SailBlog - Day 7 - The Trans-Atlantic Iguana

Mark A
30/11/2008, North Atlantic Ocean, North of Cape Verdes

Crossing the Atlantic with the ARC is not limited to aging groups of mates like us. There are whole families that do it with young children (I believe there were more than 20 this year). The ARC office lays on a programme of activities for the children alongside everything else and one of these is a competition to earn the privilege of taking ‘Eddie the Iguana’ on his annual Atlantic crossing with the ARC. All they have to do is send a picture, story or poem about Eddie and the judges would do the rest. We heard there was a shortage of entries this year so took the liberty of making our own submission with a little poem dedicated to one of our colleagues on the pontoon. For some reason they were reluctant to let Eddie come with us.

Now Edward was an Iggy, an Iggy that loved to sail

He's been across the oceans in wind and rain and hail

And now in Gran Canaria, another trip he planned

To sail to St Lucia and lie in Caribbean sands

One day in a dodgy nightclub he met a Captain John

Who skippered a boat called 'Ula', and Ed could come along

Captain John assured him it was the friendliest of crews

'Just bring your Iggy lifejacket - and lots and lots of booze!'

Now Ula was a lovely boat, the shiniest in the fleet

It had all the gadgets you could want but was lacking one thing - meat

Captain John was dark of heart and had an evil plan

He'd been to town that very day and bought a brand new pan

And so one dark and stormy night the crew sat down to eat

And Eddie sat there waiting for the latest culinary treat

His Iggy stomach rumbled in eager expectation

Of food the cook had now prepared for Edward's delectation

And Edward sat across the table looking at the crew

But when he asked what dinner was, the crew replied 'it's you!'

So Eddie's now in Iggy heaven - he's well and truly dead

While meanwhile down on Ula, the crew are well and truly fed

And Captain John is smiling at his evil misadventures

As he uses Eddie's rib bones to clean the meat from out his dentures

SailBlog - Flying Fish landed

Graham

30/11/2008, North Atlantic Ocean, off Cape Verdes

Over the past few days, the wind has picked up and so has our speed. We are averaging now a good 5.5 knots and are approaching our turning point north of the Cape Verde Islands. Once here in a couple of hours, we will be turning due west and our course will be set for Saint Lucia. Why have we come so far south you may ask? At the moment, the trade winds cannot be found above 20 Deg North and there are large areas of no wind, and areas of up to 40 knots of squalls to the north west. Our strategy is to get to the more stable trade winds as quickly as possible, then coast along at a steady speed, gaining an advantage over those who stayed further north. This is really important, or rather would be that is, if we were racing....! Last night I headed out onto the deck to move our gybe preventer rope (this stops the boom swinging dangerously across the boat in the event of a sudden wind gust) to allow us to move the boom to the starboard side of the boat, and lo and behold discovered a flying fish on deck suffering from the early stages of rigour mortis (or else it had arrived on deck pre-frozen!). This made up for the 0.5 metre long blue backed tuna which I caught yesterday morning and lost off the line less than a metre from deck. This was the biggest fish I have ever caught in my life, so it was disappointing seeing it escape, residing myself to another canned dinner again tonight! What the heck, there's always tomorrow, and tonight's meal is chicken with sweet corn and rice, one of my all time favourites. And so, we continue heading south west....

SailBlog - Still South West bound...rather quickly

Mark A

28/11/2008, North Atlantic Ocean, off Western Sahara

The seas are bigger, the wind is stronger and we are headed south at a reasonable rate of about 6 knots with the predictions on weather that things will stay very much as they are for the next couple of days. This is great for us as we can begin to make good progress to our turning point for the trip West. There is the temptation to 'cut the corner' and head more westwards now but the forecast suggests that this would take us into light winds again and so we stay heading mainly South West.

Last night we saw a boat light briefly on the horizon but today we have seen nothing but the waves and clouds as the boat rolls along across the sea. In the conditions we find ourselves in the boat tends to rock from side to side owing to how the wind and swell affect the boat. At first it makes you feel ill but after two to three days this passes and moves on to become frustration. Frustration because trying to do the smallest of tasks involves being thrown around the boat, bouncing off the walls and generally spending as much time trying to remain balanced as to do the task in hand. Finally you push frustration behind you and become resigned to living on a bouncing, rolling platform. Still waiting to find out when you reach this last state though..

