Sheer Tenacity

Farewell to Rodney Bay

2012-02-18T07:16:00.002-08:00

20/01/2012

One can only put up withjetskies roaring about in an anchorage for a limited period…. Even in a large,pretty and well protected bay! 3 weeks was our limit!

Before we left, we managed tomeet up with a whole host of new cruising friends, as well as others who hadsailed up from

Grenada

and Carriacou.

One of the fun get togetherswas a dinghy “raft up”, where about 30 cruisers met at one point along thebeachfront, to form one huge raft. Each boat brought something to share, andthe “raft” changed shape, amoeba like, as dinghies disconnected and movedaround the raft to meet other people. With so much movement, it was inevitablethat the one or two dinghy anchors holding the raft in position, would drag….And so the raft slowly drifted out to sea! By the time the sun set we only hadtwo yachts between ourselves and the horizon!

We also took a walk up to thetop of Fort Rodney, from where we could look over to Martinique, some 25miles away. It was from this Fort that the look outs couldwatch any attempts by the French Navy to attack the British fleet anchoredbehind Pigeon Island. Ownership of this strategic position changed many,many times. We just wanted to see what point of sail would be required to makeSt Anne when we left…35 - 40degrees! All the old canons carry the Royal coat ofArms, but I did question the sensibility of the gun carriages having squareaxles in their wheels!

We were not the only boats onthe move, and watched as the World ARC departed for their one yearcircumnavigation, which ends next year in the same bay. There were about 20entrants, and it appeared that showing off flags was a very importantqualifying condition!

On our last evening before we left, the Club Med cruise ship presented an interesting backdrop, to yet another gorgeous sunset!

TELLING YOUR ASS FROM YOUR ELBOW

2012-01-12T08:28:00.000-08:00

10.1.2012

I’ve frequently thought thatsome people have great difficulty telling one from the other……… especially whenanchoring! Now at last we have found a painting which proves that I am not entirelyalone in this perception, although in this case the confusion seems to bebetween the painters Ass and his vegetable garden!

One of the reasons forhanging around in Rodney Bay, was for Mary to have a front tooth repaired by adentist who came highly recommended. In trying to untangle fishing lines, sheresorted to using her teeth in addition to hands, fingers and toes, and onetooth objected, leaving her with an amalgam smile. I offered to fix it forfree, using Pratley quick setting epoxy putty, but she turned me down!Yesterday she had this done by the local expert, who charged her about R500.00, and used his own version of Pratley’s Quick set Epoxy putty. Now, as they sayon that terrible TV advert, she can “smile broadly again!” (Incidentally, the little catamaran on thefront left of the photo, is “Ti Kanot”, which belongs to Chris Doyle, theauthor of the cruising guides used by most people in the Caribbean)

We took a bus ride into Castries, to visit the local market, and to stock up on Fruitand veggies. We also got the coconut man to open up 5 coconuts with his panga,and fill up a 1.5lt bottle with coconut water, which makes a very healthy andrefreshing drink, full of antioxidants, vitamins and things. Its even betterwhen chilled and mixed with rum for sundowners!

Another reason for staying in

St Lucia

, was to get the Life Raft serviced. It’s aridiculously expensive exercise, wherever one has it done, but , unlike RSA,where it is supposed to be done annually, the interval here and in the

is every three years. So we are now good for the nextthree years!

The waiting has also allowedus to look out for “Green Flashes”, which can only be seen on clear, cloudlessdays where the sun sets over the sea. We have seen two while here, and I again triedto capture one on camera, but missed the moment! Either that, or cameras do notwork like human eyes! Some people believe it is just an illusion, as ones eyesadjust to the disappearance of the suns bright source of light. I disagree,because, on many occasions now, when watching with groups of people , there isa simultaneous “YES”, when it happens, and a few disappointed “No’s” when itdoes not!

On this last occasion, Larryand Marlo, who had just sailed up from Bequia on “Beatrice” (ripping theirmainsail in the process), and were anchored about a half a mile away, also sawthe Green Flash, and asked us the next day if we had seen it. Fortunately, theyhad already arranged for their son to bring out a new main from Quantum, whenhe delivers a catamaran from Cape Town next month. So they are just going to stick ittogether with “Sticky Back”, and hope it gets them to St Martin ok!

Seeing the New Year in with a Bang….. or two!!

2012-01-02T09:55:00.000-08:00

30/12/2011

After checking into St Lucia at the Rodney Bay Marina, using the new ESeaClear system, (an internet driven pre arrival advice system, which cuts out all the form filling and duplication), we moved over to anchor on the Pigeon Island side of Rodney bay.

We found ourselves in front of the Sandals Resort, with some rather interesting sailing companions and boat vendors.

We will let the pictures tell the tale, and wish all blog readers a very happy New Year, and all the best for 2012!!

Swimming upstream like a Salmon!

2012-01-02T09:18:00.000-08:00

29.12.2011

Many people imagine the Caribbean to be a collection of sun drenched, palm tree lined, golden beach islands, lapped by crystal clear waters, and gentle cooling breezes. It can be all the above …….sometimes!!! It’s very rarely like that when passage making!!

During the November to Feb winter months, the temperature might be a degree or so cooler, but the prevailing Easterly trade winds pick up to between 18 and 25 knots, and clock back to NE. During the summer months, by comparison, the winds are usually in the 12 to 17knot range, from the SE. (Excluding hurricanes of course!) These gradient winds are generated by the position of the North Atlantic High, which resides closer to the equator during the winter months, and further north in summer.

On top of these gradient winds, one has to allow for the various island effects, the Cape effects, katabatic winds, inter island funnels, coastal acceleration zones etc. All too often, the seemingly manageable 18-25 knot beat can end up as a 35-40 knot thrash in wild seas, and ripping currents, on certain passages.

The point of this digression, is to explain the importance of picking the right windows! While some of these passages might just be possible, its definitely not fun!! People and boats get broken and wrecked. More to the point, I have no desire to become yet another lonely old male single hander! Cruising is supposed to be FUN, and therefore Mary must enjoy it and not just tolerate the lifestyle!

About 3 or 4 times a month, a brief window of opportunity presents itself, with winds dropping to the 14-20kn range from the East or ENE. These windows are often triggered by the cold fronts that move eastwards from Nova Scotia towards Europe, causing a hiccough in the steady clockwise circulation of the north Atlantic high. Some windows are better than others, but the message is… If you see the window..…use it or lose it!! Assess how’ usable’ it is, get your timing right, prepare the boat, and GO!

Tuesday 28^th was “GO” day. It was also a public holiday, and the single official on duty had to deal with plenty of yachties, all with urgent clearance needs! We escaped by 11.30am and headed for Bequia, some 35miles north. The weather was spot on, and we enjoyed a fast romp to Bequia, arriving at 17.30 with a Barracuda in the fridge.

We left Bequia at 6.00am the next morning, and got into the lee of St Vincent, after a good fast sail. We had to motor up the lee, up to the infamous St Vincent /St Lucia channel, where once again we found ourselves beating into a 27knot headwind . The sea was a short sharp 2/3mtr swell, which made for a wet and tiring passage. All the way up, we were forced to watch and wave to 30 or 40 yachts, all going the other way, enjoying a fabulous broad reach, sipping their beverages in relative comfort, as we slogged our way north, hard on the wind. We felt like Salmon, but without their urge to procreate!

We were happy to reach the Pitons at 15.30, in good time, only to find that all the mooring buoys were taken. As anchoring is not permitted there, we had no option but to push on for the next 20 miles up to Rodney Bay. Fortunately, the wind picked back up to 20-25knots, and in the flatter lee of the island, we made good time. At Castries, we passed in front of the Queen Mary 2, at anchor, making it the third time we have seen her since we left RSA.

As we passed her bow, still hard on the wind (on a starboard tack), we were again confronted by yet another Clueless Bareboat Charter Cat, bearing down on us, sailing with full genoa, and nobody on watch to see around it, instead, all eyes ogling the QM 2! At 200m, we were still on a collision course. We had our crash tack plan in reserve, but this time I decided to give them a full blast of the air horn. Heads popped up like meerkats, but they still did not know what to do! In the process of Horn blowing, I kicked my big toe a “hellse skoot” on a block, and was busy screaming about Blue Frogs!! Thank goodness for Mary’s Very Expressive Bitch Wings and her life long urge to be a Traffic Controller….. She indicated in no uncertain manner, exactly where they should go!

Like good little meerkats , they listened!!

Farewell to Tyrrel Bay !

2012-01-02T07:07:00.001-08:00

28.12.2011

We spent almost a month in Tyrrel, sorting out numerous little jobs on the “To Do” list. One not so little job was the remake of the Bimini/Raincatcher, which, after one very heavy downpour, threatened to implode. Water pump needed a new impeller, watermaker needed new “o” rings, and the prop needed scrubbing after a month’s holiday!

We never tired of the sunsets, and were able to catch up with cruising friends all heading out in different directions. Carriacou tends to be our period of enforced budgetery restraint, there being no chandleries, and very few basic shops! We do however squeeze in the odd visit to the Slipway Pub and Restaurant, and buy the odd lobster from the fishermen.

We were also lucky enough to enjoy a Christmas dinner with Ruth and Niels Lund, who had sailed up on Baraka, from Grenada for Christmas. Jeremy and Yvonne were also with us, and the Danish traditional ham and caramellised potatoes, served by Ruth, saved us from our own, never to be repeated, Caribbean ham experience! We had seen these Hams hanging from the ceiling in nearly every shop in Grenada, (from fishing shops to hardware stores). We made the mistake of assuming they must be good, and bought one as a Christmas treat! “Smoked and Cured”, all the way from Smithfield USA!! It also came with a crust of mould which had to be scrubbed off…. needed to be boiled three times, with the water thrown away each time to get rid of the salt. It then lost half its mass when the skin and fat was removed, and needed to be carved with a hacksaw! We ended up paying a kings ransom for a sows ear!!

After Christmas, we were on fulltime watch for the elusive weather window, as set head northwards!

Gadgets that improve the lifestyle on Sheer Tenacity

2011-12-16T11:44:00.000-08:00

16.12.2011

Much as old school cruisers mock the need for Fridges,( for cold beer and salad stuff), Freezers,( for fresh meat, ice, and to freeze ones catch),
Calorifiers,( for hot water to spoil ones partner), water makers (to ensure reasonable quantities of drinking, shower and laundry water….to avoid degenerating into “grotty yachties”) ….we new kids on the block would never have been able to lure our ladies to into such a radical lifestyle without them!!

The price is once again, the never ending power struggle! Gensets are the obvious answer… Been there, done that… chucked it out!! Way too big, and too much of a hassle on a 40ft boat.

Another source of relentless pressure, is our ageing, aching bodies! Although the active lifestyle keeps one pretty fit and strong, there are times when the frozen shoulders, or degenerating discs make certain chores a pain in the arse.. or elsewhere! We have to make certain concessions, and start using brains and technology to compensate for our frailties, before we are forced to swallow the anchor!

Some of my friends and readers hate my technical digressions, whilst others are eager to hear more. So , for those who hate it , feel free to press “esc” now! In my defense however, I decided to rattle off a whole bunch in one go, rather than to phase them in like a slow intravenous drip! Some gadgets, I might have mentioned before, but collectively, they have done the job thus far for us!

First up is the 100amp Balmar Alternator, with smart regulator. I have resticted myself to the 100amp unit ,as it was the biggest I could use without changing the crank and water pump pullies from single to dual, which would make fitting the original spare alternator, in an emergency, a BIG job. Besides, I did not wish to use the main engine as my primary battery charging source.

I have changed to an array of 380w of 24v Solar panels, controlled by a Blue Sky MPPT controller. This set up puts in up to 24amps for 3 to 6 hours per day, and is way more efficient during the remaining hours as well. The AirX Marine windgen has been fitted with the new Silent Wind blue carbon fibre blades, which not only kick in at lower wind speeds, but are also quiet, and will not cause your neighbour to throw his towel into your wingen just to stop the screaming banshee!

With this “free” power input, we have added a 2000w Sinergex Puresine Inverter, which can cope with all my power tools, the vacuum cleaner, computers, and even a toaster or microwave if required!

We have added an Echo Tec water maker, which produces 55lts /hr, while using about 30 amps. We chose this ahead of the less power hungry Spectra , because it is so simple and can use non proprietry spares from most hardware shops. We have also built in an addition 60 lt tank to store non chlorinated water maker water, to enable easy flushing , which enables the unit to stand for 10 days between runs, before having to run again , or pickle it. We transfer “made” water in 60lt batches to our main holding tanks, into which we can also pipe rainwater from our rain catching bimini.

The final backup for all our power needs, and to make water without having to run the main engine, is our little 2.0kva Honda genset, which uses inverter technology. It only weighs 11kgs, runs on very little petrol, is extremely quiet, and can pump in up to 100amps via our Mastervolt 100 amp battery charger. !

In this age of “lock it or Lose it”, it is important to get into the habit of lifting ones dinghy every night. A good davit arrangement takes the chore out of this job. Our davits are hinged at the bottom of the two main gantry posts, so as to lift the dinghy clear of the transom hung rudder. A double block and pulley system to one of our secondary winches makes this a quick task .

My one concession to sore shoulders, back ( or to enable Mary to wind in the roller furler easily, or to lift the dinghy), is the hand held 28volt Lithium battery powered Milwaukee , right angle drill, fitted with a winch socket ! A full on power winch wherever we need one! Incredibly powerfulLast up…. To those of you who have made it this far, you might remember my blog about the fellow dribbling humungous nuts along the nudie beach at St Martin…. Well I found the tree in Grenada where he grew them!

Back at Home...Take Two!!!

2011-12-16T03:43:00.000-08:00

15/12/2011

Sheer Tenacity was ready and waiting in her steel cradle, but sans the antifouling which we had purchased in St Maarten. We were told that it had “turned” and was unusable. I had been disappointed with the Micron 66 in the warm waters, and decided to try Jotun. This required a barrier coat, as the two products are incompatible. I returned the Jotun to IWW,from whom I had purchased it, but they never had any of the new Jotun as replacement. I had previously been told by a long term cruiser, that he had switched to Trinidad 75, which is a hard (non ablative), very copper rich antifoul. As IWW had this in stock, and the barrier coat had already been applied, I have gone this route.

We had a number of other jobs to tackle, such as replacing anchor lockers, and fitting new closed cell cockpit cushions, before beginning the task of preparing to launch : Fitting stackpack, sails, bimini, spray dodgers, running motor, commissioning systems and equipment. After 5 days of running around like hooligans, we were antifouled , fitted, tested, and ready to splash.

It then took another couple of weeks to provision and repack the boat, (and have a few sundowners as we renewed contact, and made plans with various cruising mates!),,, then we were good to go! Lobster season was open again too!!

Our first step was a shake down sail around to St Georges, catching a Tuna Mackerel along the way. St Georges is a pretty town, on the lee side of the island, with an anchorage, outside the lagoon, has clear water, and reasonably easy dinghy access to shops. We have decided to spend more time there when next we pass this way!
For once we picked a good SE breeze to start our way north, and enjoyed a 4 and 1/2 hr romp up to Carriacou, averaging 7knots, and catching a Dorado just past Gouyave. We arrived in Tyrrel Bay, and it was indeed, almost like coming home again! Stacks of well known faces, some of whom had not moved since we saw them last July! Paul Johnson,( he of the Venus ketch, many wives and sometimes artist), had managed to get knocked down by a car, and was nursing broken ribs and head stitches. His pain management system involves frequent sips of Westerhall Superb Light Rum, at all hours, from little 1/3 bottles that he always carries around with him. He needed this medical treatment while talking to me in the supermarket queue, waiting to pay for his breakfast sausage!

Elsewhere around the bay were a number of other boats and crews well known to Hout Bay! Australian Tony, musician and teacher, from “Ragin’ Cajun”, who had persuaded my ex neighbour, Lynn Rattle, to go sailing with him. She jumped ship in St Helena, and seems to have planted roots there now!

Another Hout Bay boat, is New Dawn. Mary and I used to enjoy our racing duals with Kyall and Ruth, on their previous boat “Suzanne”. They then bought “New Dawn”, and sailed over to Brazil. Sadly their relationship hit rough weather, and they went their separate ways, with Kyall buying out Ruth’s share in the yacht. We last saw Kyall down in Abraao, Ilha Grande in Brazil and suddenly he is knocking on our hull here in Tyrrel , with his new lady, Natasha . They are doing a quick circuit around the Grenadines, before heading down to Tobago to meet up with family.

Yet another Hout Bay boat, “Jervon”, with Jeremy, and Yvonne (who, thankfully, has been given the all clear after her 6 month check up in Trinidad after brain surgery in January). They are here to haulout, antifoul, and spend Christmas with old friends. “Olive” too, is here, also scheduled to haul out before making their way north.

Meanwhile , on Sheer Tenacity, we have spent a week remaking a new bimini , as after a few heavy downpours, it became obvious that 4 years is about as long as a Sunbrella bimini and rain catcher can be expected to last in the tropics.( we had ours up for a year in Hout Bay before we left, and it’s been up ever since we reached Brazil). Of course, no sooner had we finished, than the rain stopped, and we have had to commission the Watermaker!

After the Bimini, and a new set of saloon cushions to brighten up the interior, Mary has returned to full on cruising mode, even visiting fellow cruisers for sundowners with her top on inside out!

