All posts in December, 2013

According to the Routeing chart we should be in an area where the wind is dominant from the NE at F4-5 with less than half a percent chance of getting a calm. But yet again we have found that less than 0.5 %. It’s very hot today as well. With no breeze to cool things down the sweat pours out of me just sitting still and the deck is almost too hot to stand on barefoot.

Yesterday night was different. The wind was very up and down all evening then at 2300 it steadied up from the SSE and was a good sailing breeze, about a F3, for the next 6 hours. The wind generator was turning for the first time in ages. I really thought we had turned the corner and had seen the last of this light wind for a while. But, by sunrise it had fallen again. The sky was veiled with thin cloud and there was barely a whisper of wind. From then until 1000 it stayed like that and then fell away altogether. I had a wash. A bucket of salt water and soap then a few dousings with bucketfuls of salt water and a final rinse with a litre of fresh water. I changed the bedclothes as well and everything felt a bit fresher.

I had the sails up again at 1100 when I thought I could feel a breath of air but they were down half an hour later. Three Dorado came around the stern but they weren’t biting. Later four big Dorado, 5-6 feet long came in but I didn’t even try to catch them.
I couldn’t get a noon sight today. The thin cloud completely covered the sun and, through the sextant mirror, it was just a diffused blur over a hazy horizon. After noon though the sky cleared and I got a normal sun sight. That’s when it really started to heat up as well.

Now, at 1430, there’s still no wind and we are wallowing again in a low swell from the NW. I had the sails up half an hour ago but it was pointless, they were just flogging constantly and we were going nowhere. Maybe tomorrow it’ll all change..

In the six hours from noon yesterday we moved eight miles. And it stayed like that all evening and all night. I was up and down several times, sails up, sails down till at 0100 when the sails came down they stayed down. It was calm the rest of the night but it was like the sky had steamed over and only the brightest stars were shining through vague and hazy. That toenail moon has certainly grown and will need cliping before too long.
I just woke in time for a radio contact with Alyson, 0630 my time. After we spoke I went outside and there still wasn’t a breath of wind. What I did find though, was a fish swimming under Elsi near the rudder. I rigged a line and dropped it over but it wasn’t really interested. I opened a tin of mackeral I was going to have for lunch and baited a hook with some. He had a sniff at it but maybe the mustard sauce put him off. I’d planned a smoked sausage for dinner and sliced off a bit to temp him with. It worked and he was in the cockpit before he knew what was happening.

He was about a foot long, blue and black and with his hard snapping mouth and sharp teeth he looked a bit like a Parrot fish. The skin was as tough as leather and I could have soled my boots with it.

By the time I got that all sorted a whisper of wind has arrived and I set sails again. We made our way inch by inch into the SW. I stripped down the port winch and put on new oil and grease. The pawls especially have to be checked because if they are not free the winch will not lock under strain and that could be dangerous. But everything was fine and I will do the starboard winch soon as well.

In the late morning a merchant ship the BBC Virginia passed close by. She was on her way from Santos, Brazil to Emden, Germany with, of all things, a cargo load of wind turbines.

By noon we had moved 18 miles in 24 hrs and the wind had moved off somewhere else. We were again a painted ship on a painted ocean. With no wind to cool us the temperature inside the cabin today is 30 C. I had a closer look at the starboard side and can see goose barnacles growing there as well. They’ll have plenty of time today to latch on.
In the afternoon I serviced the starboard winch as well and when I’d finished I could feel a movement of air and see a ruffle begin to form on the sea surface. So, sails up again and we were moving. While I was sitting in the cockpit watching the wind to see if it would hold I heard a thump thump from the stern. It was three medium-sized Dorado bumping into the Aries steering oar as if to say, “Here we are, try catching us as well!”. They are a very good eating fish and I wasted no time in rigging a line and baiting it with some of the left over bits I’d kept from this morning. I managed to catch two of them so there’s plenty for dinner tonight and tomorrow as well.

The wind picked up yesterday evening to around a F4 and we were bowling along at 6kts. The wind dropped not long after that and while we could still hold a good course our speed was nearly halved and the sails were back to the old slap and rattle. I was up regularly during the night checking for land and at 0400 I could see the cluster of orange dots in the SE that were the lights ashore on Santo Antao. I could see then that we were going to be clear of the island no problem.

At first light I could make out the grey top of the island above the lighter grey of the early morning haze. The lower half was shrouded completely. An hour later and it had all disappeared as we sailed further into the SW.