The boat needs to be managed round the clock; day and night we need to keep a good lookout for other boats. The sea may be a big place but it is amazing how everybody seems to want to gather in the same bit of it. We have a shift roster that puts an individual on watch for 4 hours.  They then should be available to support the next watch for 4 hours if required before retiring for 8 hours. This 16 hour cycle means that nobody is disadvantaged and we all end up working both days and nights. However, when your awareness of days is shaped by a daily sleep cycle you do find that you lose track of time wondering 'Is it still today? Or is it now tomorrow? And was yesterday actually today anyway? I'm sure you get the picture. Let's hope that it is today and this is the correct blog entry…

SailBlog - Wind at Last!

Graham
27/11/2008, North Atlantic Ocean, off Western Sahara

The last few days have been pretty much devoid of wind so it was great last night to finally see the boat speed increase momentarily to a speedy 7 knots. An early dinner of spicy meatballs and potato stew, allowed us to enjoy a very mellow sunset over coffee. Dark came upon us, and all was quiet on the Western (Sahara) Front. Bang. Thud. OK, here we go...what has happened? We found a small furry bundle in the cockpit, later identified as a Strom Petrel, which had flown into our wind generator. Luckily, we think it may have hit the rudder and not the blades, so was still breathing OK. As per usual on the QUASAR IV bird sanctuary, out with the spare cushion, small bowl of water, bread and tuna, and leave the bird in peace in a quiet part of the cockpit to recover. Our last recovery project a couple of months back did not have a happy ending, so we were hoping for better this time. Throughout the night, the bird wandered around the cockpit floor looking quite curious, but it was obvious that it's leg had been damaged. The good news is that at lunchtime today, it made a bid for freedom, assisted by Mark T, and was back flying again, no doubt with a sore leg! We are gradually getting closer to the Cape Verdes, but progress has been slow. Each day, we join a radio net at 1200 which allows us to all have a chat if we want and report our positions manually to the ARC office should the email system fail on board. Today's challenge is dinner tonight; fish stew. This would be less of a challenge if we had caught some fish perhaps? We nearly did this morning; a really big one, but it got away at the last minute (honest!) - it certainly generated some excitement at sunrise!

SailBlog - The Loneliness of the Long Distance Sailor

Mark A

27/11/2008, North Atlantic Ocean, off Western Sahara

It is 2am, the sky is clear and bright, the occasional shooting star makes its short lived mark and the thinnest crescent of the moon is just beginning to poke its head above the horizon. And so another day begins…

We continue to head South and with about 200 miles now behind us we reckon on between another 400 and 500 to go before changing course. In the early hours of the morning we had seen the lights of 5 other yachts but now the sun is up there is nothing but blue sky and a flat sea - itself a rich, deep blue that you only seem to see in the open ocean. There is absolutely nothing from horizon to horizon and you seem to be able to see the earth's curvature; maybe it's an illusion, I don't know, but it does emphasise that you are a small dot in a big expanse of water. Standing in the cockpit looking out across it all leaves you with a strange mix of agoraphobia - nothing but openness - and claustrophobia, because there is no way you can leave the 41 foot of boat you are on. And so the sail South continues.

SailBlog - Downwind Sailing!

Mark A

23/11/2008, North Atlantic Ocean, off Western Sahara

Fantastic news! We are not the last in the Fleet! Today we had the first of our daily radio link ups with other ARC boats and from the position reports have determined that at least one other boat is behind us. Brilliant! (not that we are racing of course.). The sea has remained calm and the day sunny and we have experimented with getting the best out of the boat when sailing downwind.

Until I learned about sailing I simply assumed that you got the wind behind you and let the sails blow you along. In fact boats sail more effectively when they get 'pulled' along by wind flowing over the sail, coming from the side or ahead of the boat. Boats do not sail as well downwind, that is with the wind directly behind them. Downwind sailing is the situation we are in now and it is likely to remain that way as we go across the Atlantic. It is a bit of a balancing act; if you can keep the wind directly behind it fills the sails and all is good. However, with the wind and the swell moving the boat around a bit you then get the wind slightly off to one side, the sails lose some of their fill, flap about and the situation can worsen. It's a bit like standing on one leg; once you lose concentration there's a lot of wobbling about before you get your balance back. We have used a spare pole to hold our sail out and stop it flapping too much for those moments when concentration is lost! It seems to be working well and certainly seems to be helping us in the light winds we are getting at the moment.

