not many birds.
Long minibus trip to see E side of Island and the Caribe Indian reserve. Terrific flowers. Lush valleys. Lots of fruit trees. Huge cliffs. Impressive bays. Caribe people very sweet, now that they don't eat tourists any more. They came from Orinoco delta about 200BC but have outstayed their visas and now cant work. Anyway they can't find their canoes. They make lovely hats ansd mats, and have some cats.
Indian River boat trip. Oars only. Mangroves and voodoo. Local boatman 'Friday' took us. Lovely chap, very characterful and informative but I suspect he enjoyed a lot of wacky baccy in his day. We got a cold beer in a sort of ramshackle muddy treehouse thingy at the head of the river.
PM we try to go the Sunday night beach BBQ, but it is heavily oversubscribed by euro tourists from charter boats and all is in chaos. Instead have nice fishy dishy at ' Big Papas' local beachside eating shack.

Mon 9 Apr.
Dominica to Les Saintes archepelago.

Tues 10 Apr.
at Grande Bourg, Les Saintes.

Weds 11 Apr
Bourg harbour Les Saintes to Point A Pitre harbour (PaP) marina in S. Guadaloupe.

Thurs 12 Apr.
PaP marina to outer harbour anchorage. Preps for pasage up the Salee river between the 2 halves of Guadaloupe.

3-6 April: Plodding along Northwards up the Islands

 

Tues 3 Apr

Depart St Pierre Martinique for Dominica.

Up early for sea preps. Papaya for brekky and hoist dinghy aboard. Got George on SSB for Caribbean weather forecast. Very light winds. Decide to change No2 Genoa to No1. Get away early and are soon off N Cape of Martinique in the wind acceleration zone. Very blowy with big seas and white horses. 1 Reef in main and 5 rolls in Genoa. Tramping along in a 18kt tradewind breeze. Les enjoying himself with constantly sail-tweaking. MB has Montezuma’s Punny Roo so has to take bum stopper pills.

MB takes sextant noonsights. Lovely sparkling afternoon sail. Fishing but no fish. Sadly wind falls light by the SE corner of the island so have to motor the last few miles. 1630 pick up buoy S of Rosseau town and await for directions from shore.  1700 buoy starts to move so we let go and move to one slightly further along the bay. We meet cheerful ‘Pancho’ and give him 10ecd and a bottle of beer. I’m not sure why, as we’d done all our own mooring without his help. Later we pay a grim looking monosyllabic chap from Dominica Marine Services 10USD for mooring.

Great nosh of MB’s spicy chicken and beans before launching and dinghying ashore to the Garroway hotel in the town (The Garroways are family friends of Les and his ex-wife). Some beers at the hotel with the family before being brought back to the landing stage by 4X4.

Weds 4 Apr Dominica

Full day exploring the capital town of Rosseau ashore. Mixed architecture of creole and georgian colonial. Streets of  overhanging fretwork balconies, crumbling stone basements,  and little coloured wooden sheds and cottages. Meet at the Garroway hotel for a massive lunch of pork, ham, and chicken in pumpkin soup. More than you can eat. Beer as well. Have to do  long walk around the botantical gardens to recover. Return hot and sweaty to the hotel to use the hotel showers. Great. Very rolly night back on board but under a beautiful covering of stars.

Thurs 5 Apr Dominica: A busy day of treks, mountains, and waterfalls in the interior using, after much bargaining,  Felix and his Faithful taxis. Felix is a youthful entrepeneur full of optimism.  We dip ourselves in waterfall pools and swim a windy cave gorge to an internal waterfall. Too many fat American and Russian tourists at some of the sites. Sadly not much wildlife, but plenty of greenery and colour. Good day exploring town and shopping. Pleasant early evening beers and farewells with the Garroways at their hotel balcony.  Good meal back aboard courtesy of Les. Very rolly evening in a beautiful calm sea under the stars.

 Fri 6 Apr Rosseau Dominica to Portsmouth, north Dominica.

Ashore early for water by jerry can portage along the ramshackle pier. Away under main and genoa under hot and fluky fickle winds. Brief lunch stop off ruined Castaway Hotel halfway along coast. Wind beginning to pick up. Les goes for lunchtime snorkle. Not much to be found. Good sparkling breezy afternoon sail. Wind picks up in acceleration zone at top of island at entry to Prince Rupert Bay. 1600 MB’s hat flies off. Another MOB sinking hat recovery exercise, beautifully exercised by Les.