Home Visit

2011-12-15T11:38:00.000-08:00

14th Dec 2011

To my shame and horror, my last blog was dated 17th July, and titled “Almost like being Home!”. Since then , we have in fact hauled the boat on to the hard at Spice Island Marina, repainted, varnished and generally put her to bed for the hurricane season…. stripped of all sails, canvas work, and strapped down to concreteblocks,between welded frames…. and hoped for the best!

We then headed for home, via Gatwick and Dubai to Cape Town, arriving exhausted and ailing from the usual long distance flight incubated flu, coughs and splutters. So this is more a bunch of excuses for not keeping up to speed with my blogs!!
The home visit was a whirlwind of medical and dental overhauls, financial reviews, political updates, Visa applications, leaving far too little time to spend with friends and family. We stayed with Kate in her beautifully renovated home in Tamboerskloof, and were lucky enough to be loaned a car by Maryandrew (as in Maryanne and Andrew), whose wedding we attended on our last visit home! We tried our best, and did a hell of a lot, but still fell short of meeting some of our friends on the “must see” list. Two months was just too short! Our apologies to all offended parties!
We did however, get a medical “all clear”, and were able to resolve a number of health problems that had threatened our cruising lifestyle. We also spent time with Steve and Kim, who have moved back to Cape Town after years in the Mozambican bush and islands. We even managed to get get Steve to to cook us all prawns on the braai for HIS birthday!

We spent time with Trevor and Shirl, both in Cape Town, and up the West coast in their new holiday home. We confirmed that the West coast area will be our probable landfall area, when we finally swallow the anchor, and give up cruising!
My Mom, Pam, had passed away shortly after our last visit, and she had made it quite clear to both Deb( my sister) and I that I should not rush home for a funeral, should she pass on. It meant however that Debs was custodian of her ashes for nearly two years, and so she arranged a small ceremony at Christ Church, because this was one occasion where we, as a family, were all together in the same country for a few weeks. Richard and Tina, the other family wedding we were lucky to share on our last home visit) with their new baby Maximillian, were also back in town for a visit from London. So with Mary and I, Steve and Kim, Richard and Tina, all in Cape Town for once, this was the ideal opportunity to do so.
Mom’s ashes were thus laid to rest besides my Dads, in a relaxed ceremony conducted by a former colleague of his, Rev Keith Griffiths, who changed callings, and is now the Rector of Christ Church. Deb mentioned that she felt a little awkward about having stored her ashes in the hall cupboard until such time as we were all together. Rev Keith put her mind at rest by telling her that he had kept his Mom’s ashes in the garden shed for five years, waiting for his brother and family to come over from Canada for the same reason. He said it was absolutely fine and very common in today’s world! He then went on to tell us that when Steve & Kim looked like being a little late, due to the traffic, he started having a panic attack, because he knew the automatic sprinkler system turned on at 5.20pm, and he did not know how to reprogram the system, or turn it off, and he imagined us all getting soaked as we tried to sprinkle Moms ashes! Thankfully Kim & Steve arrived on the dot of 5pm, and we were done by 5.15pm!
We retired to Deb and Graeme’s home for a family dinner , and were able to share family news and get to know Ingi, Nicks fiancé.

On the other side of the family, Andrew and Maryanne had also been doing what newly-weds do, and Mary attended Maryanne’s baby shower, for little Jessica, who made her appearance shortly after our return to the Caribbean.
In the blink of an eye, so it seemed, the two months were over, and we were on our way back to Sheer Tenacity, all safe and sound at Spice Island Marina, Grenada, having survived the Hurricane season without us!

Almost like coming Home!

2011-07-17T15:28:00.000-07:00

7/7/2011

It was good to get back to Tyrrell Bay in Carriacou. We now know it so well—where to find the sandy patches for good anchor holding, when Denise and Lucy open their fresh fruit and veg stalls, where to buy the cheapest cases of Kronenburg 1664 beer, and all those very important answers to common cruising questions!
Many of the “Characters” on boats here, are regular live -aboards, but many of the new arrivals, are folk whose company we have enjoyed “up north”, who are also dropping down south for the hurricane season.
“Bolero”, an attractive 100footer, is such a yacht. She was built in Cape Town by Farocean about 20 years back, and is skippered & crewed by a South African couple, Mike and Sarah Kopman, who have also just bought a home in Hout Bay. We last met with them up in the BVI, and were able to catch up with their news, including their entry in the “Spirit of Tradition” class in the Antigua Classic Race Week. Mike has just paid for a gaff rigged Dudley Dix designed +/- 25ft wood and epoxy racing boat, which will probably be computer cut and packaged by our good friend Roy McBride! I sent a picture of “Bolero” to Roy, telling him about our small world, and Roy spotted a green double ender in the background. He wanted to know if it was a steel Hout Bay version of Paul Johnson’s Venus Ketch design. The answer turned out to be that it was a 100% German boat called “Pappegai”, which looked similar, but that by even greater coincidence, the boat anchored in front of us was an original Venus Ketch, called “Cherub”, owned and sailed by Paul Johnson himself!
Roy’s interest in Venus Ketches was due to the founding of the TBA, which featured this design at the time, and I was able to track down a magazine article about the man and his history, which I have no doubt Roy will share in his blog!
Jeremy and Yvonne (Jervon), arrived a few days later after making a detour via Petit St Vincent, in time to celebrate Mary’s birthday at the “Slipway Restaurant”, and a Tuna Mackeral Cerviche for supper.
We were all watching the weather carefully, hoping for a good window to head on down to Grenada. July5th looked good with an ENE breeze, and had the added benefit of a favourable Meridian passage of the moon, which would give an Easterly set of the current for much of the passage, instead of the prevailing westerly.
We chose to go down the windward side of Grenada directly to Prickly Bay, and we managed the 45 miles in just 7 hours. At times the seas were a bit lumpy where the currents rush between islands, but in the main it was lovely, with 15-20knots on the beam, and we romped along at up to 7,8knots at times.
And at long last, we caught a decent sized Blackfin Tuna, so it was sashimi for dinner….. 3 nights running!
Many of you have read “An Embarrassment of Mango’s” by Ann Vanderhoof. It is the story of Anne and Steve’s trip from Canada down the ICW, to the Bahamas, and the Caribbean to Grenada in their 40ft yacht, “Receta” It is a beautifully written tale, not only of their voyage and experiences, but also of her metamorphosis from a deadline driven Magazine editor, to a competent and laid back yachtswoman. Along the way, she shares her passion in cooking, using all the local island ingredients, with recipes at the end of each chapter…. Hence the boats name “Receta”.
We found “Receta” anchored just behind us in Bequia, and I told Anne that WE owned the most read copy of her book in the world , and how we had made our family read it in the hope that it would help them understand our crazy plans!
In Mustique, we met another Canadian couple, George and Joanne from “Romantasea”, and ended up lending them our “most read” copy, on the understanding that it HAD to be returned! When we met up with them again in St Georges, they returned the book to us, with a newly added inscription . “ To Rod and Mary, Owners of the most read copy!!!!Fair winds, wherever “Sheer Tenacity” takes you! Signed Anne Vanderhoof. “Receta” had anchored just behind ‘Romantasea” in Chatham Bay, Union Island, and showed them our book again!
Guess this copy is too special to risk lending now!!

In Anne’s spirit of sharing recipes, here’s “Sheer Tenacity’s”way of using up all those offcuts and trimmed bits of tuna, left over after preparing sushi, or seared tuna steaks!

.”Tuna Ciappino with Pasta”

1 ½ cups tuna offcuts (no dark bloodline meat)
6-8 cloves garlic
1 large onion chopped
2 red flavouring peppers
1 huge Grenada bayleaf
A sprinkle each of Oreganum,Rosemary and Thyme
Large tin of chopped tomatoes ( Hunts Fire Roasted tomatoes)
Table spoon tomato paste
Desert spoon brown sugar
Tot of Olive oil
Small tin sliced mushrooms
¼ teaspoon “Lime sauce” (a very hot Caribbean chilli sauce)
small pkt of bacon bits
1 ½ cups water
1 ½ cups pasta ( shells, elbows or spirals)

Add red wine or stock to correct consistency, and serve with fresh chopped basil as garnish! ENJOY!!

Salt Whistle, the Cays, Chatham, Clifton to Carriacou

2011-06-30T05:00:00.000-07:00

23/6/2011

Salt whistle bay has got to be one of the most special anchorages in the Caribbean. As such, it tends to get overcrowded at times, and often with inexperienced bare boat charter boats. Fortunately, these folk are often on a limited time route march, and regardless of weather, they have to move on. We enjoyed a few days there, waiting for a good time to visit the Cays.
We all walked up to an old church, the highest point on the island, to look over the Cays, Saline Bay, Union etc, and to have breakfast at the Sunshine Bar and restaurant.
We all had a very refreshing R25 glass of juice, before enquiring about how long the breakfast would take, as we could see the rain clouds building.
“Oh, my Golly Gosh…… Breakfast!!” Said the owner. “ I have no more eggs or bacon…. All I have got is juice! Sold out of eggs and bacon yesterday!”

Mary and I elected to hot foot it back to the boat, as we had stupidly, and unusually, left the boat hatches open! Jeremy said “You won’t make it before the squall!”, and he was right! We got about half way down the mountain before the heavens opened, and we were drenched. By the time we got down to the dinghy on the beach at Salt Whistle Bay, the sun was shining, and Mary had won the “wet T shirt competition!”
Fortunately, the squall was short and sharp, and the boat was not too wet.
The following morning we went round to the Cays, where we dived with the Green Back turtles, that seemed oblivious to our presence, and also dived the outer reef, in lovely clear water, with shoals of reef fish, and the odd ray or shark. It was just as well we packed so much in on day one, because the rain came down in buckets the next day. We felt for Sheldon, and the crew of Nexus, a 60ft RSA catamaran, as the rain squall dropped its load. They were anchored next to us on a 3 day Grenadine charter, having to cover as much as possible in the 3 days.
We sailed on round to Chatham Bay on Union, enjoying a really nice, fast reach
in flat water, picking up a Barracuda along the way. Chatham is a wide open, well protected Bay, with minimal services…. which suits us! The water is clear, and the beach long enough for a good walk! Boobies, pelicans and jumping fish surround the boats , and our neighbour landed a bonito spinning from his foredeck.
On the following Monday, we headed round to Clifton , to check out of St Vincent and the Grenadines, and sailed down to Hillsborough, Carriacou, to check in once again, to “Grenada and Carriacou” .Bureacracy completed, we continued round to Tyrrell Bay to await the arrival of Jervon, who had elected to go via Petite Martinique, before coming to Tyrrell Bay

Magical Mustique?

2011-06-29T08:19:00.000-07:00

8/6/2011

We made heavy weather of our little 12 mile line of sight sail to Mustique! The gentle Easterly was converted by a localized squall into a NE beat against a bitch of a current once we rounded Pigeon island on the way back up to Britannia Bay. When we skirted Montezuma Shoal , sailing into the anchorage, we did not know that the splendid homestead, with the infinity pool, behind which lay an entertainment /bar area, wedged between two hotel sized accommodation wings, belonged to Celine Dion! Now we do! It was still a bitch of a beat, but at least we can dream about the day we entertained and enthralled the great diva with our own little show! We learned later she wasn’t even in residence!!
The island is different, with its Kirstenbosch like gardens, and carefully manicured lawns, laid out picnic areas, barbeque facilities, gazebo’s, sign posted nature trails, horse riding centre, cricket field, tennis courts, library etc, all owned and controlled by the 100 “elite” owners, who make up the “whose who” of the entertainment world. We did the “Island tour”, and were shown where some of the celebs have their pads…. Mick Jagger, Bryan Adams, Tommy Hellfiger, Late Princess Margaret etc. We also were shown Corporate Homes where the big execs of organizations such as Merryll Lynch and Lacoste take time out to recover from their daily stresses!
Hotels such as the Cotton House, and the Firefly, sell their facilities as “An experience, not just a hotel”, and attract large numbers of honeymooners wishing to sample the lifestyle of the rich and famous.
The shops were indeed lovely, but expensive! A $3 EC beer would cost $15EC (R45) at Basils, but who knows which of the locals might pitch up?
On our last day there, Mary and I did a walk from Basils along the waterfront around to the point. The path took us through mangrove swamp areas, past bird hides, and beautiful picnic spots, through groves of carefully marked and signposted poisonous Machineel trees. Boards instruct one never to eat the “apples”, or to seek shelter from the rain under these lovely looking lush trees, as they are highly toxic: a fact we discovered for ourselves later that night.
I had collected a little pile of these apples to photograph, handing the camera to Mary afterwards to wash my hands in the sea. Later that night, Mary had a violent allergic shock reaction to something, with her throat and tongue swelling up alarmingly to the point where she could not talk or swallow. Antihistamines made no difference, and by 2.00am Mary managed to swallow and keep down two Cortizone tablets, without gagging. Slowly but surely the swelling came down to the point where she felt she might survive the night. We spent a very frightening six hours waiting for daylight and the clinic to open with the visiting doctor, where we were forced to join the waiting queue before being seen by Dr Teddy. He was so distracted by Mary’s sky high BP, that he would not listen to our previous experiences, and was convinced that Mary had suffered a mini stroke( TIA). Even when her BP came back to normal without medication, he kept seeing paralysis in one or both side of her face, and was convinced that her swollen tongue( twice normal size at 2,00am) was only normal size but paralysed. He instructed Mary to double her BP medication , and to do nothing strenuous!
Having seen Mary’s allergic reactions to the “No Seeums” in Brazil, and the Sand Dollar fibre toxins, we are still totally convinced that the problem was a “cross allergic shock reaction” to the Machineel tree. She had handled the camera after I had handled the apples, and washed my hands. Cortizone was her salvation in Brazil, and was again the answer in Mustique. Lesson learnt….If you are susceptible to allergic reactions ----- don’t go near a Machineel tree!
This little drama delayed our departure to Salt Whistle Bay, some 20 miles south in Mayreau where we met up once again with “Jervon” a day later.

Pretty Bequia

2011-06-29T07:06:00.000-07:00

5 June 2011

Instead of writing about this island, which is so easy to love, we will just drop in a couple more photos. Sadly, our Sony video camera has died, as has our brand new Olympus digital camera, so we have been forced to resuscitate our faithful 11yr old Olympus. We were joined in Bequia by Jeremy and Yvonne (Jervon), whom we had last seen down in Baia Da Ilha Grande, Brazil. They had gone on down to BA, and travelled by bus down to the Magellan Straits, before working their way up to the Caribbean. Yvonne is making a great recovery from a brain tumour operation in Trinidad, four months back. It has been really good to catch up with them again, and to share all our news together. Two years back we shared my birthday with them at a beach restaurant in Parati, and this year we did so at the Porthole in Bequia.

St Vincent fly by!

2011-06-29T07:00:00.000-07:00

24/5/2011

Once again we debated the wisdom of stopping along the coast of the lovely looking island of St Vincent. Having chatted to a number of “regulars”, we decided to make the final decision when we got to Cumberland Bay.
The winds were predicted to be a light 10-15knots from the East, but the acceleration zones around the top ends of these islands can make a mockery of such forecasts!
The first 24 miles of this crossing was a lovely broad reach in 18knots, and for once we also enjoyed a favourable current for most of the leg. At times we were doing 8.5knots, and so reached St Vincent well ahead of plan. The Northern end is very mountainous with rainforest vegetation. There are lots of bays and anchorages which really look inviting, but the crime and violence reputation lingers, and many cruisers elect to give the island a complete miss. It has a reputation for being the Ganja growing headquarters in the Caribbean, and most of the crime is apparently linked to this “industry”, and specifically the lack of revenue during the non growing season!
As if to reinforce our concerns, when we were 5 miles off St Vincent, we saw a big Pirogue, with twin 150hp outboards, being approached by a little high speed shuttle from the coast.
Shortly after their rendevous, the big pirogue took off at speed towards St Lucia, and the little shuttle boat back from whence it came in St Vincent.
Mary was about to film this little rendevouz, but we felt it might be unwise! Not 5 minutes later, the Pirogue came belting past us in the opposite direction, doing about 60 knots, leaping from wave to wave. While we were still busy watching this, we were passed by a Coast Guard vessel on our other side, doing similar speed….. but this time with two guys aiming machine guns at the pirogue about a half a mile in front! We felt like the ham in a sandwich, and decided right then to give St Vincent a miss, and “sail on by”!( We subsequently heard that it was a drug bust, and that the Pirogue was from Trinidad, and that they had been caught by the Coast Guard)
As we got into the lee of the island, the wind died, and then switched to S, on the nose, as did the current. We were motorsailing at about 1800rpm, making 6.5knots through the water, and 3.2knots over ground! As we came out from behind St Vincent, into the channel to Bequia, we were experiencing 25 to 30degrees of leeway from the currents, and still making barely 3knots SOG. When we got to within 5 miles of Bequia , we sailed into an area of ocean that looked like the confluence of two rivers, as the currents met. Without touching a single thing, the leeway stopped, and the Speed over Ground climbed back to 7knots.
We made our way over to Princess Margaret beach, anchored, and decided that a swim and a beer was much more appealing than the need to check in, which could wait until tomorrow!

Inverter trouble—Again !

2011-06-29T06:41:00.000-07:00

29 May 2011

After a restful couple of days in Martinique, we headed on to Rodney Bay, St Lucia, where there is a branch of Island Water World, from whom I had purchased my first Pure sine 1000w Inverter. It had failed early on in its life, and its replacement had gone the same way in the BVI.