We have seen a couple of other boats on the horizon as the day has progressed and one two miles or so ahead that we hope we might catch with our new sail rig (not that we are racing...). This evening while we sat down to our curry 100 miles off the African coast we were joined by dolphins. And then another sailing boat came with 200 yards as it slowly overtook us - fortunately for us it was nothing to do with the ARC (not that we are...).

SailBlog - The Crossing Begins!

Mark A

23/11/2008, North Atlantic Ocean, off Western Sahara

Four years in the planning and at 13.15 on Sunday our Atlantic crossing began when we crossed the ARC starting line at Las Palmas! Getting 220 boats across the line proved quite interesting as the racers juggled for position to cross at exactly the start while the rest of us simply made sure we avoided each other in the rather tightly packed melee. We hung back and so were one of the last to cross, working on the principle that crossing the line 15 minutes late would, in the course of the next 21 days, make very little difference to us.

Our course currently is taking us South to clear Gran Canaria. We then had a choice of heading straight for St Lucia - a more direct route but would mean that we would not get to the consistent and reliable Trade Winds until later in our trip - or head directly South to pick up the Trade Winds more quickly before heading West. The hot money is on the fact that the weather on the direct route will have little wind over the next few days and we have opted for the longer route with more likelihood of good sailing. Along with, or so it seems, 219 other boats.  As one of the last to cross the start we simply followed the mass of boats ahead. By night everybody had spread out a bit and ahead we saw a sprinkling of yacht lights on the horizon while behind we saw only the light of Gran Canaria beyond the horizon reflecting off the clouds. It seems our position at the rear of the Fleet was well and truly secure. But, as we keep reminding ourselves, we are not racing! The sea has been really flat, the sea sparks up as we sail and disturb luminescent plankton and the sky overhead is fantastically clear and star covered. Oh, and for the first time in ages we have worn our foul weather gear as it is rather fresh in the night air. However, we are assured as we head South it will warm up...

Diary - A Case of Mistaken Identity

Last night was one of the final parties here with a Caribbean theme.  Given that we were Caribbean bound I had raided my party box before I left home and sneaked into my luggage a Caribbean shirt and a rather bright orange, pink and green suit in Caribbean style thinking they might come in handy at some time on the trip.  So at least we had something to work with for the party.

Mark wore the shirt and I wore the suit while Graham managed to pull together something slightly Caribbean from his regular wardrobe…. The suit attracted a fair bit of comment as I circulated at the party amongst the bright shirts and Rastafarian dress everyone else had adopted.  So when a prize was announced for the best dress of the evening and that turned out to be ‘Mark from Quasar IV’ I was pushed to the front and onto the stage by a number of eager hands…to be confronted by a confused looking female organiser of ARC activities.  It transpired that she had taken a shine to Mark Thorpe and had decided to award him the prize, forgetting that there were two of us by that name on the boat.  It did not deter her though….

SailBlog - Caribbean Party

Graham

21/11/2008, Sotovento Centre, Las Palmas

Yes, another party! The theme was 'Tobago Caribbean Carnival', and this was the result...Mark T, Andrew Bishop (MD of the World Cruising Club) and me. Simply the best fancy dress party we had all been to for at least 10 years we reckon. The boat is now just about ready and today has been spent buying extra spare ropes and pulleys to allow us to deploy an extra sail. With today's forecast at the Skippers' Brief, it looks like winds will be light so we may have to learn to use the spinnaker sail after all! This will be the last blog entry for a while with pictures attached, so text only for the next few weeks. We depart the marina tomorrow morning at about 1030 with the other 220 boats. That will be interesting....! We are leaving all of the fenders out and expecting some 'close contact' on exit.... We cross the start line at 1300 and that's it, we're off. The whole crew is really excited and there is a real buzz throughout the pontoons and on all of the ARC boats. The atmosphere is electric here, but quite relaxing. No panicking until at least tomorrow when we finally realise what we have let ourselves into...! So, fireworks, jazz band and happy hour tonight, then back tomorrow after we have left the marina, hopefully still in one piece. Then, it's only 2700 Nm to go....

SailBlog - Another quiet night out....

Graham

18/11/2008, Las Palmas

Yes...another quiet night out as you can see from above. Another party thrown by the ARC team and sponsored by the local mayor of Las Palmas who attended. The dancers were fantastic and accompanied by an excellent band. You won't be surprised to hear that, once again, Bongo was dragged onto the stage and ended up limbo dancing under a pole. Still, at least he kept his clothes on this time!