Pick up buoy 1700 and pay ‘Jeffery’ from ‘SeaBird’ $78 for 3 nights mooring. Stay on board for very rolly night.

1-2 Apr: Galloping slowly up the Martinique Coast

Sun 1 Apr

Up AM early. Intention to visit Fort de France town docks by bateau for fuel, and then depart for the old town of St Pierre further up the coast. Abort the fuel idea as too difficult, but we have a pleasant sail northwards past pleasant green and cliffy landscapes. Gusty.  By early afternoon, we drop the pick off the pier at old St Pierre. The bay is dominated by Mt Pelee which destroyed the town in 1902. 30000 died in a pyroclastic flow. Pompeii of the West Indies. Town reconstructed from the ruins but now a bit tatty in places. Nice pier and nice sunset. Anchorage very rolly. Went ashore and tried to walk up to statue of virgin Mary on cliffs but got tired and fell down and yawned instead. MB shat on by noisy bird.  Town very full of cars driving round in circles so difficult to walk without falling into the monsoon ditches.  Exhaust-less stripped down yoof driven scooters rend the night air.  A few bitches (canine) wander around. Back on board, MB produces hot curry followed by too many nightcaps and too much philosphy.

Monday 2nd April. More exploring ashore. Town nicer than I first thought and some of the ruins are quite spectacular, as is the view of Mt Pelee. One of the only survivors of the superheated pyroclasstic flow, out of the 30,000 population, was a bloke in his little stone prison cell. Saw the cell and stood inside it. Very haunting. Weather strange most of today with rare and quite extreme ONSHORE westerly gusts and a big rolly swell. Anchor is pulled hither and thither over the bottom. Suspect this is all heat generated so decided to stay aboard for mid part of day until things settle. Watched a big new Canadian yacht trying to anchor. 5 attempts. Skipper (Aft) screaming at Wife (?) on bow. They had a long domestic argument in cockpit afterwards. Painful to watch.

Despite the strange weather (which does eventually settle down), we still manage to get water from ashore and do shopping. Les does his annual dhobeying session. One of the ladies in the open air fruit and veg market was very kind and gave us free stuff to taste and to take. Especially banannas.

Another couple of beers ashore PM with the beachside bitches at our feet. Pleasant evening and golden sunset. Beautiful stars. Rolly night at anchor. Banging doors and crashing crockery and that sort of thing.

Tomorrow we finally leave French Martinique, the last of the Windward Is, and head north to Domenica, a rather wilder and less touristy place than most of the other big islands.

tootle pip old things

30-31 March: The Martinique sessions

Friday 30 March and we’re away early on a fast sail with no2 gen and main for the Bay of Fort de France, the capital. 1210 pick up (someone else’s) buoy off Anse Mitan and ashore to tatty litle marina and hurricane-ruined hotel with jerry Can for water. Pm: slip bouy for nice sail across bay and over tricky shallow shoals to anchor amongst closely packed bateaux off the eponymous Fort. One always feels the scowls, loathing, anxiety, and hate emanating from the assembled cockpits as one eases through the throng looking for a hole to drop the pick in. As a latecomer, one is ALWAYS in the wrong, and for as long as you are there, one is certain to have a frozen cockpit stare drilling through the back of ones neck.

Got chummy with 2 boats: John and Rose, long-term liveaboards on Jayess a Rival 34 from Portsmouth, and a very young and brave couple (22) David and Chloe living on a 27ft Twister (Twisting shadow).

Fort de France waterfront is noisy. Very noisy. All night. Les doesnt sleep and develops shingles. Girls scream ashore. MB prowls around with a relapse of sinusitus. The ferries make the boat rock like one of those fairground rocking things.

Sat 31 March.

Creaky start. Breakfast is grumpy. We go ashore to find Fred Olsen’s merry team of trippers and blotchy fat tourists in baseball hats and wife-beater t-shirts are out in force. An International Petanque tournament is in full play on the promenade. Oh what excitement and fun. Hot and sweaty in town, so back aboard for a doze and jobs. What can tomorrow bring us?

28 - 30 March Final departure from Rodders Bay

28 - 30 March 2012

Final departure from old friend Rodders Bay early am on 28th March. MB with lump in throat at leaving familiar territory and friends. Heading North and motorsailing into a NE’ly chop. 1030 and 2 humpbacks are sighted rolling and cavorting off to starboard just off the tip of St Lucia. My first real big cetacian sighting.

