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Harry & Colin (from Full Monty) rescuing a dinghy with the assistance of a sealion
Yesterday afternoon I spent 2 hours chipping and scrubbing the weed and barnacles off the 10 metres of anchor chain that run from the waterline to the bottom – the other 30 metres to the anchor is lying on the bottom in the silt and has stayed clean. Meanwhile John & Harry were tidying and stowing ready for sea. We had a rain shower this morning and lo & behold – our gecko, last seen 2 months ago - appeared in the cockpit, drinking the rainwater.
Farewell San Cristobal
We made some water, I baked a big batch of chocolate brownies and then we set off, motoring between the land and the reef, with breakers either side until we cleared the headland and headed out into the ocean.
23rd April
Harry had a flying fish land in the cockpit at midnight while he was on
watch, which really made him jump as it crashed around, then at 3am I was by the wheel checking the
course & wind direction when one hit me in the back with a big thump – took
my heart quite a time to stop racing! We
are a thousand miles from land & have seen no other boats or ships since we
left, just ocean, waves, clouds, stars, shooting stars, rain, flying fish and
the waxing moon. Dolphins appeared one
night as green bioluminescent torpedoes
and another night leaping in the moonlight, but
we have seen none during the day.
One evening, still a thousand miles from anywhere, we saw a
split in one of the headsails, on a seam and it took all 3 of us to get the
headsails down in the rough seas. We
used our much smaller staysail for the night and as we were going more slowly
we rolled and pitched like crazy – it was a really uncomfortable night so at
first light I repaired the sail. Getting
them back up was difficult – it is a job we would normally do in a marina or at
anchor in flat seas and no wind. We were
doing it in 20 knots of wind and a rough sea so had to plan it all carefully as
we didn’t want the sails to blow over the side before they were
re-attached. Once we had them laid out
along the side and attached at the 3 corners I had the lovely job of preventing
them from being blown into the sea so I lay down on them while being bounced up
& down on the foredeck and was kept cool by spray. Harry then took over and was right on the
bow in the 2 metre swell, feeding the sails into their ‘grooves’ with the bow dipping
into the ocean – he said it was better than a roller coaster ride. I steered us almost into the wind, keeping
all the sails just on the starboard side so Harry & John could see each
other and communicate while John winched the sails up. Every time the wind caught a bit of sail the
boat would veer away & I had the engine on to help get steer back into the
wind. Harry & John were crashing
around up for’d but we managed to get them up without too much difficulty,
which was a big relief.
30th April.
We are in sight of land!! In 16
days sailing we spotted one ship at 5am on day 11, no whales or day-time
dolphins, the full moon has been gorgeous but is now on the wane and we are
ready to see land. It has got a lot cooler as we are well out of
the tropics now at 27 degrees south, and we have got the sweaters out for night
watches and blankets on the bunks!
Crossing the Atlantic
I re-read Thor Heyerdahl’s book, The Ra Expedition, about crossing the Atlantic
in a papyrus raft . On this voyage I
have read his book, Aku-Aku, about his seven month archaeological adventure on
Easter Island in 1955, when he had to charter a ship from Norway for a year to
get there. It is fascinating, especially
as the people still had an oral history of the island. He saw the first statue lifted back up in the
old way – it took 12 men with hundreds of stones and wooden poles 18 days to
lift back into position.
After the first week of moderate winds, sparkling blue seas
and sunshine we then hit the rainy section with strong winds, a big swell and
rain showers, one evening we were completely engulfed in torrential rain
forming a grey basin right around us just feet from the boat, blotting out
everything. It rained for hours.
The last week at sea was rough, the
prevailing south-westerly winds were more southerly so we were sailing close to
the wind to avoid being swept past Easter Island and so the boat was heeled
over and pounding and rolling in the heavy swells. Each day we made plans to miss Easter Island
and head west towards Pitcairn but we managed to keep going despite being tired
and so, so bored with being bashed around.
We had a fridge failure, but John fixed it, then one of the bolts on the
wind-vane steering sheered so that was another 3 person job in heaving seas as
we had to suspend the steering gear from a halliard while fixing it.
John caught a 9 pound dorado off the coast
We thought these hills look like a giant head
The Customs
& Immigration called us up as soon as we had anchored off the settlement of
Hanga Roa. Within an hour they were on board – we have
to fly the Chilean flag at all times and at the highest point on the boat. Just to emphasize how remote this place is we
must have the VHF radio on at all times, they needed the serial number of our
EPIRB (emergency radio beacon) and we had to give them our contact details in
England – they didn’t want our boat email address! Then they took away all the fruit and veg we
had left that was stored out of the fridge (yes, the ones in the fridge were
spared and if we had known that ..) while assuring us we could replace it all
in the market, and with the payment of $25 port dues plus $130 National Park
tickets we were cleared in and all was well safely at anchor once again.
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| The Chile flag I made in Galapagos, flying high |
