I write this from the Atlantic Ocean underway to French Guiana. Days 1, 2 and 3 As usual, the first couple of days of sailing are a bit of a struggle as we settle into watches and I get seasick. At this stage it's a lot better, I just get through the motions of it. We had an eventful first three days at sea. It felt like we were spat out of Mindelo, through the acceleration zone between the islands of Sao Vicente and San Antao. That evening, we could hear a clacking noise coming from the mast base in the saloon. A new noise we hadn't heard before. The noise continued as we sailed 50 or so miles away from Mindelo. We slowed the boat down and discussed what our options were, as we didn't know if there was damage to our mast. We could either go back to Mindelo (a hard beat to windward into a force 6 or 7, with steep seas and the current against us, with what might be a dodgy mast), and try to find somewhere to pull the mast so we could investigate, or we could continue to sail south and stop at the next island, which was Brava. There are no marinas or yard there, but we could at least stop the boat. The other option was to continue sailing and investigate/reinforce it whilst underway. We decided to continue sailing, but we reduced sail and were now sailing at 3 knots instead of 6.5 knots. Mattis thought it could be the join between the two sections of the mast. Or rather, the sleeve inside joining them, moving slightly as the boat rolled. Mattis decided to reinforce the mast below decks with an epoxy GRP sleeve. This took him at least a couple of hours. It was the first time working like this underway. The last thing we could think of where the noise could be coming from was from the mast step (the step is usually a piece of wood sat on the keel, with a metal fitting fastened to it). Talking to other owners of Contessa 32s, we'd been told that the mast step is made of balsa wood (a soft wood) covered in fibreglass, and that it is prone to rot and compression issues. Mattis didn't think this sounded right. He wanted to investigate the mast step, but before drilling holes to see if it was waterlogged, Mattis wrote an email to Kit Rogers via our satellite communication device. Kit is the son of Jeremy Rogers, the original builder of the Contessa 32, and now runs the boatyard. In the meantime, Mattis continued working and wrapped a jubilee clip around the base of the mast and tightened it as hard as he could. This alone stopped the clacking noise! Thank goodness, we were running out of ideas. Kit wrote back and let us know that all of their mast steps are made out of a solid grp laminate. Therefore, there should be no issues with compression. Kit was great and reassured us straight away. It was brilliant to know that even underway and at 2200 UK time, we were able to get advice. On the second day of our passage, there was very little noise coming from the mast. And on the third day, once our strength was back up, I hoisted Mattis up the mast to check on a creak (from a halyard sheave), and to give the rigging a once-over. Day 5: Thursday 11th January 2018 I'm currently on watch and Mattis is taking a rest, reading a book down below. I write this whilst listening to Herbie Hancock. A friend asked me a while ago if I've had any tricky moments since we've left. What scares me the most is when we're on our night watches. I worry that Mattis might not be there when I wake up. For example, if he falls off the deck when checking something. The more experience I get with each passage, the more I realise what can go wrong. Sadly, it can and has happened, where a partner has woken up and their other half wasn't there anymore. The person off watch would have no idea what time it happened or which direction they had gone. Luckily, we're always clipped on no matter where we are on the boat. Our number one rule is no going overboard. Day 6: Start of Friday 12th January 2018 (0100) We've started doing 6 hour watches, which are suiting us much better than the 4-5 hour watches we tried at the beginning of the passage. We get more rest, which is really important. I like going to bed early and Mattis tends to go to sleep later than I do, so we worked out the following: 0600-1200 Mattis 1200-1800 Mo 1800-0000 Mattis 0000-0600 Mo Then the same every day after that. On our off-watches, we didn't use all of that time for sleeping. We'd spend a lot of time together in the cockpit or on deck, or cooking, cleaning, reading, fishing... For this passage, we replenished our food stocks with fruit, vegetables and eggs. We'd bought all of our dry goods from the Canaries, as apparently it gets harder and more expensive to buy dry goods once you leave there... We bought: 50 Granny Smith apples (last forever) 2 large squashes 2 bunches of green bananas 8 clementines 5 kilos of potatoes 1 kilo of sweet potatoes 4 trays of