We zigzag our way northwards to Martinique in a blur of MB’s indecision. This way or that?  Nothing new there. Anyway we finally bear off for a run down the white water tide rip between the coast and (HMS) Diamond Rock, the stone frigate that so annoyed the French back in Georgian times.

Me make for the tiny bays on the lee (Caribbean side) of the island, and drop our hook in 6 metres off the beach at Grande Anse D’Arlet, a pretty spot if ever I saw one, although rather prone to katabatic williwaws from the hills.

Ashore by dinghy for Moules a la creme avec frites. Lovely little typical carib beach setup. Nice sunset, turtles in the bay,  and all that sort of thing.

We stay at anchor all Thurs 29th for a spot of bottom scrubbing and stuff like that. The sort of thing that old blokes get up to when left alone. Les went down on my bottom with a long handled scrubbing brush and a scourer and removed quite a lot of nasty cling-ons. Couldn’t have done it myself. Later I dressed in rubber and lead weights and aided by a giant blow up buouy thingy (which Les had to do a blow job on) and a long tube and mouthpiece I too got to work on my bottom, but more particularly my shaft which had barnacles stuck on it.

Great walk pm to the next bay and some beers with some passing french persons. Buy and install new gaz bottle and eat last of the delicious st lucia steaks. Bed with irish whiskEy.

22- 27 March 2012 – the final great velcro-effect marina tear away

With our new crew, Les Moores, now aboard we shall never be short of stories of love, life, and relationships.  Apart from the welcome arrival of Les on Sunday, the week starts with heavy rain and much flooding. Even the fridge gets topped up and needs a bilge pump to sort it out. Is this a good omen for the future?

Have made good friends with ex RN Pilot Nigel North on Westerly ketch Pinball Wizard and with James, the professional skipper looking after Halberg Rasssy 62 ‘Eleandra’.

Les & I decide to go as soon as the weather settles......and this looks like happening after the weekend. So much prepping and job-listing, including MB’s developing dose of prickly heat rash. Need to visit pharmacist.

Sunday and Monday - big round of farewells to all  my favourite people.

Tuesday AM finally manage the very difficult and emotional un-velcro’ing free from our comfort zone and we depart the berth for the fuel station. Manage a few farewell beers at Cap’n Mikes waterfront bar while the fuel bowser is topping up the boatyard.

Finally depart RBM for the bay outside at about 1500. Anchor just off pirate Jean De Bois stroghold on Pigeon Island.  Les bravely afloat in scuba gear for an all round waterline weed scrub. Later ashore for final sunset rum punches in iconic beach location. Joined by Nigel North who has dinghied out. All back on board for Buggy special hot spicy Caribbean Jerk Port curry with Saffron rice. Irish whiskey and putting worlds to rights follows. A wonderful final day to a long and varied stay at Rodney Bay. Tomorrow sees us heading north to Martinique.

10 mar 2012: 5 don't go wild on RAPAREE

Back at St Lucia to meet up with Graham and his crew. We decide to help out and take on board his crew, Andrew and Sue from London. So now we are five. Five go wild on Raparee. But remember, apart from me, these are TNGP, so no, we will not actually go wild as such. Perhaps the odd cup of tea.

Anyway we decide on a morning start going southwards. A couple of hours boat handling and manoverboard exercises in the breezy bay sorts out the men/women from the boys/girls. Again a good reefed up bouncy sail down to Soufriere Bay and the glorious Pitons. Always a welcome sight. Met by my old adversary/friend Gregory who takes us to a buoy just along the cliffs from Soufriere town. He then takes the team ashore for a whopping fee, leaving me to pluck my strings alone whilst quaffing some ales. Fantastic evening spectacle as we witness the departure of a fully rigged square rigged cruising ship. All sail up as she creeps out of the bay, past the Pitons, and  into the sunset.

Buggy surpasses himself with his Piton special Caribbean fruit and veg curry that night. Nice pleasant evening but lights out early and no singing after 9 (TNGP rules apply). 

Early next morning we see a buoy is available over at the Bat Cave so we scoot over. We know some of the other boats at the buoys so there is now a little community of us. Not a bad place for cliff base snorkelling so Rod and I head off in the dinghy for a spot of exploring. Sort of OK. Strong current and not much coral. Quite a few fish. Rod finds treadle type Singer sewing machine and balances it on a rock.

Crew take to beach for the afternoon leaving Buggy to his musings again. Fantastic sundown rum punches all around at 1800 (After much encouragement, all TNGP’s heartily participate).