The need to solve the inverter problem led to our earlier than planned departure from Martinique….. ie before we had stocked up on wines, cheese, sausages and all those other lekker French goodies. The weather conditions prompted this stupid decision to forgo the shopping trip, but we did at least have a very comfortable sail at last!
I will spare you all the frustrations of trying to get an American company (Inverter supplier) to honour their warranties without putting their customers through an inquisition… I have seen it far too often now, as they imply the failure MUST be the clients fault, and will not replace the warrantied product until you have sent it back to them, at your non refundable expense, for their inspection. Apologies for inconvenience etc just do not come into it! No wonder Ralph Nader made a name for himself there! We in “3rd world South Africa” have a far better understanding of customer service, and our obligations as suppliers, than I have experienced with so called 1st World US companies!
I was lucky to have the MD of IWW, an ex South African, batting for me and was eventually able to upgrade to a better top of the range unit, which, touch wood, will prove more reliable!

Rodney Bay is a big wide protected anchorage, with good shopping and infrastructure…… but we tend to prefer the more remote, quieter and interesting places to anchor. We had intended to pick up a buoy between the magnificent Pitons. Unfortunately, when we got there we found the buoys to be right in front of a noisy construction site. Those further away were surrounded by a floating mass of Sargossa weed, pushed in by the current. We had wanted to snorkel and swim there , but fearing that there was also likely to be an accumulation of stinging jellyfish, we took our photos, and pushed on to the fishing village of Vieux Fort, on the southern tip of St Lucia, close to the International airport.
Once anchored , we walked around the little town, checked out at the airport, bought a small tuna (embarrassing to have to admit defeat!), and returned to prepare for our trip over to St Vincent, where we had been told by experienced old salts, that Cumberland Bay was “now safe”, and could be used as a night stop.

A bit more beating!

2011-05-28T09:51:00.000-07:00

15/05/2011

We left Les Saintes on yet another 46mile beat up to Dominica, bypassing Portsmouth, and heading on to Roseau, the port of entry at the southern end of the island. Dominica itself is a very beautiful looking island, filled with rain forest vegetation, hikes, mountains and waterfalls…..making it another of our must spend more time here islands… but not this time!
The anchorage down at Roseau is deep, rolly, and not very appealing! The only thing it had going for it was its proximity to Martinique, a mere 36 miles away! We anchored there shortly after lunch, and put up our yellow flag, with no intention of checking in, hoping that the bureaucracy would not trouble us before we set off at 6.00am next day. (Mary and I have really become quite brazen about evading the unnecessary paperwork, cruising permits, entry fees, launch and recovery of the dinghy, involved in a quick overnight stop.)
We were happy to up anchor and set off on our next leg, which proved to be a fast, wet beat with winds between 18 and 25 knots. We did the 36 miles in exactly 6 hours, which included about 10 miles only averaging 4-4.5knots. We sailed with a full main, staysail, and about a No3 genoa, right up to the last 6 miles before Martinique, where we took a reef in the main. There is almost always an acceleration zone as one approaches or leaves the islands, where winds gust and build way above average. This has become one of our common strategies. This can be important around Martinique, St Lucia and St Vincent in particular, but is very common throughout the island chain.
Along the way we flew past a Jeaneau 40 with 3 reefs and a rag of headsail. Later in St Pierre, they told us that they had left Roseau at 3.00am, and arrived an hour after we did, taking a full 10 hours! They told us they were in no hurry, but looked exhausted!
StPierre is a town on Martinique, which also shares a tragic volcanic eruption history. Mount Pelee erupted in 1902, having given plenty of warnings. Why St Pierre was not evacuated remains a mystery, but when the mountain side collapsed, it buried the town, killing all 29933 residents. There was only one survivor- the single occupant of the town jail! No, he was not the guy who first said” Who said crime doesn’t pay!”
Although it is also a quaint town, with lots of history, the anchorage is rolly and only good for a one night stay! We had intended to move on down to St Annes/Marin at the bottom end of Martinique, a mere 32 miles on. The first 16 mile leg to Fort du France, turned into a very uncomfortable bash into 25-27knots, so we bailed out and decided to call in at the capital for the night. We anchored alongside the Fort, went ashore for a walk around, just to get off the boat for a while! We bought a new boat hook, and failed in our quest to find Mary a “second skin” for her snorkeling. The town is described as vibrant and very Parisian and French. Bull! It was grubby and third world! We went back to the boat, and moved 3 miles over to a very pretty and protected little beach called Anse D’Lane, where we spent the night.
The slog resumed next morning , as we beat our way towards St Annes, tacking inside Diamond Rock, before resuming our starboard tack on to St Annes, which is a very big, shallow and protected holiday resort area. Just around the corner from Club Med, lies the Cul Du Sac Du Marin, which is the yachting mecca of Martinique with every conceivable service …. including all 17 yacht charter companies of the Caribbean.
I’ve had a bit to say about the anchoring skills of some of these bareboat clowns, and I suppose I should have appreciated bareboat sailing hazards too! Yesterdays experience was another eye opener! We were beating as hard on the wind as we could manage, doing about 6.5knots on starboard tack into 22knots of wind. Bearing down on us were two charter boats fresh out of Marin….a cat and a monohull, both with only badly trimmed headsails, but effectively on port tacks. The cat continued to come straight for us, making no attempt to drop down and enable us to pass port to port. Rules of the road be damned … they do not know them! This sudden awareness on my part forced us to do a quick snap tack to port for two minutes, before making another quick tack back to starboard, so that we could pass safely between them, as they all smiled and waved, oblivious of the near disaster!
As Mary remarked afterwards, they were probably too inexperienced or stupid to have even appreciated our slick collision avoiding tacks! I did however fulfill one of my lifelong dreams! That is, I gave the Cat skipper a fully orchestrated French National salute, complete with a full right arm wind up, catching my right bicep in my left hand, to show him a fully extended right hand middle finger pointing skywards! Very satisfying!!!

The Beat goes on !

2011-05-28T08:49:00.000-07:00

14/5/2011

We left Nevis a tad disappointed, and beat our way down to Monserrat, the volcanic island that blew its top in 1995, when Mount Soufriere erupted and buried the capital, Plymouth. Conditions became harsh on the island and people left such that the population is down to 4500 today, from the 11000 before the eruption. The volcano still bubbles away and smokes, but is generally quieting down. There is still a 2 mile exclusion zone around the volcano, and yachts sailing too close on the downwind side risk ash on their decks, and burn holes in their sails! We anchored in Little Bay, never intending to go ashore. A mistake which we will rectify next time we pass, as we would like to do the full island tour. When we left the next morning, we went around the top end of the island to make for a better point of sail to Deshaies, Guadeloupe. This route took us past the lava runs, and ruins, which are a stark reminder of nature’s destructive power.

We have also come to realize that the crew of Sheer Tenacity are like Salmon….. always swimming upstream! As one heads north after hurricane season, the prevailing winds are NE… and we beat! By the time we head back south before the next hurricane season, the prevailing winds have switched to SE,…. And we beat!! This is all due to the movement of the north Atlantic High (or Azores high), which moves up and down with the seasons.

As a result of all our beating, we have learned new tricks to enable us to point so much higher, (35-40degs to the wind), despite our extra wide spreaders. Sheeting in the staysail like a blade, (using the lazy sheet to achieve the correct shape), and feeding a second sheet between the shrouds to an inner track, on a reduced genoa.(to stop it chafing on the spreaders). And so we completed another 42 mile beat to Deshaies, before popping 20 miles down the coast to Pigeon Island, and the Jacques Cousteau National Park. Earlier that morning, we had heard a Pan Pan, but couldn’t understand the details. Along the way, we sailed through a mess of wreckage and diesel, before coming across the wreck of a trawler, “Caribbean Rush”, on the rocks. This was the Pan Pan! The previous day we had listened to a Mayday rescue, 20 miles off Dominica, co ordinated by Guadeloupe Maritime Rescue, in English.

There is so much more to see on this fascinating French Island, that we are determined to swat up on our French before we come this way again! Whatever one thinks about French attitudes, you just have to admire their checking in systems, anchoring freedom, the best dinghy docks in the Caribbean, their well stocked supermarkets, with all the lekker goodies, such as cheeses, wines, salamis, sausages, bagettes, plus top rate medical and maritime rescue facilities.

The next day we worked our way down to the bottom of Guadeloupe, to stop over at Les Saintes, once again with stiff beat! Anchoring behind the Ille Cabrit, we were to witness our third maritime drama in as many days. The big black square rigger anchored next to us was having a crew member airlifted off by helicopter. Cigatura poisoning, we learned later. The Les Saintes area is super little group of French islands (part of Guadeloupe).They are very unspoilt, and Bourge, the main town in the island group, is a quaint little village with boutiques, eateries, superettes with a continental feel. Never having had crops like sugarcane, cocoa, grown there, they therefore never had any slaves there either….with the result that the population is relatively tiny, mostly white, and very French! We enjoyed some of the cleanest water, and best snorkeling ever, until Mary was stung by sea wasps! Despite this, we are determined to spend a whole lot more time here next year, trying to parlez a leetle more Francais !

The route march south begins.

2011-05-19T10:30:00.000-07:00

13/5/2011

Easter Monday in St Martin, and everything is closed… even customs! Mary and I decided not to wait, but to use a little 6hr NE window on Tuesday to push on to St Barts, from where we would be able to make for St Kitts in the prevailing SE which would follow . It proved to be a good call, and we anchored in Colombier Bay, and dinghied round to Customs in Gustavia, who to our surprise, were open!
We cleared in and out, confirmed the next day’s weather, and set off for St Kitts the next morning. The winds were about 25knots and we had a wet, wild, and bouncy 25mile crossing. We had hoped to find a little shelter and relief around the back of the island for the 13nm up to Port Zante. Fat chance!! Yes, the seas got a little lower, but the winds wrapped over and around the mountains, getting up to 35knots at times on the nose! It was a long and slow crawl for the last 13miles, before we could drop sails and anchor in the lee of two cruise liners at Basseterre. I went ashore by dinghy and negotiated two days in the Marina, for a bit of R & R, as the anchorage was a washing machine.

The town is quite attractive, and Port Zante is a purpose built mall and Duty Free complex aimed at cruise liners. We were able to top up with diesel and provisions, and eat one of the worst little rip off lunches ever, in a little restaurant overlooking “The Circus”, based on Piccadilly Circus.

Once again, we experienced a common Customs and Immigration problem. With few exceptions, they are all fully qualified BA’S…. (as in Bad Attitude!) It seems to us, that around the world, these officials get the job based on their BA qualification, rather than their HR skills or efficiencies! Indeed, some of these folk have upgraded their BA’S to MBA’S…. (Moerse Bad Attitude), and even the occasional MFBA!

Two days after checking in, a quick look at the weather picture, indicated that it would be better to depart St Kitts/Nevis on day 8, rather than day 7, as had been entered on my clearance form when checking in. As a courtesy, we popped in to customs to advise them of our plan to leave one day later. Not a big deal we thought, given that we would have been give up to 6 months with our UK passports, if we had so requested. “No, No, No!’ says the MBA Customs lady. You now have to go to the Office of National Security, to apply for a Visa extension. I tried to reason with her, by asking if she would have given me a month, two days earlier, if I had asked for a month. “Yes”, but you said you would be leaving in a week!” ‘About a week” I said. The form says a week, so you have to go to National Security now. Clearly she was making a push for her Phd. MFBA!

So off we go across town , to join yet another queue, of illegal’s, to request a one day visa extension, for which we had to fill in forms in triplicate, and pay a further admin fee, justifying our reasons…Bad weather ! By 10.30 am all forms were filled in, and we were told that Mr Benjamin was out for lunch, and we would have to come back this afternoon, or tomorrow. Given that it was only 10.30am, I expressed my frustration at all this “bullshit for a one day extension for bad weather” quite loudly …Loudly enough for Mr Benjamin to pop out of his office and demand to see my application and passport. He took one look, and said” No problem”, you can just change the date when you check out of Nevis!
We left Port Zante with a bit of our own BA, and anchored in White House Bay at the southern tip of St Kitts, close to a radically rigged super yacht called Maltese Falcon. From there it is only a short putt to Nevis, which in the pilot books, looked lovely.

We found an Island struggling to recover from Hurricane Lennie. All the palm trees along Pinney Beach were gone, and the anchorage was filled with mandatory mooring buoys (95% empty, at EC $ 58 for two nights (R180)) .Anchoring is not allowed, and the fees are collected by customs when you check out, based on the number of days in Nevis. The buoys are the governments attempt to make the cruisers help pay for hurricane damage, and from our observations, the cruisers have caste their votes by going elsewhere! We had a pleasant lunch of chicken wings and beer at Sunshine’s beach bar, but clearly business was poor with not many cruising patrons . Pictures on the walls, showed much happier days, with visitors such as Mel Gibson, John Travolte, Wesley Snipes, Morgan Freeman and a host of other celebrities enjoying Sunshines. Our waiter also asked if we knew Hershel Gibbs, as he was always here during the World Cup Cricket!

This visit only confirmed our view that the mandatory buoy rules do nothing to encourage business, and only serve to harm the local businesses even more! But why should we be surprised. Most governments are control driven, and totally fail to understand that marketing and capitalism is driven by freedom of choice! I have yet to find a customs or immigration official who understands that they are usually the visitors’ first contact with their country, and as such they should be welcoming, friendly and efficient! Has any Government employee in any country ever studied marketing?????? I doubt it, as that would imply a willingness to learn!

BVI – Last impressions

2011-05-19T09:12:00.000-07:00

11/5/2011

When you look forward to returning to a place before you even leave, then you know it possesses a bit of magic! My last blog was from Marina Cay, from where we planned to pop over to Spanish Town, and check out, to start our return trip to Grenada. The pilot book indicated that Customs would be closed on Easter Friday, so we went over on the Thursday, and checked out, indicating that we would be departing early on Saturday from North Sound.
Once again, books are wrong, and bureaucracy steps in to ruin the best made plans of mice and men! They informed us that we could not do that as it would be more than 12 hours after we checked out! “But you will be closed tomorrow”, we say by way of explanation. No, we will be open, so you must come back tomorrow and pay overtime because it’s a public holiday! “But we were going up to North Sound later today, to leave from there!” No you must come back here to check out first!

There was only really one choice…. to lie! “OK,” we say, “We will still check out now, go on up to North Sound, and leave tonight!” We did not think that there was any chance of the coast guards being active over Easter, and in any case we could always develop a little mechanical or health crisis to explain the 48 hr delay, if necessary!

So we returned to North Sound, and spent 3 more glorious days , enjoying the crystal clear water, and preparing the boat for the return leg. Even our resident giant Barracuda seemed to welcome us back, but he is a bit off putting when it comes to swimming around ones boat!

We had spotted an 18hr window of light NE winds, which would avoid us having to bash into the normal prevailing SE winds for the 80 odd miles to St Martin. We left on Sunday at 8.00h, with two other yachts for company, passing Richard Branson’s pad (Necker Island) on the way out, and ended up motor sailing in 10 knots at 30-40degs to the wind. All three of us caught a fish along the way, and we were thrilled to boat a decent sized Dorado. When cleaned and filleted, it made up 16 lovely portions, and we calculated that at the prevailing BVI restaurant prices ($15), that the fish was worth R1680 to us!
We anchored in Marigot Bay at midnight, ending our BVI trip on a high!

Taking a fancy to the Virgins!

2011-04-16T19:12:00.000-07:00

16/4/2011

$30 per night mooring buoys do not appeal to us, so we headed over to Sopers Hole on Tortola, to stock up and provision for the next week around Jost Van Dyke and Cane Gardens. Mastercard systems problems struck yet again, and once again we found ourselves holding up supermarket queues, scrambling for cash because the bloody card won’t work! Thanks to our secret weapon, Katiloo, who has been on Standard Banks case so often in this regard, we now have after hours hotline numbers . $40 of cell phone call time to the bank revealed that there was nothing wrong with the card, but there seemed to be a connection problem reading the magnetic strip on Standard Bank cards in America……”But I’m not in America!” , …”Our systems regard BVI as America! Tell the cashier to manually input the details, and not to “swipe” the card.” This we did, and it worked! Great, but it still wouldn’t let me draw cash from the only ATM in Sopers Hole! The delay meant paying another $25 to stay overnight on the buoy. It struck me that for the $65 Standard Bank cost me, through no fault of ours, we could have spent another night at the Willy T, drinking plenty of beers, getting tattoos , and watching topless ladies jumping around! The upside was that we were able to have a farewell drink at the Sopers Hole Pub with Walter and Jackie ( Jean Marie), and Mike and Lesley ( Extasea), as we are all setting off in different directions from here. A big black squall messed up our plans to negotiate the tricky reef entry to White Bay, so we diverted to Great Harbour ( Jost Van Dyke), and dropped anchor in 12mts, just as the heavens opened. We caught 200lts of water in the two hours it rained, filling our tanks to the brim (all 650lts). The sun came out, and we headed ashore to explore, and to sample conch fritters ($10), and Jamaican Jerk Wings ($10) with our sundowners at the legendary “Foxy’s”! Gadzooks! R14 for each golf ball size fritter, or a single chicken wing, and R28 for a beer! Been there, done that, and bought the T shirt to prove it! The next morning, we moved on round to White Bay, with Mary playing every trick in the book to persuade me not to go through the reef pass into the beautiful palm tree lined beach beyond! In vain, I might add, as we are now safely anchored in this lovely bay, with at least a metre below the keel….now! At one stage it registered 0 mts! Later it was off to the Soggy Dollar Beach Bar, to sample their world famous “Pain Killer” rum punch, which is basically a Dark Rum over lots of ice, mixed with pineapple juice, a little orange juice, coconut milk, Angostura, with grated nutmeg on top! $6 a go, and very more –ish! Cheapskates that we are, we had one, and made the refills on the boat ourselves! We watched a shoal of Spanish Mackerel and Rainbow Runners in a feeding frenzy around the boat, as the charter boats headed home at sundown. Saturday. Welcome to the circus! The charter boats from the US Virgins packed in, taking up every square inch of anchor room, and then some! We watched in awe as one idiot dropped an anchor between two other cats, where clearly there was not enough space……. panic, go full astern over his dinghy tender’s tether, foul the prop, dive over the side to untangle the mess, while the boat is being fended off by those on either side! The name of his boat? I kid you not…”Paw Paw of Wight” !!! Despite all the drama’s it is still a very beautiful bay, and the entertainment has been non stop. We have just been too scared to leave the boat unattended to go ashore, with all these monkeys around! We understand that the US skippers ticket of competence is called a “Six Pack”, which has something to do with the 6 disciplines they need to have mastered. We think the ticket means something entirely different, given our observations!! The professional skippers’ in these parts reckon that their ticket is a credit card!