eggs 2 kilos of onions 1/2 kilo of garlic 2 large watermelons A friend we'd met, Ally, told us that melons keep for a long time if you don't open them. They're nice to have especially when it gets really hot during the day. It's been getting warmer and warmer every day since we left Mindelo. We were hoping to catch more fish this time and we have been fishing, but there's so much sargassum seaweed out here that the lures get caught in it. They drag the weed and eventually break off under the weight. We've lost two lures so far. We're going to leave fishing until there's no more sargassum. At times we see so much out there, it's like carpet floating on the water. Yesterday, we saw our first whale. We were chatting away in the cockpit and I saw this huge black mass diving back in the water, making a mammoth splash. Out of nowhere. We stared to see if the whale was going to do it again and it did, twice, leaping clean out of the sea. It must have seen our hull under the water. Not sure what kind of whale it was, but it was definitely larger than our 10 metre boat. This was the first animal that we'd seen so far, apart from flocks of flying fish and birds. No dolphins yet. 0300: As I was writing for our next blogpost and keeping watch, I was looking up at a constellation, the Big Dipper, and I heard a 'BANG'! A 12" flying fish happily flying through the air had hit our boat. I was looking around thinking 'what's broken off?'. I turned on my headtorch and put him back in the water. 2 minutes later, another one needed saving. This seems to happen a lot more during the night than the day. I suppose they can't see out of the water very well (and in the dark). Day 7: Saturday 13th January 2018 Watermelon Day! And half-way day! We opened our first watermelon and it was amazingly fresh. We checked the distance we covered yesterday at noon and we had sailed 152 miles in 24 hours. Our quickest yet and today, still steaming ahead, we were doing 9.5 knots surfing down the waves. Our top speed so far. Day 9: Monday 15th January 2018 Since around Day 6, the days and nights have been flying by. We've gotten used to our watch system and have a routine. We're really enjoying being at sea! Day 10: Tuesday 16th January 2018 30 flying fish landed on our deck overnight. This was many more than the 5 or so we'd normally get in a night. We'd save the ones we could hear flapping around in the dark. There was a new moon tonight (no moon), maybe that had something to do with it? Day 11: Wednesday 17th January 2018 For the past few days we'd been sailing around 140-150 miles each day. Yesterday, we covered 90 miles. It felt like a lot more, but after checking the pilot atlas (a 1998 edition of "Monatskarten fuer den Nordatlantischen Ozean" that we found by the marina skip in Tenerife, it is full of useful information and amazingly detailed), we found that the Guyana Current has an eddy that reverses its direction in the region we were crossing. So we were stemming a 1.5 knot current. It looks as though we'll be in the eddy for the next day or so, but once we get nearer to the coast of South America, the current should sweep us along to French Guiana. Day 12: Thursday 18th January 2018 We're currently 5 degrees north of the equator. As each day passes, we get more and more thirsty as it gets hotter out here. At the moment it's about 30 degrees celcius. I've been reading a new book every couple of days and I didn't realise how much I missed reading. With so many screens in front of us all the time at home, it's easy to stop picking up books. The last fiction novel I read happened to include a lot of astronomy and I gazed up a lot on my night watch, figuring out which constellation was which. On this passage, the Big Dipper has kept me company most of the time. I liked seeing how the angle of the 'handle' twisted slowly through night, circling round Polaris, the north star. Last night on Mattis' watch, a seabird landed above him and made itself comfortable sitting on the boom. It was quite happy there, its head nestled into it's wing, sleeping. As we were swapping watches, we noticed another bird of the same species was also trying to land. It hadn't quite grasped that it couldn't land on the swinging Hydrovane. Eventually, it settled on the boom as well. Slowly through the night, the second, more vocal seabird decided to edge the other bird right off the end of the boom until it flew away. Lots of bird poo on our sprayhood by the next morning, but it was nice to see how sociable the animals are out here, even in the middle of the Atlantic. Today was one of the more peaceful days on the water. Slowly gliding along at about 3 - 4 knots. Much calmer and quieter than our faster days. It's Friday tomorrow, which means that our Atlantic crossing is coming to an end soon. Part of us feels as though we can't wait to get there