Off ashore by dinghy for evening meal in the famous Hummingbird Resort restaurant. Very nice indeed, but sad to say there were not many other customers so times must be very hard.

Away in in the morning early after brekky for an exploration of ‘between the Pitons’ . We explore close into the Jalousie area which is now largely expensive resorts and old plantations.  Finally head northwards for an uneventful coastal  motorsail  up to Marigot Bay, which we get to in the early afternoon. A quick friendly VHF chat and we are allocated a free buoy for a couple of hours. My old mate ‘Nelson the hat weaving boat boy’ is nowhere to be seen. He can be heard though, as he is totally out of his tree and dancing around loudly ashore.  Sadly we have no dealings with this amusing character on this visit.  A pleasant lunchtime stopover in this pretty little picturesque caribbean harbour, with all the crew getting time to explore by dinghy. MB produces ‘spicy jambo soup’ for lunch and fighty mine it is I can tell you. Hup and away and back to Rodney Bay Sat PM.

Early AM Sunday. MB delivers Rod and Christine by dinghy over to the harbour entrance so they can walk into Gros Islet to get early morning mass there.

Breakfast on return. Pack up and crew ready to leave for Rendezvous Hotel Castries. Departure from Cafe Ole at Noon. A good trip all round, but with the departure of the TNGPs skipper needs to put Meatloaf on at 50dBs and grab some hearty ales.

2 Mar 2012 - back at sea again

Orft up to Martinique for a few days with the Chadwicks. Rough and windy so 2 reefs and many genoa rolls. Christine, still recovering from double knee jobbies, was wary of the movement and fought her way gamely around the boat. Rod brought all his dinghy and navy skills to bear so we were never short in the talent department. We anchored, beautifully I’d have to say, in the CROWDED anchorage by the fairway at Le Marin.  My new elastic snubber line technique worked a treat with the old CQR (what the hell does THAT mean?). Dinghy trip to big Carrefour hypermarche for lots of froglet consumable  goodies for the galley. Stroll around the very french bourg of Marin.

Met up with Christine’s school penfriend Nicolle, a Martinique resident, who took us out to lunch at an east coast beach-side cafe . That evening, we watched as a jolly big superyacht jobby made its way up the narrow channel into the harbour and graunched to a halt just outside. Most embarassing for all concerned. I guess the skipper was taken away and shot. Saw a traditional Martinique yole out sailing, very hairy scary stuff, with lots of crew balancing out on poles (these poles get everywhere).

Last couple of days of our little sailing trippet was a fast breezy jaunt over to Anse d’Arlet on the west coast. Sooper little seasidey beachy type place in between the hills. Anchoring was exciting as the wind had not lessened any but had gone digital instead. That is to say it was either 0 or 1. The 1 being a very Big 1, about 25 knots every 25 minutes. You’d be sipping your Earl Grey one minute in your straw boater, and the next youd be struggling around the deck waiting to fend off gyrating boats while recovering the washing line and wayward dinghy. Very unsettling these williwaws. Great blocks of air tumble down from the mountains every time the pressure up there reaches a trigger threshold. The air feed is from the tradewinds on the other side of the island.    

Anyway good old CQR held again so we had a couple of days exploring and snorkelling. This place had to have the best customs clear out method EVER.  Small cafe at end of beach. Dusty computer terminal propped in the corner right by the deep fat fryer. Do DIY form on computer, to beat of Reggae music. Then print out form and take it to dancing girl in bikini on beach. While still dancing she stamps the form. Easy. Why can’t they all be like that?

28 Feb 2012 - A little light duty

Had some time at sea in several stages.  The Chadwicks reported for duty on board, but the weather was absolutely cr*p for days. So we whistled aimlessly and drummed our fingers. Meanwhile over on ‘Annie’, skipper Graham had hurt his back, so his 2 crew who had joined from London were also whistling and drumming their fingers. Now I don’t want to offend anyone here. I’m a bit immature and tend not to act my age. My reactions to these circumstances are to drink a lot of beer and get very drunk, meet the wrong sort of people, in all the wrong places,  and probably say a lot of things I shouldn’t. I am also likely to listen to some pretty awful 1970’s music loudly and to stay up very late just to make really sure I’m grumpy and incapable the next day. If I smoked, I’d probably also smoke something I shouldnt.  Its important that if one is going to live on the edge and go down the pan one should do it with some zeal.  My new companions however were all TNGPs (Terribly Nice Generous People) who wisely Didn’t Do Any of That Stuff, so my drumming and whistling got to be really good instead.