BVI – A second glance!

2011-04-16T18:58:00.000-07:00

15/4/2011

We tore ourselves away from the North Sound, and enjoyed a leisurely 17 mile broad reach sail down the Francis Drake Channel, towards Cooper Island. Had a quick look around the crowded buoy filled anchorage at this resort bay, and then continued to Great Harbour, Peter Island, past Dead Man’s Chest. We anchored in 16mts, and chatted to Ti Bay over in Little Harbour, which sounded great. So we moved round to this beautiful little stern line to shore anchorage. What a gem!! It was our first experience of this type of anchoring arrangement, which is required because of the catabatic back winding. Only about a handful of boats can fit in, and there are no facilities, apart from a beach braai area made by cruisers out of flotsam and jetsam! No “boat boys”, no Ba Ba Boom music, and no one lives on the island apart from a flock of goats! No question about it…the nicest little anchorage we have experienced yet. Nature at its best. From the boat, we swam over to coral reefs, and observed big Spotted Eagle Rays feeding, and a pair of mating Dolphins slowly circling the anchorage, oblivious to the curious snorklers just a respectful few metres back. Mike and Lesley,( Extasea), whom we had met down in Ilha Grande Brazil, joined us for a couple of days before they head west. Another interesting cruising boat was a 21ft plywood homebuild painted in Rastafarian colours of red, yellow and green, which had sailed over from Belgium. The young skipper, who always wore his Rasta beanie, was accompanied by two girls who spent most of their time topless. We christened them Bob, Boobs and Bee Sting for obvious reasons! “Tenacious”, and “Bolero”, two other 80ft plus yachts we had previously seen in St Martin, were also in the anchorage. The skipper of Bolero, which was built 25years ago in South Africa, was also a South African. He and his wife had just bought a house in Baviaanskloof, Hout bay. They left to rush up to Antigua, to take part in the “Spirit of Tradition” classic races. After an idyllic week, we headed for Norman Island, in the “Bight”, picking up one of the hundreds of buoys, which make anchoring almost impossible! It is a big protected bay, with some nice dive sights, and a couple of well frequented places…..Pirates, a pub restaurant ashore, and the William Thornton, (Willy T), a ship restaurant pub. We managed a beer at Pirates, but the combination of $30 per night mooring buoys, and sudden runaway tummy bugs, forced us to cancel our trip to the notorious Willy T, of the stick-on tattoo barman, and the free drinks to all the ladies who jump topless from the bridge……perhaps it was a blessing in disguise!

Our first feel of the Virgins

2011-04-02T05:43:00.000-07:00

01.04.2011

Mary and I have been looking forward to the BVI with great expectations! Yet the closer we got to being here, the more the Doom Sayers had to say about the overcrowding, the Bareboat charters, limited anchoring choices, expensive mooring buoys, and prices in general! So we left Anguila at 5pm for the 80mile overnight sail to Virgin Gorda, with mixed feelings…. Would it be a highlight of our cruising, or a bit of a disappointment? The trip up was a dead downwind, rolly motor sail with only 10knots of breeze…..just enough to keep the diesel fumes in the cockpit all night! Not Mary’s best! We arrived at Round Rock at first light, and headed up to Spanish Town to check in. Contrary to what we had been led to believe, anchoring was easy and available, and we dinghied over to the Yacht club and walked over to Customs and Immigration. The paperwork was a bit more extensive than usual, (and a lot more tedious than either the French, or Eseaclear signatory islands), but not too bad. The cruising permit for the two of us for 4 weeks was $17.50, which was also a lot less than we had been led to believe. After checking in, we headed up the Fat Virgin coastline to the North Sound, making our way through the well marked channel, into this protected stretch of water. We were too tired to spot any virgins, (rumour has it that there aren’t any), but we did find a very nice anchorage off Vixen point. There are buoys at $30 per night, but there is still plenty of room to swing off your own hook, which we chose to do. (must drop the hook in sand……anchoring on coral is prohibited) The next day we watched a huge fleet of racing yachts(+/- 100) fighting to the finish line, inside the Sound. We chilled, rested and swam in the crystal clear waters, taking the opportunity to dive and clean off the last of the weed and barnacles that we acquired in St Martin. Later we watched the start of the next leg of the race…. A downwind start under kites and bags, led by Richard Branson in his150ft + catamaran “Necker Belle”. He organizes a number of BVI racing events. It was quite a spectacle! The big man himself arrived by seaplane, landing somehow amongst this field of yachts, 30minutes before the race got underway. Recognize the Cat at anchor in the foreground? Yes, Klaus and Beryl , on “Ti Bay”, are en route to the Bahamas, and we have spent good times together, whenever we have met up along the way since Grenada. We all went the Bitter End Yacht Club for sundowners and a light meal that evening. When we returned to the yachts at Vixen Point, we found Sheer Tenacity surrounded by huge (3ft to 5ft) Tarpon, swirling around, hunting down jacks attracted by the cockpit lights. At first I thought they were sharks, with their bright orange eyes, but their profiles and silver shining bodies soon revealed their ID! Earlier in the day, we had been watching big Green Turtles surfacing around the boat. So although the fishing on the route up had been quiet, the sea life seems alive and well here! On Friday we left the Sound, and anchored between Prickly Pear Island and Eustatia, alongside a snorkeling reef. The islands themselves appear quite scrubby, reminiscent of Pilanesberg by the sea, but he beaches are white, and the water a beautiful clear turquoise! Yes, we like our first look at the Virgins, and look forward to using up our full 4 week permit, as we explore the islands and anchorages that we have dreamed about for years.

If Clothes maketh the man, what about the Drag Queens? 18thMarch 2011

2011-03-21T15:34:00.000-07:00

21/03/2011

This blog is about a couple of the interesting anchoring techniques shown by bare boat charters that we have witnessed recently. At first I was tempted to title the piece ”Sunsail Specials and Moorings Monkeys”, given the Chartering dominance of these two companies around these waters. However, the more we saw of these yachts, the more we came to realize that the yachts offered by these two companies are generally very well presented and maintained, and that the comments I am about to dish out should not be linked to Sunsail and Moorings alone! We were nearly wiped out by a dragging “Switch” cat in Bequia, so one learns to identify the livery of all the charter companies PDQ.

We had chartered a Sunsail yacht, a Beneteau 381 in the Seychelles around the turn of the century, and it was a dog…. Designed and prepared to maximize accommodation, at the cost of sailing capability. It was also nothing like as well maintained as the fleet we have observed in the Caribbean, which also have the added advantage of now ,once again, mostly from the Bruce Farr stable, after the Bay of Biscay tragedy, where the righting moment of a particular boat was questioned. A South African cruising friend we met here, bought an 8 year old 50ft ex Sunsail Bruce Farr designed Beneteau, and it was extremely clean, well equipped and maintained. Yes , the 75hp Yanmar had done 5000plus hours, and the windlass was past its best. It would still require a fair amount of time and money to convert it into a livaboard cruising yacht, but we felt he still got a lot of boat for his $140000. Similarly, we have had friends who have bought ex Moorings Leopards, and have also been able to get fine cats for reasonable value. There again, the engines have big hours, and re engining them needs to be factored into the equation before too long. Although having said that I prefer the solid look of the old 45/47ft Leopards against which, the newer 44ft versions appear to have higher topsides, seem narrower, and a tad more skittish at anchor.

Which brings me back to the chartering crews and skippers who are let loose on the poor innocent and unsuspecting cruising fraternity…….actually Not unsuspecting at all….. more like Suspicious, Wide awake, and generally Shit scared of Bare Boat Charters! The point being…. It’s the crews skills deficiency, and not the Charter Company’s boats, that is the problem!!

Mary and I were hard pressed not to burst out laughing at the succession of anchoring exercises that were on display in Anguilla last week. The biggest clue and common denominator about Bare Boat Charter boats, seems to be the need to hold committee meetings on the bow, when about to anchor. We watched a Sunsail boat pull up behind us in 4mts of water, let out 4mts of chain , and then proceed to back up for about 8omts, until they were in at least 6mts of water, without ever letting out any more chain! They did this about 4 times before concluding loudly that the holding was bad, and they should try elsewhere.

Another mystery we observed on this yacht, was to do with all the flags they flew from the spreader: Lima,Whisky,Bravo,Juliet,Mike,Sierra. We think it was just because they thought it looked pretty, but I wanted to inform all the boats in the anchorage that it was a well known signal for “Free drinks here at 5pm”, but Mary felt sorry for them, and said “No!”

The ups and downs of boat handling skills!

2011-03-21T14:29:00.000-07:00

17.3.2011

During our time here in St Maarten, we have enjoyed the opportunity to see some of the world famous super yachts in the boating world , and as impressively , have been able to witness the boat handling skills of their crews and skippers. Sure, they all have massive bow thrusters, and many have twin screws and stern thrusters as well, but it is also good to see the precise use of one ,or both anchors, as they maneuver their way into very tight spots with minimal fuss.

Unlike Shearwaters , they do actually go astern, when asked to do so, which makes for a good starting point! I know of at least two 39ft Shearwaters whose owners have capitulated to this behavioural quirk, and fitted bow thrusters to minimize their marina embarrassments!

The” Marie Cha iv” was here for a while, having some work done on her “Park Lane “ boom, which in itself was wider and longer than “Sheer Tenacity”! At the moment, the “Mirabella V”’, which I think is still the world’s largest sloop, is also anchored/moored just inside the Simpson Bay Bridge. It dwarfs all the other little 145ft Peroni Navi’s, with its mast stretching up way above all the other mega yachts , all with their red anchor lights,( which must be something to do with warnings to aircraft! )

Mary and I were lucky enough to be invited for dinner on the new “Zephiro”, by Gerhardt Reuther, whose previous “Zephiro”, ( 76ftv Solaris), I had helped sail to Sardinia from Grenada in 2008,and, which wasn’t too shabby either! The new “Zephiro” is a Southern Winds 100 footer, and is a real work of art…….. sleek, elegant, understated, fast, and beautifully appointed and equipped. She was moored in a tight little berth in the Place de Plaisance Marina, and her bow thruster, powered by two gensets( 1 x35kva, 1 x 25kva) made this a piece of cake!

The closest we came to watching the Heinekin regatta, was to watch the traditional open boat yacht race between Road Bay to Dog Island and back. On these lightweight sloops , (24-30ft), there are no weighted keels. Ballast is only of the human kind, so each boat needs 2 or 3 bulky lads on the rail, or even on trapeze . They take the job seriously too, and knock back about a beer per mile in case they lose too much weight from overexertion! These crews zig- zag their craft through the anchored yachts, fighting for position all the way . There are no handicaps, and it was interesting to see that the race was actually won by the smallest craft in the fleet. Just better sailors! The boat names too were a bit special.. “Stay Up’, “No Big Ting”, “De Storm”, “Alma Gloria”, “ Magician”,”F S Tornado” were some we recall.

The flipside of all this skill is found in frightening abundance all around, as we are approaching the epicenter of bare boat chartering ! I have made mention of various anchoring techniques in a previous blog, but some amazing and innovative anchoring attempts demand a special mention entirely on their own, in the next blog!

SXM Heineken Week Escape!

2011-03-17T07:41:00.000-07:00

16^th March 2011

As most yachties at HBYC and yachts clubs worldwide already know, “racing” skippers are a very different breed of people! Aggressive, Hypersensitive, Rude, Arrogant, and incredbly sensitive about whose “water” belongs to whom!

These attributes are honed and perfected during races, but are still very much in evidence in marinas and anchorages where the skills are still being practiced and tested in the days leading up to “Race Days”. When the racing machines approach the 80-100ft mark ,these attributes reach a state of near perfection, where “right of way” rules are easily morphed into “I’m Bigger than you” !

Heineken Week is also characterised by the onset of nightly orgies of parties, loud music, immense consumption of rum and beer etc. I have heard it described as a drinking week with a sailing theme, but the participents would probably be upset!

It starts off with the legendary Mount Gay Rum Party at the Soggy Dollar bar in Palapa Marina, which culminates in the Carribean renouned “wet T-Shirt” competition. We we invited to the party of course, and Mary suggested that I offer my services as a judge in this event, given my lifelong fascination in this field, combined with my well known observational skills. I gave the matter serious consideration, but then had to admit to myself and all concerned , that it was unlikely that I would still be awake for the event which was scheduled to start at only 3.00am, when everyone was as nissed as pewts! Besides, I heard on the grapevine, that the event had been highjacked by the Plastic Surgeons Mammary enhancement association of the World, as an advertising gimic! It would bebelow my dignity to lend my credibility to such a sham!! I had to offer my apologies!

And so,with our new watermaker installed, and ready to be tested, we decided to seek the peace , quiet, and clean water, of Anguilla, some 20nms distant. We chose the 9.00am Bridge opening, and were hauled and ready by 8.45am. We eventually escaped from the lagoon at about 10.00am in last place, in a 30knot rain squal and a hysterical bridge operator, having been pushed and bullied out of the way by the entire Heinekin fleet, who just knew that their “water” was more important than ours!

The weather prediction had been for a 10-15NE breeze, with clear skies,which is why we enjoyed 27-30knt SE rain squalls all the way to Anguilla. No sooner had we finished anchoring in the rain and gloom, than the skies cleared, the wind dropped, and to reveal the turquoise beauty of the Caribbean, and lovely golden beaches………a very long way from the madness of St Martin!

We learned later that our departure was a doddle compared to the chaos of the following morning, where one yacht did its best to demolish the bridge, and another got itself jammed diagonally in the channel!

Meerkats and other Mugs

2011-02-02T13:02:00.000-08:00

02/02/2011

Obviously my last bit of scribble, filled with apologies and contrition, did the trick! I am no longer gated , and in fact we are going back to lovely Orient Bay with Tom & Johness for Sunday lunch at Bikini beach………. But not the NUDY section !!! Tom too, had his challenges he tells me. Its all very well for us to remember to look down , to keep chatting away, without staring at the many and varied sights ….. but its another thing altogether trying to tell your dog where she can and can’t go sniffing!
Our visit to SXM has been longer and more expensive than originally planned, but it has also been very productive. Sheer Tenacity is now very much better equipped and prepared than when we left Hout Bay. A watermaker has now been ordered and should be here in about 12 days. More “wads of wonga”, which can not be justified on a cost basis in the Caribbean. We have taken the plunge to spare my ageing back, and cut out the tedious water runs with jerry cans. So we will be staying a little longer!
During our visit, we have also picked up a few SXM specials worth sharing!
The lagoon is big and widespread, making longer than usual dinghy trips the norm, hence the reason for our own new aluminum hulled RIB and 8hp motor. (Notice the eyes to help look out for wakes and other traffic!) The unspoken war between ignorant, power boaters, and yachties lies just below the surface in SXM. Many of these guys roar around chucking up huge wakes, causing anchored yachts to rock and roll, and problems for little yacht tenders. The lagoon itself can be quite choppy, and one often gets wet when going places. One of the quite common techniques to avoid getting wet is for people to stand up like Meerkats, holding onto the rope tether in front, and using an extended motor handle. Ex board surfers and water skiers usually have the balance and control, but not all are so talented! More than one has been catapulted into the sea by hitting large wakes. The Meerkats of course do not have the “kill” switch around their wrists, and therein lie’s the danger. Two such Meerkats were lucky to survive their wipe out last week, as the spinning prop on their upside down tender was luckily fouled by the tether. But before one gets too self righteous and critical about all these “stupid” power boating guys, cruisers need to remember that they too transform into “stupid” power boaters the moment they take off in their tenders!
Many cruisers, like ourselves, mark our anchors position by using an anchor marking buoy. It helps to define the swing range, and helps to avoid people dropping their hook on top of yours! This can be dangerous here! Once our marker buoy was wiped out by a power boat, and twice we have seen bare boat skippers moor their charter yachts onto some other poor dudes anchor marking buoy!
The busy SXM Juliana Airport runs from Maho Bay across the isthmus, onto a reclaimed strip into the lagoon. There is a never ending roar of jets taking off, and landing, over the anchorage. There is a “no anchoring zone” at the end of the runway. Urban legend has it, that when the runway had to be extended, to cater for Jumbo’s, the local Government official on the project committee, suggested that it might be easier to dredge the lagoon , and make it deeper so that the yachts would float lower in the water, and thereby not be a hazard to the planes! Archimedes must have turned in his grave!
SXM is also firmly in the American sailing region; anchoring balls and stars and stripes everywhere! We have thus had the opportunity to observe in various restaurants and bars, that quite a large portion of our American colleagues suffer from a common genetic defect. They have either been born without a” volume” control in their voice box, or, a defective “pitch” control! The problem seems to get worse with a simultaneous intake of alcohol!
Lastly, I am proud to announce, that Mary has finally converted to being a Real Cruiser! “Damn”, she said to me yesterday, “I’ve left my cap in the car!” meaning of course, the dinghy!