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

 

Las Palmas De Gran Canaria

Las Palmas Marina

Casa de Colon - Columbus' House

Out and About in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

 

SailBlog - ARC Seminars

Graham

14/11/2008, Las Palmas

The ARC programme is extremely well organised and a large number of seminars and presentations are provided for sailors. We have split down the attendance between all of us and over the past two days have been to seminars on Provisioning, Emergency Management, Rigging, Weather and the Route, and this morning, a Sextant Top Tips session down by the sea. Throw in a night at the local Jazz Club last night, and the ARC Official Opening Party tonight, and that's a typical couple of days at the moment; busy! We still have seminars on communications, generator repair, getting back to Europe, what to see in Saint Lucia and the Caribbean Islands, and several others. We also have at least four more parties to get to yet, one of which is fancy dress ('Caribbean Carnival' theme) for which no one has a clue what to wear yet - no surprises here. Sounds like a job for the afternoon prior to the party... The atmosphere here is very relaxed and none of our crew has any concerns about the crossing. We have travelled over 2000 miles to get here from England through much rougher water than the trade winds route usually delivers and we are looking forward to a reasonably relaxing crossing with the fishing rods out trawling for tuna and some warm, sunny weather. The aim next week is to do no work whatsoever on the boat (apart from repair the generator!) and enjoy some of Gran Canaria by using the local buses to get around cheaply. This should leave us in the right frame of mind to enjoy the farewell cocktail and fireworks party; well that's the theory! Time to go and get a book on how to fish, as Mark T is the only crew member who has caught any fish in the last 2000 miles. Clearly some work is needed here! Photo: Mark T undergoing 'Sextant Assimilation'

SailBlog - Pontoon 16 - Safety Check Complete

Graham

12/11/2008, Pontoon 16-7, Las Palmas

With two frenetic days of very hard work by the whole crew, we have now completed all of our safety work on board and 'dressed' the boat with our colourful code flags. We are boat number 201 as you can just about see in the photo. The work we put in paid off and Rob, our safety inspector from the ARC team, has put us forward for the Safest ARC Boat Award (out of 220 boats!), so we'll have to wait for the prize giving in Saint Lucia and see if we were successful. We had also better make sure that we do not sink on the way over! We still have a number of smaller jobs to complete, but we now have some time of our own each day to relax before the evenings' inevitable partying. Over the next few days, we are attending a number of seminars covering many different aspects of sailing which we give us a few refreshers on some of the more salient points we need to remember for the crossing. Anyway, must go for now, another party is just starting.......!!

SailBlog - Warming up....

Graham

11/11/2008, ARC Bar, Las Palmas

Here we go....the ARC Early Arrivals Cocktail Party. Although 'official' events don't start until next week, we heard a rumour that there were a number of parties planned for early arrivals. Since they all appeared to be included in the cost, we thought we had better not miss any! The ARC happy hour last night was a great start to the festivities and gave us a chance to meet up with other crews who had also arrived early, and once over, we all moved over to The Sailors' Bar across the road, where we stayed for an excessive amount of time (led astray by a Norwegian friend of ours called Morten), and subsequently we have all been feeling exceptionally shabby this morning and afternoon due to our own complete lack of self control! The sail to Las Palmas from Fuerta Ventura was quite bouncy and we are now making the most of flat ground before our near month at sea getting to the Caribbean. We have completed all of our admin with the ARC now and are waiting for our formal safety inspection in a couple of days time. We still have a large amount of work today here, so the blog will no doubt be dead for a few days!

Diary - Close Encounters of the Boat Kind...

Last night we sailed from Lanzarote to Las Palmas from where we will start our Atlantic crossing after a further period of party and preparation.  Mark and I drew the short straw to sail the overnight passage.  With sail out and rather choppy waters we crossed the 80 or so miles from the marina at the southern edge of Lanzarote to the marina in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.  The waters here are more active with boats and as we sailed their lights and those of the towns of Gran Canaria ahead and Lanzarote behind could be seen in the darkness.

About half way across I noticed a boat behind that appeared to be on a similar course.  In the dark I could only see the navigation lights but it was enough to tell us it was a larger powered vessel and it was getting slowly closer.  Quasar IV is fitted with an Automatic Identification System or AIS receiver.  AIS equipment is compulsory for larger boats and it transmits the identification of the ship and GPS data such as its speed and heading.  The long and the short of it is that, with our receiver, we can pick up this information and it will display it on our digital chart plotter for ships in range.  With a simple bit of calculating using our own GPS data it will also display on the plotter how near any boat might come to us.  I checked the plotter down in the cabin while Mark T helmed the boat.  The good news was that the boat behind was still some distance off.  The bad news was that, if nothing changed, it would coming within 1 metre or less of us!  As skipper for the night Mark elected to hold our course; we had all the correct navigation lights on and as we were under sail the boat behind should take action to avoid us. 