27 Feb 2012 - oh, oh - going slowly mad here

“Ah lake thaaat”. “Kin yah play sume more...mah daddy played thaat way”.

The faceless voice loomed out of the night.  I jumped, sending my guitar notes flying. “Kin ah come aboard and drink some beers with yah”?

Er, well OK, sort of, I ‘ve.. er..... got a big wash on the go  said I lamely to the round white face staring at me from the darkness. 

Well, he was as good as his word. He did have a few beers with me, that is to say he had about 10 beers in the 20 minutes he was onboard.  Then after I gave him a shot of my finest Jura malt he had a violent fight. With an empty plastic water bottle which got in his way.  Strong language was used, at full volume.  Lights came on in neighbouring boats. I thought if I played again he might quieten down, but he accompanied every song by a flat out of tune howling that made even me seem melodious. Finally he staggered off and was swallowed into the darkness. The lights around me went off.

I saw the American the next morning. He was the single crewman (signed on via the internet) for a very chubby and not particularly sociable bloke who was doing the atlantic circuit on a boat berthed close to mine. God knows how they will get on. Perhaps their own particular demons will fight each other on the high seas.

25 Feb 2012 - long time since I last wrote

Its a long time since I wrote last. There is a reason.  I’ve become a vbp.  A very boring person. I’ve been using Rodney Bay St Lucia as my home port. Lovely people and a nice place but quiet.

19th – 22rd Feb Mardi Gras break to Martinique

Its Sunday PM 19th Feb at St Lucia and MB is feeling a bit rough (Sinus infection and flu-like symptoms). Having been plodding away on boaty type maintenance and repair jobs for a couple of weeks its time for a welcome break in the form of a kind offer to sail northwards as mate on Rustler 36 ‘Annie’ from St Lucia bound for Martinique. Annie is another ARC Crossing yacht and is owned by her skipper, Graham Gibson from Porthscatho in Cornwall.  Our mission is to see at least a little something of the Mardi Gras type events that take place throughout the Caribbean and Latin America (but not widely observed in commonwealth countries such as St Lucia). We don’t have time to get up to the big parades at Fort de France, the northern capital of Martinique so we first make for the small village of St Anne on the south coast. We motor sail 25 miles mostly upwind to get to the anchorage before dark. Ashore to pleasant and colourful village for a beer and back to boat by torchlight.

AM  Monday, up anchor and make our way across the large bay avoiding the vast reefs, past Club Med into the inner part of Marin Bay. In the distance, yacht hulls sit forlornly on the reefs, witness to previous shattered dreams.  The anchorage area is very crowded with world girdling yachts and charter fleets. Almost every nationality is represented.

Ashore on Monday, we find the town totally involved in the day’s lively processions and celebrations. These are VERY loud and colourful. Much drumming. Large trucks with enormous ghetto Blasters. Outlandish overdressing mixes with alarmingly miniscule underdressing in great waves of dancers and marchers.  

Tuesday is Carrefour french shopping day, followed by quiet stroll around town looking for more processions and fetes. It should be red devil procession day, and eventually we find one....but its very feeble compared to yesterday’s festivities. Return onboard for MB to produce a Caribbean Beef curry.

Weds AM and we are awoken early at 0500 by party noise ashore. This is early morning pyjama procession day, and we can hear the truck based ghetto blasters at full volume 3 miles out.  We blearily drag ourselves ashore to Marin for clearance, chandlers, and coffee. This is also a busy day for the big ‘Black and White’ skeleton procession which we will have no time to see as we need to depart southwards after lunch. The wind and sea are building rapidly, and we have a very boistrous sail under genoa only, with dinghy stowed on foredeck. From about halfway across the straits to St Lucia, the sea is very lively with large breakers and a big swell.  We take several breakers on board and arrive wet and bedraggled at St Lucia just before dark after a worthwhile break away from our ‘boat joblists’ in the marina .

Happen to notice a Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship in the bay when we returned this PM. Its St Lucia's independence day and the ship is paying a courtesy visit. Staying onboard are HRH Prince Edward and his missus Sophie. They later come ashore to the marina to chat pleasantly to all and sundry en route to see the island's governor general.

(I'll try and get some photos of parades etc on as soon as I can find some decent wi-fi/broadband)

MB