Banned from beauty and the beaches

2011-01-26T13:36:00.000-08:00

25/01/2011

I have been instructed by Mary to apologize to any of my blog followers whose sensitivities were offended by my anatomical observations over the week end. She has further summarily banned me from walking on, swimming on, or even thinking about Nude beaches for the foreseeable future. I guess that put me and “perkins” in the same dog box, as it were. Some of you might remember that whereas some insensitive cruisers call their engines, “the Donk”, or “Koos Diesel”, we saw fit to bestow upon our engine, a more illustrious title, in the vain hope that by showing him some respect, he would behave himself. Well, after about his fourth round of irresponsibly bad behaviour…(.blowing a raw water pump, bursting badly designed expensive rubber elbows twice, throwing an electrical wobbly,… before destroying the fresh water pump !), we decided to downgrade him from “Lord Perkins Sir” to “perkins”. Perhaps he would see the error of his ways, and try to earn his title back
.
I think that this is the same disciplinary nonsense that Mary is now trying to impose on me!! As if, just because somebody is wearing a costume, I will simply lose my imagination, and therefore stop some of my more extravagant exaggerations! We’ll see about that, but right now I’m gated!

We have just come back from Grande Marche, which is a large and well stocked Supermarket, stocked with all kinds of tasty goodies, … even beer, which for some archaic liquor licensing reasons, still cannot be stocked in RSA supermarkets, despite being available to every illegal shabeen ! We bought a case of “Cotes du Rhone” wine, which as many of you wine lovers will recognize is a sneaky French copy of that FAMOUS Simonsig wine, “Goats do Roam”. The French one is even a lot cheaper than the Simonsig one! Can you believe it?

We are now beginning to stock up the boat for our time in the BVI’s where prices are in a different stratosphere. We would like to spend about a month there, before working our way back to Antigua, to watch some of Antigua Sailing Week. Thereafter we will go via Guadeloupe and the Saints, to St Lucia in April, where we would like to watch some of the West Indies vs Pakistan cricket. From there we will visit Mustique, and the Tobago Cays, before heading off to Barbados in May, to watch more cricket, and get our 10 year visas for the USA. After that we hope to visit Tobago again, before returning to Grenada in time for our haul out and home visit in September/October.

By then I’m sure Mary will have forgotten about the ban, and I’ll sneak another visit to Orient beach!

SXM-Boats,beaches and bollocks

2011-01-25T08:01:00.000-08:00

24.01.2011

Sint Maarten, (Dutch), St Martin, (French), or SXM as it is also often called, has really grown on us. It is so much more than the smallest island in the world, controlled by two separate countries, which happens to be a duty free boating Mecca.
Only about 20% of the inhabitants were born on the island, with the rest being made up by “foreigners”, who have brought with them the skills and expertise that make things work.
Apart from the huge lagoon area, accessible to boats up to 200ft superyachts via two lifting bridges, it also has a huge Cruise liner docking facility in Philipsburg, which had 8 such vessels when we arrived before Xmas. The town of Philipsburg caters to these liners, with a top class beachfront lined with restaurants and palm trees, and one road back, with Jewelers and Electronic stores.
Thanks to a few island tours with Tom & Johness, we have got to see much more of SXM than many, including Grande Case and the big and beautiful Orient Bay, and its five beach areas of Kakao, Bikini, Waikiki, Coco Beach and Kontiki.
It was to this lovely area we were again taken yesterday. Yachts and Superyachts were anchored in the bay.

We started walking from the one end, with Tom and I discussing his challenges of starting a new business. I then noticed a fellow shuffling towards us, dribbling two coconuts with his feet. As he got closer, I could not help but detect that they were not coconuts, but two bloody great Brinjals in a floppy sack attached to his person where his legs met! Yes, we had just crossed over onto the Nudist, or “clothing optional” beach! I mean this poor man was in serious trouble! He either had had a transplant operation with a large bull, or suffered a serious medical problem caused by bruising as the brinjals were being kicked along the beach by his kneecaps! Now I have spent most of my life in clothing, and could not think of any pair of underpants, shorts or whatever, that could accommodate tackle on this scale. A babies pram, or a supermarket trolley could have done the job, but that would have looked equally silly on the beach.

All my life, I’ve always been a legs and boobs fancier myself, but its just not done, to stare and gape at the merchandise on display on such a beach! One has to adopt a carefree, nonchalant eyes down type of disposition. As such, it is only the extreme curiosities that one notices in ones peripheral vision. I was pleased to register that amongst the field of button mushrooms, there were only a couple of Boomerangs and Puff Adders. Most of what was on show , was fat ,floppy and flaccid , for both genders!

What did strike me as very unusual, was the removal of body hair….obviously an attention seeking highlighting technique. Now, many of us will have chuckled at the concept of an excited partner experiencing a “wide on”, but never had I imagined that it could be a physical reality! Normally such matters would be discreetly hidden behind a furry triangle, or carefully trimmed “landing strip”. But no, not here in the care free and hair free zone! What I had the misfortune to witness, was not so much a “wide on”, as a Dual Carriageway… ….Black River Pathway in Cape Town came to mind!

Thank goodness we soon made it back to Bikini Beach where we could sit down and have a quiet beer, lunch and a giggle, in a normal world. Even the pretty young mother, topless, walking hand in hand with costumed hubby and kids, looked totally “normal”!
My friend Etienne always believed that the designer of the bonnet on the old Volkswagen Beetle was inspired by women in bathing costumes. Truly, the sexiest costumes really are those that leave something to the imagination!

10 000 miles, as the sun sets on another year!

2011-01-02T05:18:00.000-08:00

1.1.2011

Somewhere, between Antigua and St Barts, while the moon was hiding from the sun, Sheer Tenacity passed the 10 000nm mark since we sailed out of Hout Bay! To celebrate this milestone, as well as Christmas and New Year in St Maarten, we flew the 16 courtesy flags of the countries visited during this trip from our topping lift!

Keen observers might also notice the “at anchor” ball on display at the bow, in deference to the number of USA boats around! Legally of course, a 40 foot yacht, with sails packed away in a bright red stackpack, and secured to the seabed by 40mts chain, connected to a well set anchor, with a loop of chain hanging over the bow roller , and attached to the boat by a chain hook on a nylon snubbing line , in a designated and chart marked anchorage, with a tender hanging off the stern, cannot be assumed to be at anchor!!! Americans lawyers, in particular, need to see your black ball before they can be expected to know this!
Anchored here in Simpson lagoon, we are definitely one of the smallest yachts. Each day, the road bridge over the channel between the open sea and the lagoon, opens six times to allow incoming or outgoing boats. We had arrived in Simpson Bay at about noon, so we had to wait until the next Inward bound opening, which was at 17.30hrs. The St Maarten Yacht Club pub and deck area overlook the bridge , and channel, and the crowd gather on most nights to watch the procession. Our entrance was no exception, and we were one of about 12 to 15 boats entering the lagoon. This is accompanied by flashing cameras, vocal encouragement, and bellowed instructions from the Bridge Operator to …”Move along… little Sheer Tenacity, we haven’t got all day! “
We were sandwiched between a 170ft power cruiser, and a 70ft classic yacht, which was followed by a 140ft Peroni Navi schooner . Its enough to give a man a complex!
Tom & Johness took us on a drive around the lagoon, by road one evening. We stopped for a sundowner at the legendary “Sunset Beach” restaurant/pub, which overlooks the beach, and the end of the Airport runway. There is a nonstop stream of jets, from Jumbos to sleek private Lears, landing and taking off. The beach is only separated from the runway by the narrow access road, and a wire fence. It is quite something to see all these airliners coming in so low over the beach, and touching down just beyond the fence. Tourists line up on the beach, filming these planes as they approach, and skim just over their heads. Nuts! But not quite as nuts as the guys who stand on the beach behind the Boeings, as they build up their revs to maximum thrust for take off! The sandstorm blizzard, screaming jet engines and yelling from sandblasted bodies creates a most unusual form of entertainment! The only escape is to run/ get blown into the sea!
Being a duty free Island has led to St Maarten becoming a very busy and successful boating service, refit, and supply area within the Caribbean. Everybody with expensive boat work to be done, or equipment to buy, comes to St Maarten. The Marina’s all cater for the crewed Superyachts, and the salaried crews in turn spend their dollars in the local pubs and restaurants. The end result is a young, buzzy crowd, of relatively cash rich, skilled, and generally well behaved folk , living life like one big party!

Guadeloupe to Sint Maarten

2011-01-01T15:11:00.000-08:00

22/12/2010

Little Fredlet enjoyed the new point of sail, and we covered the 50 miles from Deshaies to Jolly Harbour, Antigua, arriving shortly after lunch. One look at the entrance, the customs jetty, and we decided to save our time and money, and continue to St Barts, after a few hours rest.
We anchored around the corner in Five Island Bay, a beautiful big and protected bay, which we had almost entirely to ourselves, from where we watched the sunset, and, saw our THIRD Green Flash since we left home! Behind us, the full moon had risen, heralding the winter solstice, and creating a golden loom over the water.
After a light supper and a rest, we hauled anchor at midnight, and set off on the 80 mile leg to St Barts, taking advantage of the quieter 15knot breeze, and the full moon!
Unknown to ourselves, we were about to witness a once in 400 year heavenly spectacle! A total lunar eclipse, ON the Equinox! Our huge bright yellow moon slowly morphed into a big red/brown orb; the night turned dark, and all the stars brightened! An hour or so later, the whole process was reversed, and we watched the full bright moon setting in the west, shortly before the sun rose in the east. We could only imagine all the pagans, Stonehengers, Inca’s et al, sacrificing goats, chickens, as well as the odd child or virgin, to appease the gods, beseeching them to restore the heavenly bodies to their normal routines!
This little heavenly display played havoc, of course, with our watch keeping schedule.

We checked into St Barts by noon, knackered but elated. The upside was, that unlike all the Cruise Liner passengers, who we learnt later, had to pay mega dollars for tickets to be in this corner of the globe on this night….. we enjoyed it as Free entertainment while on night watch!
St Barts is known as the French Riviera of the Caribbean. It is the ultimate show off playground of the SERIOUSLY wealthy …. Those whose wealth exceeds most countries GDP ! This showplace, seemed to us, to be unaffected by the global financial decline and meltdown. All the Superyachts, both sail and power, all the Big Names, and Chartering “wannabe’s”, on show . with their big beautiful toys
Mary and I felt quite honoured to be able to show these poor misguided folk, what a REAL cruising yacht looks like, crewed by real old farts, in faded t shirts, instead of Hunks and Hostesses, wearing pristine white uniforms and gold braid!
I mean, Uplights to show how tall your mast/masts are, Downlights to turn the ocean into an Aquamarine wonder world, Wet Bikes and Jet skis for all the kids, the odd helipad , 35ft rubber duck tenders, powered by twin 350hp outboards, smaller tenders for the big tenders ..,the list is endless, but so it appeared, was the money!
Yet back in St Maarten, which is the refueling and restocking depot for the Superyacht industry, we were told that the numbers were down, the marina’s empty in comparison, local businesses that service and supply this market, are suffering. Where has it all gone? The answer it seems, is that when the USA catches a cold, the Caribbean gets pneumonia ! Not all is as it seemed in St Barts!

Our Route March North..............

2011-01-01T12:34:00.000-08:00

20/12/2010

With “perkins” sporting a new water pump, we were now able to think about our trip north to St Martin, where we had arranged to meet Tom, Johness, Alex and Dom for Christmas. Only 400 odd miles….. a doddle! Well, I suppose it could have been, if we had decided to do it all as one passage …. 3or 4 days max, leaving two weeks to spare and get to know St Martin.

We decided instead, to island hop, and stop over at all the places we wished to see, so that we would have a better idea about where we would like to spend more time on the return trip. Suddenly, it becomes a very different exercise, with all the checking in and out, the customs hours, the queues…. As well as the socialising en route!

We left St Georges (Grenada) and beat our way up to Hillsborough in Carriacou, where we had to check out of Grenada. We then sailed round to Chatham Bay on Union Island, where we spent the night. An early start allowed us to do the 30 mile beat to Bequia, where we checked into St Vincent, and spent a great couple of days. Imagine our surprise to see another Shearwater, sporting an SA crew flag. It was Magnus Murphy and family, who now live in Canada,on “Losloper” , previously “Ithaka”, and before that, “Slivermoon” . Magnus started the Shearwater Owners Face book website a few months back, and was moved to feature “Sheer Tenacity” once again on this medium after our Bequia meeting!

Early on the 11th, we headed off to St Lucia, detouring around St Vincent, once again on a breezy fetch, where we anchored under the famous “Pitons”, ( EC $ 40 for a mooring buoy) where we checked in again.

The next day we motored up the lee of the island to Rodney Bay, where we anchored. While there we watched about 15 of the ARC boats finish their crossing from the Canaries, bringing up to about 120 of the over 200 boats taking part in this years ARC….. All of the yachts to have arrived so far make Sheer Tenacity look like a little day sailor! We liked Rodney Bay, and St Lucia in general, and look forward to spending a lot more time there.

We sailed over to Martinique on the 14th, and anchored at Anse Mitan, just outside Forte France. It struck us as being rather jaded and tired. Unlike the crime and grime of some of the Caribbean, the empty hotels, and half built and abandoned timeshare resorts, reflected a more global financial picture. The French shops, however, were certainly a pleasure, albeit rather expensive. Even the little ‘8 au Huit” supermarket up in St Pierre was fabulously stocked with treats and cordon bleu goodies!

Another 60 mile beat up to Portsmouth in Dominica, where we were approached miles out by “boat boys”, who now label themselves “boat services”. In fact, after anchoring, we welcomed the offer of their service to take us, in their boat, down to the customs office, and back. The sea was pretty wild, and there was no way we could have launched our dinghy and safely tied it up on the dock landing for the duration of our checking in process! EC $ 20 well spent!

During this leg, however our new Raymarine auto pilot died, so once again we had to pull out our trusty little “Fredlet”, the rubber band driven autohelm 3000, which served us so well from French Guyana to Trinidad. On closer inspection, it transpired that the failure was in fact NOT the Raymarine bits, but the hydrolic ram, which was the last remaining component from the B & G setup. I had this unit serviced and rebuilt, with new brushes and seals by a specialist in Trinidad. I had been concerned about the workmanship at the time, because when it was eventually returned to me, the only apparent sign that it had been worked on, was a half empty fluid reservoir, and a cursory wave of black spray paint! (When stripped in Sint Maarten, the B & G specialist confirmed that the unit had never been opened, let alone fitted with new brushes and seals ! I had paid US$200 for a spray paint con job!)

The next day saw us in another boisterous beat

up to the delightful “Saints”, (to which we will definitely return.) They are a quaint, very French little group of islands, 5 nm south of Guadeloupe, which was our next stopover, Deshaies, on the top NW wingtip of this butterfly shaped island, will also see us again. We liked the look of this town and anchorage and the surrounding wildlife attractions.

Our next leg is 50 odd miles to Antigua, past the volcanic Montserrat, and thankfully is also the leg, where our point of sail eases from a beat to a reach, in these fresh NE trades.

When will we ever learn?

2010-11-24T04:24:00.000-08:00

22/11/2010
In my last blog I was crowing about being in danger of being able to see the tunnel, (not the light at the end of it, mind you !), but we then had the temerity to set sail on a Friday nogal! I justified that by declaring it a “Fishing” trip around to St Georges, as opposed to a “Passage!” Klaus (see pic of the 4 of us at La Sargesse) says we still broke the rule, so what did we expect? But he’s German and inflexible!!
Our leisurely trip started well with a barracuda in the bag even before we reached the drop off line, some 7nm south of the point. On the run back up the line we were hoping for the odd Tuna and Dorado. Fat chance!
As we turned the 270deg to head back, the fresh water pump started screaming like a banshee, sprouting water and generally declaring itself U/S. We were forced to sail the 9 miles back, against the 2.0 knot current, with only 6 to 7 knots of wind on the nose!
We nurdled and tacked our way backwards and forwards, using every little black cloud we could find, and managed to make about 5 miles in 5 hours towards St Georges. Just as we were showing signs of progress, with our perfectly trimmed sails, (making a whole 1.5knots), then the wind stopped… as in zero ! “Shwopper” had to be launched, and lashed alongside, with the little mercury 3.3hp going at full taps. We resumed our progress at a credible 1.4knots, and were able to drop the new Rocna in the often poor holding area outside St Georges. On arrival , I dinghied in to Port Louis and arranged for a mooring, a tow in at 10.00 am next day, and for a mechanic to then visit us at 11.00am. A quick dive on the anchor indicated that it was lying upside down like a wanton woman… Without an engine or breeze to help set it, we could only hope that when push comes to shove, as it were, it would turn around and dig itself in alright!
By 10.30 the next morning, there was no sign of our arranged tow. My phone call at 11.00 only elicited a promise to phone me back! This came at 12.00 with the news that Management Policy had now changed, and they were unable to offer this service. When reminded that we had done the same thing three weeks earlier, I was told that the Insurance policy rules made it impossible now. You will have to make your own arrangements we were told !
Fellow cruiser‘s love a challenge, and are often more useful than Marina hands anyway, so it did not take long before we were safely moored thanks to a fellow cruiser with a 15hp dinghy, while we were watched by the Marina staff from their High Risk twin 60hp Port Louis Marina boat. By now we had missed the mechanic, and were forced to rearrange his visit for Monday.
Day one in the new superyacht berth saw a vicious swell ricocheting off the dock, which caused a terrible jerking and snatching on the docklines. The midship cleat began to move, allowing the pouring rain to soak all our manuals, and when the bowline snapped, we ended up with a deep scratch down the side! I would hate to be in here in a hurricane!

