Atlantic crossing

                                A beautiful afternoon as Charlotte steers us out of Santa Cruz.


Sunday 15^th January 2012.  No wind at all.  Once the solar showers had heated up ashore we went to have our last long showers in between doing all the last, last jobs.  Topping up the water tanks, filling water bottles, deflating & stowing the dinghy, getting rid of the last bits of rubbish etc.  Did a big brunch, washed up, put clean water into bowl for sailing (just getting every last drop we can!) and sailed away from Santa Cruz at 1430 with Charlotte helming us out. Once clear of the breakwater the swell hit us, the wind got up and up and most of the crew felt seasick.  Sailed under staysail alone, our smallest sail, (beautifully made by Sarah at Wilkinsons Sails) and had a gentle supper of veggie shepherd’s pie to settle stomachs.

Monday 16^th January. 26 53N 017 24W. NE 7.  It was a rough old night, with a heavy swell causing us to roll badly, plus rogue waves suddenly thumping the sides.  John & Charlotte left me in bed and did the night between them, and I took over from John at 0630.  There was a ship just passing on the horizon, heading east. The seas were chasing up behind us, towering over the stern with huge breakers threatening to swamp the boat but Sara Jane always managed to bob up and over them just in time.  We spoke to David, on yacht Cape, on the SSB radio – very exciting to hear him as they are over 800 miles away, anchored up a river in the Gambia with monkeys in the trees around them.  John got the twizzle rig set (two headsails, one each side poled out with the inboard ends on a suspended universal joint) and then the wind-vane steering (uses the wind to steer instead of electricity or a person, so follows the wind round as it shifts direction) so the movement is comparatively much more comfortable.(Charlotte says that only I would say this was remotely ‘comfortable!)

                                                First morning at sea and not impressed!

Tuesday 17^th Jan.  25 53N 019 29W. ENE 4-5.  There was an eerie light below the horizon late last night and Charlotte reported that in the early hours it turned into a highly lit fishing boat.  John and Harry saw a big pod of Atlantic spotted dolphins playing around the bow in the early morning.  Still rolling with heavy swell so everyone is sleeping badly, and every job is hard work as unless you hold on with one hand you go flying.  Harry spotted one of the red peppers had gone furry in the net hammock & on checking I found that the others were beginning to go a bit soft.  After chucking the mouldy one, I sliced up all the rest and cooked them for 30 mins in a pan with olive oil & now they are in a tub in the fridge.  We still have 2 peppers in green bags in the fridge too. We are lucky with the planets though, with Venus following the sun down, Jupiter high overhead and Mars rising around 8pm.  Saturn rises after midnight and Mars is rising before the sun – don’t think John has seen it yet.  It is such a splendid sight to see them marching across the sky.  

 The fruit & vegetable nets are handy for other things too - Charlotte´s ´Wookie´ demonstrates.

Wednesday 18^th January. 24 46N 021 47W.  E’ly 4-5. Calm and warm enough for us to have showers in the cockpit and to make fresh coffee!  Been rolling too much for any of us to fancy coffee so far, but we are slowly getting used to being constantly thrown around.  A ship crossed ahead of us this afternoon, sailing from Europe to Brazil. At supper time, just as we were about to eat in the cockpit I went to get my fleece, the boat lurched and I bashed my head (good lump there) and wrenched my bad arm- we all have bruises from the incessant movement.  Harry came up to watch the bioluminescence in the waves – sea stars and strange shapes.  Breaking waves glow in the distance.

Thursday 19^th January.  23 58N 024 15W.  ExS 5. Charlotte & Harry are still feeling queasy so Charlotte made hot lemon, ginger and honey drinks, with delicious honey from our next door neighbour, Pip.  Still doing school down below as the wind is cool and blowing from astern.  Charlotte cooked supper, coping magnificently with the rolling deck and swinging stove.  Getting into routine now with supper on deck at 5pm so we can get washed up before dark (salt water wash of course, and fresh rinse), then I get my harness on ready to be on watch and by 7pm John & Charlotte are in bed.  I do until midnight, Charlotte takes over until 4am then John gets up to do the morning watch.  Harry comes up with me for a while before he goes to bed and we stargaze if possible.