We had a visitor in the morning. It was a bird that looked like a small white heron. It circled Elsi then landed on the round for’ard hatch, the nearest thing aboard to an avian helipad. I got a photo of it but when I went below for the video camera it took off. A photo was one thing but it wasn’t being part of any movie. I followed it and it joined up with five others. They circled and I thought they were all going to land but they headed off to the south. I looked it up in my book that’s supposed to have all the seabirds of the world but there was nothing similar. I can only assume they were land birds that had strayed from their familiar territory.

A few goose barnacles have started growing on Elsi; mainly near the stern and on the port (sunny) side. It’s not surprising really. We’ve been moving so slowly for a while now in these warm waters. But they are almost all on the green of the hull and not on the coppercoat anti-fouling. I scraped some off today with a scraper on the end of the boathook.

It’s very hot again today. The deck is hot underfoot and I need to cover up to go outside otherwise I would cook. The wind now (1300) has dropped to a near calm again and we are rolling all over the place. The reason for going to the west side of the Cape Verde’s was to find a steadier wind..but, it’s just a year when the Trades don’t blow. It does happen and we’ve caught one of those years. We still have a way to go to the equator so I hope it will pick up before too long.

The box I have my lemons stored in is tucked away under a shelf in the for’ard part of the boat. Yesterday afternoon I stuck my hand in to get one and found there were quite a few that had gone off. I pulled the box out into the cockpit and drew a bucket of water then rinsed the worst of the mould from the remaining good ones. I had to chuck out about half a dozen as they had gone to mush but the rest were salvageable and they’ll do for a bit yet.

While I was doing this a small squad of flying fish flew up as if from a starting gun and skirted over the wave tops. They have been very scarce on this trip. By this time in 2006 I’d had to pick them off the deck in the mornings regularly. I’ll get a breakfast or two from them yet. They are amazingly quick when they lift off and glide for surprisingly long distances. They will fly from wave to wave, sometimes it will end in a crash-landing and at other times with a flick of the tail they would be off again as if from a slingshot. I can imagine the older salts on the square-riggers telling the young lads shipping out in a British winter on their first trip that they would see fish that could fly and the sun would be so hot it would cook an egg cracked on to a metal plate on the deck. How far fetched it must have seemed. I’m still waiting to see my first mermaid though.

The wind fell away during the night and veered more into the east. At 0300 I had to gybe round to keep us heading on course. We were more or less dead downwind and with the Genoa poled out and us sailing goose winged we rolled constantly gunwhale up and gunwhale down all night.

There was a strange sky in the morning. The clouds stretching out on each side of the rising sun were small, individual and each one had been squashed down with the heel of a hand to flatten it out. It looked as though a massed fleet of flying saucers were flying in from the east.

The wind has held fine all morning, NE’ly F3-4 with a hot sun and blue skies. I baked a Chibata bread and it came out really good. I had a couple of big chunks for lunch then had to go for more with jam for dessert.
Our noon position puts us about 75nm from the west side of Santo Antao; the western edge of the Cape Verde’s. On average there is more chance of a steadier wind to the west of the group than from sailing through them so we are skirting the western edge before diving south to the equator. Visibility can be poor around the islands at times so whether we will actually see them or not is guesswork. We’ll know tomorrow.

All yesterday afternoon I thought I could hear the low rumble of thunder but as if were very far away. To windward the sky looked overcast but it didn’t look like a thundery sky and at times I began to imagine I was hearing things. But as the afternoon wore on the clouds built up and there was no doubt any more that it was thunder I’d heard. It grew louder and at times seemed to rumble on and on so that there was hardly a break between. Then the lightning started. It was right ahead of us and we were sailing steadily towards it. Brilliant forks with immense electrical power in them streaked down to the horizon. I counted the time between the strike and the rumble starting. It was twelve seconds. Not very far away. Elsi’s mast isn’t very high but it was the tallest thing for miles around and I began to feel very vulnerable. I was due to have a radio schedule with the local club about that time but I pulled the fuses from the radio and other things just in case we got hit.

While all this was going on we were suddenly surrounded by a large school of dolphins. They were mainly at the bow but were all around us. If they were concerned by what was happening above the surface they certainly didn’t show it. It was a kind of surreal experience, all this potentially deadly thunder and lightning and dolphins playing casually around us.

It started to rain. As I went below I could hear my onions sizzling. I’d put on the tea to cook while all this was happening. As it happened the rain cleared away and so did the thunderstorm. When it did we were left with enough wind from the NNE to hold a steady course and keep the sails from slapping too much. The wind held all night and it was the best night’s sailing we’ve had in a while. It wasn’t enough to keep the sails full all the time but we were underway.