and part of us feels as though we don't want this passage to end. We've gotten used to the life and routine on the water, that we'll definitely miss it when it ends. Day 14: Saturday 20th January 2018 Well today is our last full day at sea. We hope to be in Cayenne, French Guiana tomorrow at around 0700 local time (+3hrs UTC). So far, we were under twin headsails all the way across the Atlantic. To increase our speed for the last 120 miles, we gybed the genoa and hoisted the mainsail. We're now in a wind-driven ocean current called the Guyana Current, which has been whisking us west along the coast of Brazil towards French Guiana, giving us a speed of 7-8 knots. We could see something flashing at the end of our fishing line once we changed sails. It was a bonita (tuna)! We let it go as it was too big for us. Shortly after, we were up on the foredeck admiring the view and we could see 3 birds of prey near our line. We'd caught a king mackerel. We kept this one and had it for lunch. This has by far been the best day. Gorgeous warm sunshine from morning, smooth, glassy waters, fast sailing (never below 7 knots) and catching fish. We couldn't have asked for a better day's sail. We've been lucky, sunshine all the way with very little rain or squalls. Day 15: Sunday 21st January 2018
Sailing more quickly than expected we arrived in Cayenne 5 hours early, in the middle of the night. The glow from the city illuminated where we needed to go. We motored in as we got closer to the anchorage. We knew low water was at around 0200, and that we would struggle to find a way in that was deep enough, especially as the charts are not very reliable in this area. However, the charts say that the bottom is soft mud, so we weren't too afraid of running aground, especially on a rising tide. Our draft is 1.65 metres. By the time we'd motored as far in as the buoys for the entrance of the anchorage, the water depth was 1.7m, 1.6m then 1.5m... We thought do we chance it as the rising tide would float us off again if we got stuck. We braced ourselves for a sudden stop. I was at the tiller and was trying to go to port, but I had no steerage. No more movement. We'd gone aground. It was so subtle, we hadn't even noticed. Mind you, the depth sounder was saying 1.0m now. It was after 0400, so we anchored where we were, tidied up, got our bed together and slept a little, until 0700. We woke up close to high water and motored to our anchorage, only 5 minutes away. But we are here now! We're looking forward to no-frills canteens and cafés, simple tables with paper tablecloths, random photos, food served in paper trays. Though from what we read in the pilot book, Cayenne, French Guiana, is just like France. Can't wait to see it. Highlights of this passage – Warm winds! Didn't mind being covered in dew during our night watches as the air and wind were warm. It didn't feel as though the dew was freezing on you this time – During the day, we were just in swimwear and our lifejackets – At night, we were wearing one layer instead of the seven we wore when we first set sail for Portugal back in August – Having a cockpit bath and feeling fresh in the midday sun – Lots of fresh fruit to keep us going – Faster days, 150 mile days with the trade winds blowing us to South America – Nothing else went wrong with the boat, apart from the first day – Catching different types of fish – Seeing a whale leap up into the air – Having guidance from our good friend Grahame back home in England, giving us regular weather reports on wind and swell. Thank you Grahame for all your guidance! We sailed 1800 miles, across 2 time zones, in 15 days. It has been the most enjoyable sail we've had out of our 7 passages so far. Trade wind sailing, warm winds, being the only ones out in the ocean for hundreds of miles around and letting our sails carry us to South America has been mind-blowing. You only get to cross the Atlantic for the first time once! What's Next? After Suriname and Trinidad, we hope to continue north. Explore more of the Caribbean and then... head through the Panama Canal and into the Pacific Ocean. We've been talking a lot about what to do, whether we just do the Atlantic Circuit and come home, or go through the Canal and explore the other side? The time is now and we've decided to do it. This passage was 1800 miles in 2 weeks. Once we go into the Pacific one of our first passages will be 3000 miles. We can do it!
2 Comments
Vane
25/1/2018 07:38:50
Lovely😍.
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Andy ( Southdown)
28/1/2018 08:51:18
Hi Mo and Mattis very pleased to read that you are safely across the pond safe and sound and enjoying your adventures! Thanks for the very interesting and informative blog that you guys keep and share always a good read to look forward to.
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