Friday 20^th January.  23 35N 026 53W. ESE 7 (should be NE trades by now!).  We had force 8 overnight with winds south of east again, so we have the wind on the quarter and waves leaping over into the cockpit at times.  The stars were out but only about 30 degrees above the horizon and they were strangely dim despite no high cloud.  In the morning the boat was covered in a layer of ochre Sahara sand, quickly washed off the decks by the waves.  The starboard pole on the genoa decided to abandon the sail at 8.30am, dangling in the water.  John donned his harness and struggled for’d to rescue it as I grabbed my jacket and harness to put on over pyjamas.  Charlotte woke up as the new biscuit tin leapt off the non-slip matting and launched itself across the boat, distributing biscuits liberally (yes, we’re back to Tupperware now) and the espresso maker fell over on the stove so hot coffee whooshed across the top, down the back and onto the floor.  Charlotte raced up on deck to help John as I chucked a roll of kitchen towel onto the stove top, some onto the deck and got onto the radio for our daily chat with Sarah & Dave on Cape.  We have been able to get the weather forecast from as far away as Australia but not one for the North Atlantic, so it is brilliant that the ‘Cape’ team are relaying the forecast to us daily.  Even without sails up we were doing 4 knots and now have the trusty staysail up again, with big seas, topped with large breakers and wind-blown spume whitening the seas.  Occasional waves into the cockpit & over the side, so we huddled under the sprayhood and watched the stormy, scudding clouds and the infrequent flashes of sunlight illuminating the wave tops.  For the first time in ages we had supper down below (storm stew) as waves still coming over in the evening.

Saturday 21^st January.    Everyone grey with fatigue this morning after too many uncomfortable nights.  It was heavily overcast last night with rain showers and so dark there was no horizon, so we seemed to be sailing in a big, black bowl.   Still crashing around this morning, but the air has cleared of sand.  It’s been a long, grey, stormy day.  Saw the Storm Petrel that has been following us – it glides above the waves, dark & elegant.

                                                    Boat school, sheltering out of the wind.

Sunday 22^nd January.   Another dark, dark night with strong winds until 2am, when the wind suddenly dropped.  The waves and swell then grabbed us and flung the boat around like a giant hand shaking us about until the wind started again as suddenly as it stopped.  We had a late breakfast as all shattered but we celebrated sailing into the tropics just before midnight, being 30 degrees west, so put the clocks back to -2hours, and being at sea for a week.  We shared a big bar of Cadbury’s fruit and nut, the sun came out in the afternoon as the seas died a bit so John put out the line and caught a small Dorado. In the late afternoon we saw the strange, pink ‘sails’ of a group of Portuguese Man-of-war jellyfish bobbing past.

Monday 23rd.  Still have 2 swells so life is uncomfortable on board.  Charlotte spoke to Sarah on Cape and gave her Matt’s email address on board ship, as she had not managed to get hold of him on the radio. We have finished our shop bread so baked bread rolls then brownies in Remoska.  It is so noisy with the wind and seas battering us constantly, we hear the waves breaking around us and the hissing of foam.  We are in about the deepest part of the Atlantic that we will cross as there is now over 5000 metres of ocean beneath us and lots of schools of flying fish dashing past.

Tuesday 24^th Jan. 20 29N 035 26W ESE 6.  Another crashing around night, with the wind up and down and stars in and out.  Harry & I did stargazing with Orion high in the sky.  Today is the first that actually feels warm with bright sunshine and dancing deep blue sea, so at last it’s been possible to do school in the cockpit.  Charlotte was narrowly missed by a flying fish landing in the cockpit at 2am!  On our radio call to Cape today Charlotte received a message from Matt via Sarah, which was wonderful.  John caught a 3 pound Dorado just before lunch.  Baked bread and spiced fruit buns in the Remoska and Charlotte cooked a delicious fish supper.

                                                      Talking to Matt on the SSB radio.

Wed 25^th,20 04N 037 28W,  SE’ly 5. Warm starlit night with comfortable twizzle rig sails up.  Sadly with the wind still s of e we had to change to genoa alone in the morning.  A beautiful blue and shining day, with calmer seas and smaller swells.  It is blissful to have small, fluffy cumulus clouds and a few wisps of cirrus for a change.  When we tuned in the SSB radio at 9am our time it was so exciting to hear ‘Sara Jane this is RFA Argus’ and Charlotte was able to speak to Matt thousands of miles away on the UK coast! Thank you Sarah!   Charlotte’s first words were ‘it’s horrible – I hate sailing’! 

Thursday 26^th.   19 13N 39 22W.  Wind died away overnight so today we are almost drifting along at 1 – 2 knots in blazing sunshine and celebrating being halfway across!  Broke out some sweets, we all had showers and I did a clothes wash as it is calm enough to peg things along the rails without them getting a salt-water rinse.  It is very hot and humid so with the calm weather we opened the hatches and some windows to get air down below.   School in the cockpit involves finding some shade to work in! John & Charlotte saw a turtle swimming past this afternoon, but it wasn’t close enough to identify species.

                                               Charlotte relaxes with some ´cross-stitch´.