As the days light started to come in the sun rose like an orange hot air balloon. It slowly filled and appeared to cling to the water for a bit when it was almost full then finally got enough heat in it to lift up and rise above the surface. A tanker, the King Edward, passed us at the same time bound for the Cape Verde’s with some kind of fuel. The AIS said they would be there by 2300 tonight.

I rigged the towing generator this morning. It’s just something I made up myself using a permanent magnet alternator with an aluminnium propeller on a length of braided rope. It seems to work fine and at 4kts was giving out 2 amps. I should really have a funnel to slip over the line to stop the propeller from turning when I retrieve it but I don’t. So the hardest bit is actually pulling the prop back in again. If it’s too difficult I can always heave to or drop sails to slow us right up to get it back aboard.

Chafe is a continual problem onboard as Elsi is constantly moving and I have to watch for it all the time. I can check the halyards easily enough but the topping lift has to be lowered to the deck to inspect it. Today I pulled down the topping lift to check it. I have three reefs in Elsi’s mainsail but in these latitudes I have taken the third reef pennant off the sail. I don’t need it and it only adds to the chafe. If a storm were to spring up suddenly I could rig it without too much trouble. So to lower the topping lift I sew the end of the third reef pennant onto the end of the topping lift and that gives me enough length to lower it to the deck. When I got it down it looked ok, which was reassuring. I have the halyards and topping lift greased up with Vaseline where they run over the sheaves so I gave it a fresh coat and pulled it back up again. I made a note in the logbook to check it again in 30 days time.

The clocks have gone back another hour today so we are two hours behind GMT now. It’s just after mid-day now and the wind appears to be holding. It’s still a NNE F3 with a low swell from the NW. We’re making 4 knots and the towing generator along with the shaft alternator and the solar panel are topping the batteries up. Our noon position puts us about 180nm from the west end of the Cape Verde’s. If we keep up this speed we’ll be there in two days time; another milestone on the journey.

Last night the sun sank into a glassy ocean with us sitting in a circle of calm. I sat on deck looking for a chance to set sails again but it wasn’t happening. The layered stratus clouds near the west horizon and the smudges of other clouds a little higher up were purple in the final rays of the sun. From behind one of the smudges a toenail moon began to appear and it was good to see the moon beginning to grow again.

About an hour after sunset I was able to set sails again. It was just a whisper of wind and the sails were slapping pretty frequently but we were moving. The wind held mostly all night although it was very light at times. At 0300 I had to take the main down as the rattle of the slides in the boom told me it was doing more harm than good to keep it set.

At daybreak I got the cruising chute up and we trundled along at a snails pace. By 1030 however we got a bonus. The wind suddenly increased to about a F3 from the NNW and when I got the main up we were making 4-5kts. This was more like it! About the same time I saw a sail astern of us and the AIS told me it was a yacht called “Phoenix of London”. The wind didn’t last however but we got an hour or so before it faded away again.

Phoenix called me up on VHF. There were three guys onboard, Sasha, Antonio and Ricardo. They were from Lanzarote and were delivering this yacht to the Cape Verdes for the owner to take on to the Caribbean. They were complaining too about the lack of wind and had the motor going to keep up the delivery schedule. They were very friendly and I asked if they would do me a favour and take a photo as they went past and email it to Alyson. “No problem” they said, they would be glad to.

They came close by as they passed and were as good as their word and clicked off a few shots as they went by. We had a chat and a laugh and wished each other all the best. They should be in the Cape Verde’s in a couple of days so you may see a photo up here then. A Cruise ship called “Silver Wind”, which was close behind Phoenix, altered course at the same time to pass close by as well.

Other than that it’s been a very quiet day. I baked another tray bake/slice thing and enjoyed that with a cup of tea on deck for elevenses.

The radio schedules with the local Shetland Radio club have been very mixed. Sometimes the signal has been good but mainly it has been pretty poor and difficult to make out. It’s the same with sending these reports back. Because it is radio based it often doesn’t go through first time and I have to wait till evening or early morning before trying again.

Sasha said the wind was going to change tonight or tomorrow for the better and I might have a N’ly F3. Lets hope he’s right.
……

All yesterday afternoon there was hardly any wind and by 1630 the sails were down again. I did try them up at 2000 but it was futile and they were only up 20 mins before I had to accept the fact we were becalmed. It was fine and still though. I had taken sights of Venus and Deneb earlier and while I was taking the sails down I could hear dolphins surfacing and blowing around us but I couldn’t see any.