As the minutes went by it was clear that little seemed to be changing: there was no alteration in the perspective of the ship's lights relative to us but they were definitely getting bigger.  There was no question that the boat behind was getting closer.  Oh, and the AIS continued to warn of a collision!  It is interesting how fast relatively slow moving sea vessels can get close to each other forcing quick thinking on the part skippers and as the freighter began to loom out of the darkness, although still a quarter of a mile away, some quick thinking was becoming necessary… Our high powered torch was pulled out and the beam shone on the white of the sail illuminating it like a beacon in the night.  At first nothing changed which was disconcerting and we wondered whether the watch keeper, who had not seen our navigation lights and now could not see a brightly lit white sail at night, was asleep on duty.  However, as we were preparing to alter course ourselves we saw the ship behind veer sharply away.  I’m guessing the inattentive watch keeper must have had quite a shock when he at last noticed us.  Not as much of a shock as us I imagine had our adventure ended before it started in a pile of match wood in the sea 20 miles of Gran Canaria…

SailBlog - Finally made it to Las Palmas!

Graham

06/11/2008, Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands

So here we are in Las Palmas for the start of the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, the ARC as it is known. This is a BIG marina; spaces for 1250 boats, and it appears to be full. Luckily, we were booked in a month ago so no problems with our arrival. We got here at noon today after a 6pm departure last night from Gran Tarajal. A reasonable passage of 80 miles, but quite bouncy. We were certainly glad to finally get behind the breakwater and the boat levelled out enough to get the kettle on for a decent cup of tea! We fuelled up on arrival and discovered that we had used 19 pounds worth of fuel in the last 500 miles of sailing! I think we can honestly say that we are helping with minimising carbon footprints... We have had an excellent meal out tonight; a kebab with a beer, with waiter service! We're all tired after the night crossing, so an early night tonight and a fresh start tomorrow. Our next sail will be 2700 miles and our longest yet, but we have to get in at least 20 parties yet here in Las Palmas, so we are having a quiet night in with a film....and a bottle of fine, red wine that cost 2 Euros....and no doubt, a packet of Rennies to offset the cheap red wine!

SailBlog - Gran Tarajal

Graham

04/11/2008, Gran Tarajal, Fuerteventura, Canary Islands

A short sail today of about 13 Nm has now located us at a place called Gran Tarajal. Confusion over the name had everyone on board thinking that we could go out for a curry here as it sounded like a place called 'Taj Mahal'. How wrong could we all be? This town is relatively quiet, and free from tourism. It appears to be quite traditional, although there is some evidence of apartments being built at the southern end, so it has not entirely escaped the tourism trend so evident elsewhere on our travels. We saw a large shark swimming along today, but not much else in the way of marine life, or indeed any other life. There are very few other yachts around and we and we certainly feel as if we have the island to ourselves. I am certain this will all change once we get to Gran Canaria in a few days time.

SailBlog - A new island - Fuerteventura

Graham

03/11/2008, Pozo Negro, Fuerteventura, Canary Islands 

With storms and 4 metre swells now on the decrease, we departed Lanzarote this morning after a very pleasant stay in the Rubicon Marina. Today's destination was to be Las Playitas, about half way down the east coast of the island, but progress was slightly slower than planned and we have anchored in a small cove at Pozo Negro. The dinghy is in the process of being inflated so that we can investigate ashore, and a chicken curry is on the go on the cooker, smelling excellent. In fact, it is ready, so that's it for now!

SailBlog - The Story of the Hen Night.....

Anonymous!

01/11/2008, Bar One, Playa Blanca

The conversation went like this...."So, Bongo, are you coming to the Bar One with us tonight?" "No, I'm having a quiet night in", "But you will miss the 20 bunny girls turning up for the hen night...", "Oh, OK then, I'll get my coat...!" The rest is history. We had a very enjoyable evening in the bar, standing on the floor, whilst Bongo had an equally enjoyable evening dancing on the bar being stripped by a girl in a bunny outfit! If you want to see what happened next, drop us a line and we may email you the next two photos!!! The good news is that no-one was arrested and we all made it safely back to the boat....at 4am again.