Needless to say I was underwhelmed with Port Louis this time around, and decided to check up on the “policy” stories with the GM, and at the same time offer him a couple of choices.! He could either admit to poor management who failed to a advise their Dock Manager and staff about the “new” policies, ( they had no idea about this when I made the plans with them), or, he could tell me there had been no change of policy, and his team were just slack assed liars! I ran into him in the Marina offices, and asked him to take his pick! He chose a third option! No change of policy: The dock manager forgot to tell the experienced boat driver, who then also failed to pitch up for work. The new boy did not want to rat on his mate once I started phoning, and he did not feel competent enough to do it alone, and leave the marina unattended, and therefore became creative with his excuses. Sorry says GM! i.e. slack assed liars! (S.A.L’s)

The week end brought a cruise ship, a rainbow and a little R & R in pretty St Georges, before we placed the order for a replacement pump from Tortola on Monday. It arrived in Grenada on Wednesday morning, but took 6 days to be cleared.. This despite daily follow ups, and a Friday promise that I would have it by 10.00am on Monday ,….and that it would be fitted that afternoon! More S.A.L’s ! Having received it at 5pm on the Monday, the fitment was rescheduled for the next day. On Tuesday, however, we learnt that this too would not be possible as they had other commitments! It took an x -rated tantrum , before the plan was revised, and another mechanic was sent to do the job.
Meanwhile “Lord Perkins Sir Diesel”, has now been officially demoted to “perkins”, until he shows a change of attitude and behaviour. When the new pump is fitted, we will give him an oil change and a few new belts, and put him on “Final Warning”. Perhaps he will see the error of his ways, and behave a little better as we restart our trek north!
“Swhopper” *, on the other hand , was given a smart new UV protective cover, by Mary, as a thank you for his valiant efforts ! The scratch has been fixed, and toe rails re-varnished, so by tomorrow evening we hope to be back to square one, but just a bit more platsak! Visitors from the Cruise liner polished our egos too, by declaring Sheer a really beautiful boat!
But before the mechanic arrived we were asked to move to another mooring, to make way for “Party Girl”… the biggest luxury charter yacht in the Caribbean . (Look it up on Google!! 146ft of opulence.) This confirmed that the no tow policy was nonsense, as we were given all the help we needed, to make room for Party Girl!

*
“Swhopper” is the Gemini dinghy given to us

by Alan Cook, who gave it this name after seeing Terminator 2 , and hearing Arnold Schwarzenegger tell all his men to “get into the Schwopper” ( Helicopter)

Waiting for "Tomas"

2010-11-11T06:25:00.000-08:00

June too soon, July stand by, August you must, September Remember, October its Over!! So they say!
24th October saw us beating our way back to Grenada, only to find ourselves in the first stages of a Hurricane panic! “ A large area of Low pressure tropical disturbance, associated with a tropical wave 1050nm south east of the Windwards, has a 20% chance of becoming a tropical storm within the next 48 hours!” This was the National Hurricane centre report that we faced on the 25th October. The next day it jumped to an 80% probability, and the models projected paths ranging between Venezuela, and Trinidad to St Lucia in the North.
Where to duck to……. What to do… ?? People upping anchors and heading North , South, and West! Hyper activity everywhere!
Our planned strategy has always been to run south at the first definite tracking signs of a tropical storm. It was not yet a storm, and the track projections too varied, and we still had 72 hours at least before it reached our longitude. So we prepared the boat, and sat tight in a rapidly emptying Prickly Bay, and decided to make our call the following day, based on the latest information. “Tomas” was named the following day as a Tropical Storm, and a probability of escalating to a Hurricane during the next 48 hrs…. but more significantly, the projected path was showing a more North Westerly track, and indicating a passage through St Lucia. Being in the SE quadrant as it approached , meant that we should miss the worst of it by just staying put, and at worst , it might just give Grenada a glancing blow!

Hurricane holes and mangrove swamps were filling up fast, despite maximum expected winds gusting to 40knots. We moved to a slightly more protected area in Prickly Bay, and deployed our 30kg Bruce on 50mts chain to port, and our new Rocna, also on 50mts at 60 degs to Starboard. Our 25kg CQR, on 20 mts chain, and 60mts nylon warp, was coiled on deck in event of an emergency.
Shops were emptied of water and foodstuffs, and the island waited….. The Grenada Emergency Authorities instructed all non essential service workers to stay at home….and still the island waited. Talk show hosts on radio ratcheted up the hysteria to fever pitch… and everyone waited…. “H” hour came , and went….. No wind…. No rain…. Tomas twitched further north West, punishing Barbados , and heading through St Lucia and St Vincent.
Cruisers start checking the well being of their mates further north. A few boats were damaged, but thankfully all our friends were safe. Mike and Lesley ( Extasea) were in Bequia, and winds maxed out at 50knots, and a few boats around them dragged sustaining some damage. They had a charter group on board, who were just disappointed not to be spending their time at the Cays.
The seas got up a bit for us, but the winds never came! We swung around, and around, and around on our twin anchors ,and created a great big steel koeksister, which took far longer to untangle than it took to deploy! The biggest wind that came our way, was 24knots…… two days after Tomas had passed. A normal sailing day in Hout Bay!
Without doubt, the biggest blessing for cruisers these days, is the incredible advance warning and forecasting services available via wifi and internet, which enable cruisers to make informed decisions and plans. I am including a number of the actual images we saw, as events unfolded. Most of these are thanks to the National Hurricane Centre in Miami, plus the satellite based Grib files.
Tomas came, and went, and we were left unscathed , and better prepared for any future threats , and will stick to our rule not venture further North than Bequia in the Hurricane Season!

Little things come together to make a BIG difference

2010-11-11T05:46:00.000-08:00

My blogs have been a bit scarce of late, but our chores and boat work are collectively coming together, and improving our peace of mind, and cruising lifestyle!
We did a night run down to Trinidad a few weeks back, with a big list of things to do, buy, and people to see! Replacing Lord Perkins timing belt, ditching the Mase genset, buying a wet /dry powerful small vacuum cleaner, a Honda 2kva Inverter generator, a 25kg Rocna anchor, new windlass gypsy, momentary foot control switch for the windlass, a new push button Eco stove, security grids for the butterfly hatch, updating the software on the Mastercharger… etc etc!
Amazingly, we nailed it all in two weeks, and still had time to organise a South African cruisers braai at Crews Inn Marina! We were joined by Nick and Lynette Marvin ( Ukulele Lady), Mike and Lesley Blamey (Extasea), Larry and Marlo D’Aguiar ( Beatrice), Walter and Jackie ( Jean Marie) Joop & Jaqualette ( Goody), plus Steve (Cinnamon Girl) and Ralph (Uvubu)
We had a great evening discussing launch dates, plans and routes. While we were busy jolling however, unseen by us, a cruiser moored below, was broken into by ever more brazen crooks, and relieved of computers, cameras, cell phones and cash. Sadly, this is no longer unusual in Chaguaramus, as, two days later, another neighbour had his 14ft dinghy and 40hp outboard stolen one night, even though it was “lifted and locked”. Police and authorities don’t seem to be doing much about it, and the local business folk are resorting to patrols and neighbourhood watch type efforts, to protect their businesses, which are battling in the general economic down turn, combined with worries about crime and Piracy issues. Made me feel like we were back in Hout Bay !
We helped Ukulele Lady to splash (our sister ship Shearwater 39), after a very extensive and professional refit, and two days later, were able to sail back to Grenada in the company of a smart and shiny repainted “Beatrice”. We left at 4.00am for a mostly daylight passage ( so that we could fish), and made Prickly Bay 13hrs later with two Dorado each!
No sooner were we back in Grenada, than a widespread general depression decided to grow into Tropical storm Tomas, which put all jobs on hold, put everyone in a tizz, and caused a lemming like exodus from Prickly Bay ! More about Tomas in the next blog! We battened down the hatches, deployed two big anchors, with a third on standby, and started planning our route up the Island chain in time to join Tom and Johness ( Springtime) in St Martin for Christmas.
Once Tomas had passed through, it was back to the job list, where a new big 185w 24v solar panel was added to the array. The 2 X 85w 12v panels were put in series, and then put in parallel with the new 24v unit, and regulated via a new Blue Skies MPPT Solar controller. What a huge difference!! It pumps in between 18 and 24amps for about 5 hour a day! We have also fitted new “Silent” blue carbon fibre blades to the wind generator, and it too is more efficient, as well as quiet! Together with our little Honda genset, and high output alternator, it seems that we are at last beginning to win the power struggle!!!
The new Rocna anchor , which sets incredibly, the new footswitch, and rust free anchor chain ( courtesy of a Nick Marvin discard!), are all helping to simplify and clean up our anchoring routine. Whereas we only ever knew about the light at the end of the tunnel, because we were told it was there…. We are now in real danger of seeing it!
We have booked our haul out for August to November 2011 in Grenada, and will be flying back to RSA for Oct/Nov, after overseeing the re-spray in August. Between now and then, we hope to explore the Leewards, the Virgins, and possibly the Bahamas, before making our way back to Grenada.

Are you showing your balls in Paradise ?

2010-08-22T15:52:00.000-07:00

22/08/2010

All yachties have them of course. They are necessary bits of our safety equipment without which we are deemed unfit to go to sea. But….. do you ever use them? Daytime anchor balls, that is.
In among the hundreds of designated anchorages, and the many thousands of yachts with whom we have found ourselves at anchor, we have only seen seven boats displaying Anchor Balls by day. One was by a very diligent Dutchman, in a well prepared ketch, (who ruined the whole image with gaudy bright blue cockpit lights at night !) Another was shown by a very serious old salt flying the red “duster”. All the other five were displayed by fearful Americans. I use the word fearful advisedly, as I was informed by one, that it was not that they thought they would be invisible in the anchorage by day without said balls, but in the litigious society from which they come, they know that no matter how guilty another party might be in case of a dragging or ramming incident, they would lose all rights to compensation, if the guilty party had an American lawyer, and they were not displaying their balls!
So, the further north we sail, and the more we encounter some of the alarmingly incompetent bareboat skippers, many who hail from the USA, the greater is my inclination to pull out my balls from the locker, and dust them off ready for display!

These past ten days have been really fantastic, as we have explored the bays, anchorages and islands which were only hearsay and romantic dreams before we left. From Tyrrel bay (Carriacou), we checked into St Vincent and the Grenadines, at Union Island. On our first approach to Clifton, we were forced to turn, run, and take refuge behind Frigate Island, by a huge black thunderstorm, accompanied by torrential rain, zero visibility, and big winds. The entrance into Clifton harbour is protected by reefs, and is tricky at the best of times… and downright foolish for first timers! An hour later, the sun came out, and we were able to find our way in to a good spot, without the help of the ever present boat boys, always wanting to “take a line” or sell you a mooring buoy. Checking in was a breeze, and we were able to watch the sun set from the unique “Happy’s Bar”, built on to the reef.

We then sailed up to Mayreau, where we anchored in Salt Whistle bay for a couple of days, before spending time in the amazing Tobago Cays. Although the water was not its normal turquoise blue (it had a green hue), it was still very clear, and snorkeling around Horseshoe reef, and amongst all the turtles was very special . It was for Mary a real highlight and sense of achievement. She had always been petrified of swallowing the ocean, and never believed she would be able to get back into the dinghy again! She is now a pro!

We are now in lovely Bequia, where we will spend about a week before heading south again. This is as far north as we wish to be in hurricane season. Even with all the excellent weather information available , we want to be able to run south for 24 hours, and be well out of its range at the first sign of a “nasty” being on track to ruin the dream!

Tales from Tyrrel Bay..............and waterbuck!

2010-08-15T07:20:00.000-07:00

The first week of August saw a host of activities, on both land and sea, all packaged around the Carriacou Regatta. .These ranged from Karioki competitions, to Mexican dominoes, on land, and Round the Island keelboat races , as well as the all Island open workboat competition. Most of the land based activities were to raise funds for the Carriacou Childrens Education Fund, and all the yachties a do their bit to help the kids.
We had heard all about the local, no handicap, open workboat sailing races, and were on Paradise beach, ready and waiting for the 11.00am Le Mans style start.. By 11.45 there were still no boats on the beach!!. As the local beach pub barlady explained to me, “No problem mon, dis 11 ‘oclock Caribbean time.! All de boats dey sail frum Bequia, Union, Petit St Vincent, Windward to get here. Be here soon” They started arriving at about 12, some of them having sailed 30 odd miles down from Bequia, just for a morning race! With inter island pride at stake, and good prize money, they take the races very seriously. The boats are beautifully prepared , and are 22 to 30 ft, and crewed by 6 to 8 BIG guys. Each boat needs at least two huge men out on trapeze, as they carry big fully battened lateen mainsails, and genoas, with only a drop down centerboard. Human ballast is everything! The last crew in were given 15 minutes to rest, and time to buy another case of beer, before the race was called.

No count down, no race flags,…. Just a blast on the Vuvusela (yes,it really was taking the place of a conch shell) and a bellow, and they’re off… down the beach , to launch, drop the centre board and go! The race was around most of Carriacou, past Windward, across to PSV, back to Windward , and back to the finish at Hillsborough, a distance of about 20miles, which they cover in about 1hr 30min ! Great spectacle, and great skills!
In terms of our land activities, we were coerced into a Mexican train Double12s Domino’s game, with a bunch of Americans. The game proved to be a mixture of skill, luck, and shit stirring! It came, of course, quite naturally to Mary and I, and we did quite well! We also met a number of extremely interesting fellow cruisers. One fellow, who was nick named “Rocket Scientist “ all day, particularly when he screwed up or got sneaky, turned out to be just that! Gordon just happened to be the chief computer programmer in charge of Nasa, when John Glen did the moon walk!. US Presidential citations and all!!
Maintenance is an ongoing chore aboard, and Mary decided it was time for me to strip and repaint the toilet seat and lid. Having carefully taken it all apart, and painted the tops with my best International Brightside paint, I decided that the easiest way to paint the undersides, was to re assemble it and fit it back to the toilet, paint , and close it so that the wet paint was not exposed. We had been asked out for the afternoon, so it would be dry by the time we got back to the boat. Mary, at the last minute decided that a quick trip to the heads was required before we left, and having ascertained that the seat was dry, on top….. she assumed the position….only to find when she was done, that she now possessed a perfect white waterbuck –like bum ! I was of course abused and reprimanded, but also required to remedy matters. This required her to present her rear in a rather undignified manner, while I undertook a delicate and jointly hysterical paint removing challenge !!
The joys of a cruising life!

Caribbean Anchoring Styles

2010-07-21T10:39:00.000-07:00

20/7/2010

Mary and I reckon we are quite slick on Sheer Tenacity ! First we check out the anchorage, select an anchoring position, check the depths, the swing radius, head to wind, drop the hook on a tickey, lay out a good 4-5 times depth scope, in a straight line, set the hook, attach the bridle, let it take up the slack , motor astern to re-check the anchor setting on the bridle …….all accomplished using well rehearsed hand signals. We then sit down smugly, open the anchoring beer, and wait for the applause!! Sadly, there’s always a deafening silence!

We have meantime, become admirers of the techniques of others! We have consolidated some of them into the following types:

1 ) The Dog Turd Droppers ( DTD’s)
2 )The French way
3 )The Ice breakers
4 )The German buoys
5 ) Bareboat Cat Clowns

The DTD’s sail under many National flags. They approach their final chosen spot, drop the anchor, with the entire chain right on top of the anchor ! That’s it. Job done! Invariably they have no idea of depths, swing radius, or whether rocks, reefs or neighbouring yachts could be a problem. The first time the wind pipes up, straightening out their chain, is usually marked by the signs of panic.

The French are very laid back , and their approach is often evidenced by sneaky jinking in and out, between closely anchored boats. Using this stealth approach, they creep right up behind some unsuspecting souls transom, drop the hook using a minimum of scope, pulling up a few metres from someone else’s bow. Setting the anchor is regarded as a waste of time, so its hardly surprising that we have seen more French boats drag than any other flag! Any suggestion from another cruiser that they might be a bit close, could earn one a single digit salute! The saving grace for the French, is that they CAN sail, and that they are often accompanied by lovely topless crewmembers, at far closer range than normal!

The Icebreakers come from Cape Horn , or the Baltic, arriving in big steel yachts, sprouting anchors all round. Disconcertingly, they tend to approach the anchorage downwind, dropping the hook on the run, sailing over it in a slight curve, before locking up the windlass at the required scope, allowing the forward momentum to straighten the chain, set the hook, and swing the boat around 180 degrees, to settle in with all the other boats. To their credit, we haven’t seen them make a mistake yet!