There was no wind all night. I tried the sails up at 0430 but again I was wasting my time. During the morning I tried the cruising chute up but it would only fill for a second or so before collapsing back onto the rigging. I tried over-sheeting it and it was marginally better but in the end I had to take it down. It was hot and the sun had that tropic burn to it. I squeezed half a lemon into a glass and topped it up with water. It wasn’t chilled but it was good and refreshing.

There was a White Faced Storm Petrel hanging around and I gave him some of my leftover bread but he only made a half hearted stab at it. At noon the days run was a grand total of eight miles, although it was more like 19 miles including current.

In the afternoon a whisper of wind came in from the NE and I pulled up the chute again. This time it would stay full for as long as maybe four seconds at times before collapsing. But the filling and emptying was non-stop. Right ahead of us in the water was something floating and I steered for it. At first I thought it was a dead dolphin or a mound of garbage but it turned out to be a turtle. I wasn’t sure at first if it was alive or dead but as we came alongside it started to swim away. There were two white fish underneath it who, I imagine, were cleaning its shell. As we slowly moved past it started to lift its head out of the water and come after us. We were only just moving faster than it was and slowly left it astern.

But the wind didn’t last and the chute is down again. I think it’s a very different day back home in Shetland with F10-11 forecast for tonight. Somewhere halfway in between would suit me fine!

Venus was brilliantly clear in the SW at evening twilight; a piercing led light shining down at us and I got a good sight for a position line. Not long after, at 2015, I had to drop the sails, the wind had fallen again to nothing. It was a clear starry night with no moon. The sky was a colander of pinholes of light all over but the only glimmer to break the blackness of the ocean was a silver path that ran between Venus and us. It was as if the sea and sky were showing us the way to go. And they were right, it was leading into the SW but we weren’t getting there tonight.

The wind didn’t come in again until 0245, a light breeze from WNW. The bit I’d written for the website hadn’t sent earlier so I tried it again after I’d got sails up. Sometimes the propagation is better at night and so it proved this time as it sailed off into the airwaves.

At sunrise I could see a sail astern to our NE. It turned out to be a French yacht and he called me up on the VHF. He was a singlehander as well in a boat of a similar size to Elsi and he was heading for Martinique. He’d crossed the Atlantic before, in 2007 in a smaller boat, 24 feet long. She was now in the Grenadines and he was hoping to have a meeting with her again.

The water coming from the seawater pump I have for the galley had been smelling bad and I stripped it down this morning. It didn’t look too bad inside but I cleaned it all up and put it back together. I use it for washing dishes when the weather is bad so the water coming out of it has to be clean. In fine weather I just dip a pot or plate over the side and give it a scrub. I rarely use fresh water for washing up apart from baking trays and the like as they don’t care for salt water.

While I was servicing the pump I came across a couple of cabbage which had gone off and it looked like I’d have to chuck them. But once I’d peeled off the worst they still had a heart of gold, well light green, and will do for a feed or two yet. I also found a ruler, which had gone missing from the chart table in the Bay of Biscay. I thought it had fallen down the back of the chart table but it had obviously shot right across the boat with one of the bad rolls we did there and ended up on the other side behind one of the galley bins where I keep day to day food.

Another yacht appeared astern. She was much bigger at 34m, a millionaire’s yacht, and was called “Highland Breeze”. I called them up thinking there might be a Scottish connection and there had been. In the past she was owned by, I think he said Lord Laidlaw? They were also complaining of the light winds and were heading for Sao Vincente in the Cape Verdes to take on more fuel. They were motorsailing when they passed us at 11kts. They came close enough for us to shout across to one another and one man on the stern, who could have been the owner, shouted, “You take care”.

I made some more water using the watermaker and only did 15 minute sessions so my sweat to water ratio was better! Conditions for sextant sights are near perfect just now with clear skies and sharp horizons. The clear skies at these latitudes also mean a burning sun and today it has been doing it’s best to fry my skinny white body.  I can feel it’s given me a whack across the shoulders as I sit and type here. Once the sun had passed due south the wind began to fall again as it did yesterday. It has only been a murmur all day but now it’s not even that. I’ve had to take the mainsail down and I’ve left the Genoa up but I can hear it suffering outside just now as the swell knocks what little wind there is out of it. I’ll have to go and have a look.