Friday 27^th. 18 52N 040 18W A calm night with just enough wind to keep us moving, and a gentle swell.  On watch last night the new moon was setting ahead, right beside Venus, making a very pretty sight.  Still drifting along at 1-2 knots and the decks are sparkling with white salt crystals.  Charlotte has been cultivating her tan and we all plan to swim if the wind dies completely.  Spent a calm evening chatting in the cockpit during and after supper, with the sun setting in golden streaks ahead.

Saturday 28^th. 17 56N 041 26W Wind picked up a tiny bit in the night and we had a good lift from the equatorial current so were making 3-4 knots for a while.  The wind picked up at lunchtime today, with a brisk force 4, little white horses dancing on the waves, and a welcome breeze on board.  We are still getting good reception on the radio and speaking to ‘Cape’ every morning and now to Aquamarine who are sailing across from the Cape Verde Islands to Surinam.  We regularly get 3 or 4 flying fish on deck overnight.

Sunday 29^th. 17 12N 043 41W. The quarter moon seemed suspended between Jupiter & Venus last night, the moon setting after 11pm.  The wind got up and we had a few, brief showers and the morning brought moderate swell & large breakers on the waves, in sparkling deep blue ocean.  Two weeks at sea now and, even better, at supper time we were just under 1000 miles from Antigua!  We have used half the water in our tanks which is good.  Life is just boat routine now, with mornings being school & kneading dough in the cockpit, cleaning, tidying, checking the remaining stores for mould or damage.  Finished the fruit salad today and now have oranges, tangerines, lemons and limes left in the fruit hammock & some in the fridge in the green bags.  A few vegetables left too, so we should be fine for the rest of the trip. With the orange squid lure, also baited with a flying fish, John caught a Dorado this afternoon.  Streaks of golden, fronded Sargasso seaweed are floating past, looking like giant moss.  

Monday 30^th   16 50N 046 13W.  Moon setting ahead last night had us sailing along a silvery path towards the horizon.  A sunny day, with moderate seas and heavy swells and, at last, some dolphins came and played in our bow wave!  They were leaping & surfing as we were hanging on while leaning over the bow cheering them on.  We voted to put the clock back an hour in the morning, so now we are on GMT -3hours.

Tuesday 31^st.  16 37N 049 00W.  We are racing along at 7 knots, rolling reasonably comfortably, with rain showers passing & occasionally raining on us.  Hot, humid & good use being made of the galley fan.  Power:  we make all our electricity on board with a diesel generator, wind generator and solar panels all helping to charge up banks of batteries under the floor.  When the generator is on we can use the power sockets to charge up things, and this time is used to go on laptops.  When we sailed away in 1999 we had 2 laptops on board – now we have laptops, mobile phones, I-Pad, DS & Kindles.

                                                         Boat school on deck!

Wednesday 1^st February.  Still sunshine & light showers, we watch rainbows forming as clouds build from small to towering cumulus.  The wind, waves and swells are still constant companions and we are bowling along nicely.  Charlotte & Harry are playing Pokemon this evening, John is learning Japanese & I have been doing my cross-stitch while keeping a lookout as I am on watch.

Thursday 2^nd.  John and the cockpit got completely soaked this morning when two big swell waves met, broke and fell over the stern – wee really have had confused seas this voyage.  It’s lovely and hot so all dried out quickly!

                                             Magnetic chess set in use.

Friday 3^rd.  We are still sailing through patches of the golden seaweed & John caught quite a bit on the fishing line before he caught the biggest Dorado this voyage – 4 kg.  We discovered years ago that getting a fish on board means slowing the boat down quickly, so each time we change the sails we also have a practice at ‘heaving to’, altering course to slow down or stop.  When we hear the line singing as it races out John goes to the rod & I go to the wheel & alter course.  If we have the main sail up then Harry goes to sheet it in then he makes sure his cabin windows are closed as they open into the cockpit. John kills the fish immediately and then does a beautiful filleting job so we have fish in portions for the fridge or freezer.  The wind has died down a bit so we have slowed down which is making us all a bit anxious – at 6 knots we will be in Antigua on Sunday, but at 5 knots it will be early hours of Monday and we are so close to making the voyage in 21 days.

The fishing team at work.

Saturday 4^TH.  The wind picked up again in the evening so we made good progress overnight and tomorrow looks like our arrival day!  We put our mobile phones on to charge ready for a phone signal when we get close enough, and we have seen two ships.

Getting the twizzle rig down - just discovering the pole is stuck! Antigua ahead.

Sunday 5^th February and land sighted at dawn!  One of the twizzle poles jammed as we got the rig down & it took 3 of us on a heavily rolling deck, to get it all down.  The sea changed from deep blue to turquoise as we approached Falmouth harbour (next to Nelson’s Dockyard) and we anchored in amongst hoards of boats, with pelicans flying past.   A couple of hours later we came alongside, and are enjoying the lush, tropical green of our surroundings.