The Germans often seem to prefer buoys ( that’s as in mooring ! ) They will frequently commandeer a buoy, even if it is way too close to an anchored yacht. The principle of “he who anchors first has prior claim” does not apply. Their approach is that the buoy was there first, so “Youz mus Mooff!”, even if you have been anchored there for two weeks. This is an interesting debate! Does an unused buoy put down by a diver, or marina, in a designated public anchorage, have a prior claim to space in maritime law? I doubt it, unless that buoy is marked as “occupied " by a certain named boat. We had one such German yacht arrive , and pick up a buoy about 20mts off our beam. We had been anchored there for two weeks, and had let out an additional 10mts of chain during the previous days big blow.

Once he had picked up the buoy, he was uncomfortably close given the wind direction., and I wished to discuss this with the skipper. He however, rubberducked away as soon as he was tied up, leaving his attractive young wife on board . She chose this time to strip naked on the sugar scoop, and start neatening up her “bikini” line. Being a sensitive and discrete gentleman, I decided to leave her be until she had completed her bush clearing exercise This took a while, and kept delaying my approach. In fact, it took most of the day, by which time she had an extremely neat and well groomed bikini line. She was obviously so proud of it, that she started prancing around the deck, displaying her lovely body and clean new lines to the rest of the anchorage. Clearly, as Mary told me, she would not have minded in the least if I paddled over to discuss our proximity. Just as I was about to do so, the wind swung back, and the gap increased to 50 mts and safety. Damn!
The big mystery to me remains! Why would she spend so much time perfecting her bikini lines, and then not wear the bikini?

The last , most entertaining, and potentially most dangerous group, is the Bareboat Cat Clowns. They are often crewed by successful yuppies, and approach the task of anchoring by forgetting everything they must have learned to become successful achievers! Planning, organizing, delegating and controlling …. The very essence of business success! Gone in a flash! There are often 6 skippers on these cats, one for each corner, one to drive, and one on the windlass. They all issue instructions, nobody listens, and the cat roars backwards and forwards at full power, often trailing the anchor like an oversized fishing lure. It usually starts off with windlass man lowering the anchor, and another skipper suggesting going astern. The anchor has probably only dropped 1 metre , and they are already doing 5 knots astern. The anchor finally touches the seabed 50 mts later, but hasn't got a snowballs chance of holding, as there is still only 8 or 9 mts of chain out, and they are now approaching other boats, jetty’s, rocks etc ,at 7 knots ! More skipper commands from all corners, accompanied by “Its Dragging”, Not Holding etc” Their solution? Full speed ahead, up anchor and start all over . After two or three more failed attempts, they decide to try elsewhere , because the holdings obviously no good here!! Funny, I was about to suggest just that , in the hope that they would move well away from us!

However, we have just had a nasty squall roar through the Tyrrel Bay anchorage, gusting 35 -40, and despite all the interesting anchoring methods , only one boat has dragged…Surprise,surprise....... A 50ft luxury motor launch. It is currently impaled on the bowsprit of a big traditional sailing schooner, with the owner nowhere to be seen ! The 50 odd yachts, of all types and sizes, from all corners of the earth, have shown that their various techniques were OK , this time!

Farewell to World Cup, Friends and Prickly Bay

2010-07-21T09:46:00.000-07:00

19/7/2010

As soon as one settles into a routine of events, people and places…. Then it’s time to move on again ! The World Cup in RSA is done and dusted, and by all accounts both here and back home, it appears to have been a great success, not withstanding the Vuvuzelas, which we hear have now been banned in Europe! Can’t think why, with Europe winning the top three places !
Watching the matches on De Big Fish screen in Prickly Bay was great fun, with every match entitling one to a Happy Hour Bucket of 3 beers for 10 EC ! With all the Nationalities ( real and adopted) it created lots of fun and amusement! We were Dutch, wearing orange ( Mary was a Blomkamp after all!).We all agreed that Spain deserved to win, having played better all round football. Some of the Dutch players would appear to be frustrated Rugby players!

There was an almost a lemming like exodus from Prickly Bay after the World Cup, with boats hauling out, setting off for Trinidad , and Bonaire, to leave boats there for hurricane season. A few intrepid souls heading back north as far as the Grenadines. Its still close enough to run South in the event of a hurricane, and also gives a better point of sail.

Alan Cooke and his two nephews William and Tim flew back to Cape Town after a quick dash around the Cays, and a few good braai’s and meals together. Sad to see them go. We can fully understand why Alan has almost adopted Prickly Bay as his other home. However, he departed leaving us with a few very welcome tips and gifts ! Fishing spots, a bottle of Chilean wine, and “Schwopper”! “ Schwopper” was Alan’s Gemini rubber duck, named after a line in an Arnold Swartzenegger movie, in which he urges all his men “Lez ahll getz in ze Schwopper” ( Helicopter !) Alan subjected Schwopper to some serious abuse, wakeboarding behind it with a 15hp engine, (design spec 8hp) and literally tore the transom right out of it, for the second time! Hyperlon is relatively easy to repair, but it takes 72 hrs to cure each stage, and with the Handimans lifestyle, there was no guarantee it wouldn’t rip out again! Alan replaced it with a new RIB, with an aluminium hull and transom, which is light , tough, dry, and probably the way all RIB’s will go in future.
Our Tinker was behaving rather like a cross between a submarine and a mobile swimming pool, so Alans gift was accepted with alacrity. Schwopper is now repaired, and rides again…. This time with a 3hp motor!
On our trip round to St Georges via the southern point of Grenada, we detoured over the drop off reef that Alan had told us about, and bagged ourselves a nice sized Big Eye Tuna ! Sushi for dinner for days! Thanks for everything Al!!

A few days later we headed up to Carriacou again, where we planned to meet up with Mike and Lesley from Extasea, who were picking up a charter for 8 , around the Cays. On the way we landed a really nice Dorado ( Mahi Mahi, or Dolphinfish), so were able to invite them to take a break from their boat, and have a Dorado night with us.

Also on the trip up ,about 4miles before we turned into Tyrrel Bay, a big Tuna hit the lure, as I was trying to drop the sails in the face of a big black squall. Great timing! On with engine, slow ahead, drop sails, while the tuna strips line, and we are drenched! Miraculously, when we are all shipshape, the fish is still taking line, and the fight begins ! After about 10 minutes I’m very grateful for the rain, and showing signs of making some progress with the monster, when it threw the hook! In fact, I was not too disappointed, as the fish was way too big. We would have needed to share our bounty with all the cruisers in Tyrrel Bay, and all we really felt like, was putting down the hook, and opening the anchoring beer.!

We had just completed an enjoyable and productive sail up from Grenada.! I still had the Dorado to clean and fillet, and the Tuna would have needed an abattoir!

Our three month visa in Grenada expires shortly, so we are heading up to Union Island, Mayreau, the Tobago Cays and Bequia, before coming back to Carriacou . As always, we keep an eagle eye on the weather, in case we have to run!

Views of Carriacou............lovely place!

Friday Night at the Tiki Bar

2010-06-27T06:04:00.001-07:00

The rainy season is here, and already there have been four named tropical systems ; none of them thankfully near us. Prickly Bay has been transformed from the karoo /bushveld dry scrub, to a lush green tropical paradise . Its easy to keep the water tanks full, without having to buy water from the marina. World cup soccer, and the pubs happy hour specials during matches has brought all the cruisers together in a fun way ! The current status of the teams is being likened to a repeat of the Second World War ..... France capitulating without a fight, Italy running away from any action, Germany and Britain slugging it out, America joining in late.. etc etc All in jest of course, and lots of laughs.

Friday was Larry D'Aguiar's birthday, and all the SA contingent were invited to the Tiki Bar for a party that night. The Grenada cruisers net at 7.30am is very good, and keeps everyone up to speed with weather, social events, technical services, and treasures of the bilge. Fridays net controller was "Miss Kitty", who is a Texan lady with a Dolly Parton sing song voice, and a wicked sense of humour. She introduced the weather update as follows: " Now Jonathan sweetpea honey, its been raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock in Texas for the last few days... can we expect more?" The answer was Yes, and it did ! But that did nothing to ruin the Tiki bar jol.

After the weather report, Alan Cook ( of Hout Bay Handiman) who is almost a permanent resident here, pitched up in his dinghy, and demanded my participation in singing Happy Birthday to Larry. It set the tone for the day!

A Steel Pan band play every Friday evening, followed by a dance band. The dance area was initially highjacked by a very smiley, happy fellow , whose lift obviously did not reach the top floor. He danced with a rum in one hand , cigarette in the other, earphones on his head, a collection of wooden pigs, and a inane grin on his face. He was followed by a group of Oklahoma happy clapper teenagers , in Grenada "to do Gods work". They formed a big circle and gyrated in a very Carribean and UnGodly sort of way,! This could lead to great" sin and wickedness", and be a bit of a challenge to their leader Pastor Paul!

The music was very good, and one of the highlights was the Bob- Celli medly, where they performed a fusion of Bob Marley's "No woman , No cry", with Andrea Bocellis "Time to say goodbye". Cruisers , young and old , kids and locals, were singing and dancing along ..all having a great time. The rain would come and go, without a beat being missed! I suppose it was helped a bit by the rum, beer, and Tequila's When the band packed up, and we all took to the dinghies, I was full expecting to sign up new members of the Cormorant club! Nobody, it seems, fell in the drink, last night... so no new members! We must be growing up at last ! Both Alan and Larry, however claim to be members of an even more elite club.. The Penguin club. They both claim , on previous occassions, to have waddled up to a dinghy dock, and tried to jump into their dinghies, missing them completely!

Birthday in Grenada!

2010-06-07T01:14:00.000-07:00

Finding ourselves all alone in St Davids Grenada, with no cruising companions, and Kate back in RSA, we decided to plan a really c o o l Carribean birthday celebration.

We would start off the morning taking a brisk walk up to the main road, pick up a bus to the nearby Rum Distillery Estate, do a little sightseeing, taste a little rum, return to the Marina for fish and chips, and a cold Carib, take in an afternoon nap, before dinghying over to the beautiful Belair Estate Restaurant, where we had booked a table for a romantic dinner ! Things don't always work out as planned!

The 15min walk up to the main road was a bit hot and sticky, but nothing like as uncomfortable as the bus ride which followed! That was white knuckled, sweatpouring raw fear! Ever since the drivers of Grenada traced Lewis Hamiltons roots back to Grenada, they have tried their utmost, to prove that he is not the only guy around who can drive fast. Despite having asked the boychick/ conductor/fare collecter that we were getting off at the Westhall Rum Estate, we sped on past in a cloud of dust and shattered nerves, only managing to get off many miles further on. We crossed the road, and flagged down a bus going back the way we had come: Thankfully not a Lewis Hamilton wanabe! Our guide at the Rummary was an encyclopaedia of Grenadan history, and we learnt about a lot more than the art and science of rum production, including quite a lot about the American invasion of Grenada, when they showed too much of a liking for Castro. Ironically, the Westerhall rum distillary makes and exports a brand of Rum called "Havana" specifically to the Cuban refugees now living in Florida. The Havana rum recipe, which includes elements of coffee, tobaco, and vanilla, was leaked to Westerhall for this purpose, when Castro nationalised the original rum distillary in Havana.

After a little tasting, we managed to flag down the Island Water world delivery vehicle , en route back to St Davids, where they have a shop. The local electronics expert, who was testing the new, and faulty Raymarine chartplotter, needed to conduct some tests on the boat, while talking to the Raymarine technical guys in USA. Having done so, they concluded that it was indeed faulty, and needs to be replaced. Unfortunately,,,,, they dont have any in stock at the moment at Raymarine, so we will just have to wait, .. my fears confirmed.

This messed up the fish and chips and afternoon post rum nap part of the plan, but what the heck, we still could look forward to dinner ! The first thing we had done in the morning was to up anchor and move, once our German neighbour had hauled out, and moved out from above our anchor. The new spot we had chosen proved rather too shallow as the the wind swung 180degs, and a few bumps on the rudder indicated that it was time to move again! So a quick relocation, anchor, swim and cockpit shower, before heading off to the Belair Estate Restaurant . The only other two patrons, in this very elegant establishment , with open air dining overlooking the bay, were two serviette wielding Frenchmen, swatting legs, arms and faces, as they were attacked by mozzies. Smuggly armed with our "F off" insect repellant, we thought we would be spared.. No such luck! With the French yelling "Zay are Vampires ", we were soon re applying "F off" to every bit of exposed flesh, while we ordered our meal., Grilled snapper for Mary, and Creole shrimps for me. We knew it was a "B" price range restaurant, but said birthdays come but once a year. Mary's two Snapper fillets came to R150, and my 6 little shrimps and a blob of rice about R180. R30 a shrimp!! Add four rums and a tip , and your'e over R600 down the tubes for a very modest meal for two! And to add insult to injury, the vampire mosquitos attacked us through our clothing, so we had to leave in a rush to apply anti itch lotions all over back on the boat! Not quite the celebration we had planned!

Grenada & Carriacou

2010-05-27T13:54:00.001-07:00

Grenada consists of three Islands : Grenada itself, often called the Spice Island, Carriacou 40 miles to the north, and Petit Martinique, 4 miles to the east of Carriacou. During the past month, we were lucky to be joined by Kate, taking time to chill out before starting her new job, and to checking up on her old folk, to see how they are adjusting to this new cruising lifestyle. We moved around in a respectably slow and leisurely way, doing our best to show her some of the sights and delights of Grenada. We anchored in Prickly Bay for a few days, before going round to Hog Island for a few more days, and where we went to Rogers Sunday Beach braai and opskop. We then returned to a different ancorage area in Prickly Bay, and found ourselves anchored next to Klaus on"Ti Bay", (the cat that wiped out half our Hout Bay Marina in a big blow). We then went round to St Georges, anchoring outside the harbour entrance and visited the markets, yacht club, and shops by dinghy. We treated ourselves to a couple of days of real luxuary at Port Louis Marina,( which I had seen in June 2008, when asked to help sail the 76ft Zephiro to Sardinia from Grenada),and where we watched England murder Australia in the T20 final.

We then sailed up to Tyrrell bay in Carriacou, where we spent a full week. What a lovely place! Simple and unspoilt. About 7000 people live on the island, but there are about 20-30 000 living in England, and a further 15 000 in New York. A number of these folk return to Carriacou when they retire, and build impressive mansions alongside the little dwelling where they were born/brought up. Martin, (or should we call him by his Island name Bramble?) took us for a tour of the Island, which took a whole three hours, including the hour for lunch in a liitle local restuarant in Hillsborough! The Islanders are a proud and industrious people, involved in farming ,fishing, boat building or tourism activities. Crime seems not to exist there. We came across a few really intersting Island Names .... Sexy Romantic Venus, was one belonging to an eldery, toothless, fruit seller! "Warrior",was another belonging to the little old oyster seller, who would demand a beer or rum, before trying to sell oysters.Afterwards, he would then ask for another, to "seal the deal"! The only battle he was ever involved in was rowing back to shore after his evening selling session.

The water there is crystal clear, warm and inviting, and hourly swims were the norm to cool down. We went to the legendary little Lambi Queen restuarant, where we tried Curried Lambi ( Conch shell), Lobster & fish. All too soon we had to sail the 35 miles back to St Georges, so that Kate could catch her plane back to the Real World. It was a good brisk sail and we got there 6 hours later, just as the Rainy season arrived with a vengeance! We checked in to Port Louis again, which was just as well. Trying to negotiate getting Kate, her luggage and her Mom, from the anchorage to the airport, via dinghy, in a tropical downpour would simply not have been possible!

Even walking the 100mts from the mooring to the Taxi was a wet affair.

So now its Derby and Joan again.Meanwhile, we are waiting for a replacement Raymarine Chartplotter, as our brand new one seems to have a Page Button problem. Budget marine were the suppliers, so we are hoping that the Trinidad Installer, will arrange for a replacement swap via the Budget Marine in Prickly bay.When I placed the original order, it took 4 days to reach me from the US. So far its been 6 days and counting since we reported the problem... Will let you know what transpires !

Gauntlet to Grenada . . .

2010-04-29T00:43:00.000-07:00

Whenever one talks to folks cruising between Venezuela, Trinidad, Tobago and Grenada, the topic of piracy inevitably comes up. There have been a few confirmed cases over the years, and a few near misses.... But not very many. Its a bit like the probability of shark attacks while swimming or plane crashes while flying. In reality, more people are killed in car crashes, but the hype and fear of that fact does not carry the same impact.

Thats not to say that one should ignore the threat.... that would be like crossing the road without looking left or right! The last confirmed case was in December last year, where a German yacht was boarded, and the crew robbed and traumatised, 37miles off Trinidad, by Venezualan fishermen ( More likely, drug runners).The Coastal Marine authorities in Trinidad and Grenada, assisted by pressure from the private yachting services groups,Ysatt and Mayag, are making efforts to advise sailors of best stategies and time to sail, offering contact numbers , email addresses, and offering advice and updates in the sailing publications.

As no attacks have ever taken place at night, we decided to make a night passage. We hid our second passports, our handheld VHF, most of our cash, a GPS, and decided on what our appropriate level of resistance should be in the event we were attacked. We wanted to sail across in stronger winds, and boistrous seas, believing that there would be less liklihood of the bad guys wanting to be out there in open power boats, and, reasoning that if they were, they would find it impossible to board a yacht carving through those seas at 7knots.... and if they did try, it would most likely be one guy at a time..... giving me a chance to fire a couple of parachute flares into their boat to distract them, while Mary threw the helm over .We would have been filling the emergency waves, VHF ( DSC), and SSB all the time, giving positions, descriptions and situation updates.... and simply hoping for the best!

We checked out in the morning, and then holed up un Scotland Bay until 17.00, where we were going to be joined by another yacht, heading down to Colombia . The heavens opened at 17.30, and we had a serious squall, which delayed our departure, making us rethink our 1 reef strategy. A 2nd reef was taken, and we headed out through the Boca, into the sunset, to find a lumpy sea, and no wind! We motored on for half an hour , feeling sure that the weather forecast was wrong, and wondering when to shake out the reefs. Suddenly, 20knots from the east and we were away! It stayed between 18 and 25 knots all the way to Grenada. Our planned route was a 27mile beat taking us to the east of the Hibiscus and Pointsetia oil rigs, about 30 miles out, after which we could bear away by 40degrees, and hopefully enjoy an easy broad reach down to Grenada. We knew there would be a fair current from the east, but underestimated how strong it could be when combined with the outgoing tide at springs. Instead of clearing the Hibiscus rig by 10 miles as planned, we passed it with 3 miles to spare, having given away 7 miles leeway in 27 miles of beating hard on the wind. Well, that took care of 25 degrees of my planned dogleg route,so we eased off just 5 degrees, leaving about 10 in the bank, and thundered along in freshening winds, and a short choppy 2 to 3 metre swell. Its in conditions like this that one appreciates once again, that a Shearwater is a fantastic sailing boat! With 2 reefs in the main, my tiny staysail, and about a number 3 sized headsail, there was no stopping her. She ploughed through the swells, hardly wincing when we hit a big one, and we maintained a steady 7knots . I seriously doubt if any a pirogue pirate would have been able to get close!! Mary said the crashing down below was alarming, but then she has never sailed in a Farr 40 in rough seas!!

We also really enjoyed all our new equipment, which perfomed well, after being asked some serious questions. We really liked having the Radar side by side with the chartplotter, and AIS as we piloted our way between the oil rigs. We were followed out by a big Danish Galleon, and were able to watch as her echo and nav lights fell further and further behind us, and we then caught up an echo that turned out to be Hunter 46, when we anchored in Prickly Bay. We were picking out yachts in poor conditions up to four miles away, and this was of some comfort too, as we kept our eyes on the look out for the bad guys!

And so , as we sit back savouring our traditional anchoring beer, feeling very pleased with ourselves and our boat, for having "run the gauntlet", we are also forced to admit, that about 6 yachts per day do exactly the same trip, so whats the BIG Deal????

Back in the Water!

2010-04-24T01:32:00.000-07:00

After nearly six weeks of hard work "on the hard", we are finally back in the water, and doing sea trials. We are thrilled with our new white non skid deck, which is so much cooler, and all our new equipment which is up and running, including ( I think) the SSB radio ! Mary kept reminding me, when I moaned about the dust, the heat, the sweat etc, that we did not come to Trinidad for a holiday! We came for the boating infrastructure, and to make sure everything on our checklist was done ..... until we start the new checklist!

It was certainly the right call to come to Trinidad, and we saw enough to want to spend more time here during the hurricane season, and perhaps seeing a bit more of the Island. Our visit to Caroni swamps was interesting and worthwhile, although it certainly made us appreciate once again, the rich and wide biodiversity we have in RSA.

We saw the Spotted Caymen, one only......, and were lucky to see a little silky anteater, curled up in the fork of a tree ( all 500gms of it). The flocks of Scarlet Ibis were impressive, and their vivid colouring is such a bright contrast in the mangrove swamps, where the carotene in their staple diet of crabs , produce the bright red feathers. We also saw a number of Blue herons, and little four eyed fish ! Actually, four retinas.... two for below the sutface, and two for above the surface! But that was it, really! We could not help but think about what we would have seen in a four hour boat trip through the mangrove swamps of Mapelane, or the St Lucia Estuary. We really have been lucky to have done and seen so much in Africa, but it takes a trip into other Ramsar Heritage sites, like Caroni Swamps, to appreciate it all over again!

On our first day of sea trials, we discovered the alternator pully was incorrect, and chewed up the belt in an hour, and the water pump which was rebuilt in Brasil, sprung another leak... But we did manage to spend a day up in lovely Scotland Bay. We went back to Chaguaramus, where all the problems were tackled, and while there, we witnessed a real Pelican Pig out . There is a huge resident population of Brown pelicans, who spend all day fishing around the anchored yachts, and sitting on every available post. There is also a big live bait netting industry, for the fisherman going out in search of game fish and Tarpon. When the net keepers turn their backs, or retire for the day, the Pelicans think its Christmas!! Hundreds of greedy Pellies squabbling and bickering in twenty square metres of keep nets!

We are now back in the quiet, calm, and beautiful Scotland Bay, with about 6 other yachts. Here the water is clean , and inviting . The only sad thing is to see all the litter around the shore line, and its not from the Yachties , but the locals, who just dont seem to care. There is a tempory fishing camp on the shore, about 100mts away, and we watched in fascination and horror, as one fellow just raked the rubbish from the clearing , into the surrounding bush. There is a big green notice around the corner on a little beach, which says NO LITTERING, punishable by XYZ, but the rubbish just piles up around it, and the locals just keep going there and doing zipo Sad!! Today we head back to Chaguaramus, for dinner with friends, and to stock up prior to clearing out with Customs and Immigration on Monday/Tuesday for our sail to Grenada, where we are looking forward to being joined by Kate, who will be flying over to be with us. More from Grenada!

Time out in Trinidad!

2010-04-07T01:33:00.000-07:00

As we head towards Sheer Tenacity's 3rd birthday, (A Bring Beer and Braai outside the Roti Hut at Power boats on 11th April), we are beginning to realise why we have been working so damn hard! After a wonderfull month in Tobago, chilling out with Steve and Kim, who flew over from Mozambique, we desperately needed to haul out and tackle a refit that just grew like Topsy!

We have repainted ,all the chicken pox patches caused by the incorrect colour touch ups necessitated by of our friend Frog's ( Stainless steel genius with problems!) work in Hout bay. We have repainted the bootstripe at the correct level, and repainted the non slip deck with Epiphanes White, to replace the too hot, and uselessly slippery International Interdeck pale Grey( ! X grey, mixed with 4 x white).So far, we are very impressed with the improved non slip as well as the new cool deck, and cooler interior. We have reluctantly replaced all the B & G network kit with Raytheon; Not because we think it is superior, but because it has the best representative coverage and warranty situation around here. There are just not enough agents who carry spares for the old B & G kit At this stage I probably know as much about the inner workings of B & G Autopilots as anyone, but we have had just too many failures to keep the faith! I have however kept the B & G Hydrolic Ram ( Serviced and reconditioned), as well as the B & G Network Pilot, the PCU.and Switch, which is fully connected with a cross over link, as a backup to the new Raymarine Kit! We have also had to replace the Furuno Radar with a Raymarine Chartplotter/Radar unit, and fitted new Tridata and wind instruments. We have done all our own wiring and fitment, but have to allow the Raytheon Installer, to do the final connections, so that we an get the warranties signed off! The problems with the Icom 710 SSB have also been diagnosed, but the parts will not be available from Icom until May, so we are fitting a new, old Icom 700, to use until then, at which point we will repair the 710.md sell the 700. We have converted the Mase Genset from an Impeller water cooled unit to an electric pump water cooled unit, because I am sick and tired of crawling into spaces too small for an old man, to change failed impellers, in a stupidly designed position ! We are also fitting a High Output Alternator(100a) and Smart Charge regulator, which was suppossed to be a direct swap on the Perkins, but isn't! Two days of re engineering, and we are getting close! We are also waiting for the replacement heat exchanger rubber elbows to arrive from Miami for the Perkins. Nick Van Zylen told me they were useless ,expensive, and would fail, and he was right!! The Perkins version cost 4 x the price of the almost , but not quite, identical Westebeke ones!

We have however , also had some fun!! Right alongside us in Power Boats, we have "Ukulele lady", well know to Hout Bay sailors, and have become very close to Nick Marvin & Lynette, who have arrived here after the2004 Cape to Bahia Race and are doing a total, and very good refit.Many of you will remember how Nick Taylors video, "Singer and the Sea" kept me going as I laboured through the building of "Sheer Tenacity". Rumour has it , Via Piet Van der Westhuisen, who zipped through last week, that Chris Hull, and Sea Lion could be heading this way too! And we know of two other Shearwater 39's in the Carribbean as well, so it it could beShearwater rally time in the near future!

We have had to learn new words, expressions and accents ..eg,.. "She Vex me!", Bus up Shot, Lime, Wine, Bacanal, etc etc We squeezed in a day trip to Maracas Bar, where we had traditional "Shark 'n Bake", at the famous Richards. ( Basicaly a deep fried chunk of shark in a damn great Vetkoek,) with a huge choice of salads and spices! On another occasion we drove over to Macqueripe bay, where the tourism authorities have done a very impressive job, with Walter and Jacqi, South Africans (from Jean Marie), for sundowners. Tomorrow, all the South African contingent are heading towards Caroni swamp to see the Scarlet Ibis population, and hopefully the Silky anteater.

And lest you think its all been one big "jol", there has been a fair bit of physical pain and anguish,(to go along with the financial anguish!) I trod on a triangular scraper with my bare feet, which made a pigs mess of the boat and my foot! Should have been stiched, but it was a Friday evening, and Mary was a whizz kid with steristrips and plaster, and three weeks later I am back to walking normally! I lost a thumb nail to a Rivet gun while up the mast, and actually managed not to drop the damn thing in the process! I also managed break a molar eating peanuts, which, because of the way it broke required extraction last Saturday! At the moment I have some tropical malaise, which has the glands in my armpits behaving like painful acorns !!!!! All this is playing havoc with my blog writing, for which I feel duty bound, to apologise.

We hope to get back in the water next week, to do sea trials with the new kit, and to share a few days in Scotland Bay with Nick and Lynette, who also need reminding , that boats are meant to be sailed!!

It sounds like we've had masses of equipment failure but bearing in mind that most of the electronic kit was fairly elderly and that we have just completed a 9000mile shakedown sail, we can't complain too much. If one seeks perfection, one is in danger of never leaving homebase...............and there's a big and exciting world our there just waiting to be explored!

Tribulations in Tobago!

2010-02-09T00:22:00.000-08:00

Man of War Bays local Rasta musician sings about "Great Tribulation" in Tobago, but that is mainly in respect of his opinions regarding the Tobagan Government, who , he feels are doing "No justice A Tall" for the local people! In comparison, my tribulation was minor, less serious, and slightly embarrasing!

It happened on the day we were about to haul anchor, and head down to Store Bay, when one of the local Fisherman knocked on the hull, to offer us a fresh Tuna.We were keen to buy, as we had finally, after 7 weeks, just finished the last of our own Frozen catch. The problem was , that it was quite early, and we were not yet up and ready to conduct a business transaction in a business like manner. For starters, we were both still naked, as we are wont to be by night, and I was still dentally disadvantaged, with my front tooth still immersed in Sterident. I lept out of bed, grabbed a Kikoi to wrap around my waist, and headed for the cockpit.

"Tho how muth you want for the fith?", I lisped to Dash, the fisherman. Now they also speak a funny sort of English here, but this was beyond his understanding. I managed to get Mary to pass me my tupperware with denture, and proceeded, to insert it and try again. Now this requires both hands to fit properly, and as chance would have it, this was the moment my kikoi wrap decided to fail me, and fall down! Dash must have wondered about this strange Whitey, trying to buy his fish, with one hand in his mouth, and the other trying to cover his manhood! He did'nt bat an eyelid, but he must have felt sorry for me, because he agreed to a price about half of what it should have been! Later on, when I gave him a lift from his mooring to the shore, he still offered to take Steve and I out fishing when we get back to Charlotteville !

The trip down to Store bay takes about 5-6 hours, and we had to clear out with Customs, before we left. Even though one is already cleared in to Tobago, one cannot move out of ones anchorage into another bay, without their permission. We knew all their rules, and had got to know Raphael , the cricket crazy customs officer in Charlotteville, quite well. He is a real gent, and took care to explain the rules to us, and gave us permission to stop over en route in some of the bays on the way down, and asked us to confirm our arrival with the Scarborough Officials, once we got there. As I only expected to reach Store Bay at sunset, I specifically asked if it would be Ok to check in the following morning. No problem said Raphael! BIG PROBLEM said the huge, and beligerent official in Scarborough, who set upon me like the Spanish Inquisition, and refused to hear what I was saying. He assumed I had just arrived in Trinidad, and had not already checked in to Tobago, demanding to know why I had not checked in the previous night when we anchored. He went balistic when I replied" Because I did not have to!", quoting rules and regulations, and trying to shout me down, without either looking at the papers, or listening to what I was trying to tell him. Because I knew I was right, my voice probably transmitted my annoyance, which raised his volume a further decibel. This attracted the attention of his boss, who thankfully intervened, demanded silence, asked two questions of me, looked at the papers , before confirming that I was correct, and quite legal ! I had just experienced my first and only incident of bureacratic, (racial??) abuse in Tobago. Not a nice experience. It really seems that some customs people the world over, have got a power ego problem. They fail to realise that they are in the forefront of a visitors opinion of a country. I am equally sure that they need to be efficient and strong people but refuse to accept that that gives them the right to be rude and obnoxious, and to assume that all visitors must be harrassed. Get a life guys!!

Tomorrow we head back to Scarborough to check out, and, to listen to the Steel Band Carnival Finals. Now that should be fun!!

Safety for Cruisers

2010-01-20T06:20:00.000-08:00

A comment I overheard yesterday from a local Tobagan,directed at a new arrival, prompted me to write this blog, as it helps put things into perspective! It is all too easy to avoid places on hearsay, (and facts, in situations where the prudent cruiser should never find themselves!) One also does not often hear "good "news about safety and crime, so it is with pleasure that I repeat this mans comments at the end of the blog!

We set sail from RSA, with crime in the headlines, Hout Bay battling with renewed outbreaks, World Cup Security worries,while Xenophobia, highjackings, and Rape and card "phishing " are almost uniquely RSA issues. We headed for Brazil, where "City of God", and other films and reports indicated similar levels of violence and crime there, quite apart from Salvador muggings and the murder of 2 cruisers! We were then to head up past Venezuela to the Carribean, where we were warned about "boat Boys", Racial abuse, Dinghy theft, and Piracy, and rip off prices!! Indeed, on the 6th of December, a German crewed yacht, "Triton", was boarded by armed suspected Venzualan pirates 37nm from Trinnidad, en route to Grenada. They were unharmed, but traumatised, and had everything of value stolen or broken(VHF Radio ,SSB), before being allowed to sail on .The news of this incident spread like wildfire, and everyone of the100 plus, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, French cruisers who have arrived in Charlotteville from Cape Verde, ALL decided to avoid Trinidad, and head directly to Grenada from here. One can hardly blame them, and their decision will have a knock on effect with other sailors from those countries.

So, it is well worth reading about his incident on Noonsite, and reading about the manner in which the Trinidadian and Grenadan authorities are planning to take protective measures :Long range VHF radio rreception, Cell phone beacon on the Hibiscus oil rig( mid way between Trinidad/Grenada), Radar cover, and Helicopters on stand by which can cover the route in 30min etc.Trinidad is hugely dependant on its Yachting infrastructure, so it is reassuring ,to see them taking steps to protect it.

We spent time in Salvador and Itaparica, not long after the Cape to Bahia race muggings, and the murder at Itaparica.To us, Itaparica felt very safe and relaxed while we were there. This incident had caused the Brazilian authorities to change the Police staff on the Island, who took a zero tolerance attitude to known criminals. The murderer was identified and arrested very quickly, and the Islanders were all very happy with the new set up! The area between the Old City, the Elevator and Centro Nautica remains a mugging hotspot, but mainly late at night.

But what were our experiences? Yes we avoided known hotspots, avoided late night revelry (ashore), and lifted our dinghy every night. That said, we felt
totally safe and comfortable. The local Brazillians could not have been more helpful , caring and supportive- often going out of their way to show you where to go, when our linguistic abilities failed us! Yes, we did hear of people losing dinghies and outboards, but these were nearly always on mainland harbours ,and near poorer fihing community areas, and, when people did not lift and secure them at night.

We have also met some Brazilians from Vitoria, who have told us about a new "flyjacking" trend, whereby an armed thief jumps into your car at a robot, and orders you under gunpoint, to drive to a particulat ATM, where they force you to reveal your pin, and draw the limit. !0 of their 11 best friends have all been flyjacked, including themselves. Banks have responded by reducing withdrawel limits to $R100 ( R400), at night, with the result that everybody complies, and gets given their cards back!
They also told us of "Busjackings", where armed youths jump on a bus, and rob everyone off all cash and valuables , But,it seams,nobody gets hurt unless they refuse.

We were pleased to see the presence of police patrolling up and down trains all the time, and strong police presence at , and inside all banks, whenever we had to make unavoidable trips into the big smoke! One is aware of a much greater police presence, in general, than I was accustomed to in RSA.

If anyone were to read about the crime situation in RSA before deciding to sail there, nobody would go there!! And yet, so many of the cruisers we have met, who have spent time in RSA, rate it as either "the"highlight, or certainly one of their best stops.In Fareness, it must be pointed out that, these cruisers all stayed in secure marinas from Richards bay to Hout Bay, and hired cars to visit Game Reserves, and other inland beauty spots. The only negative comment came from a German cruiser who complained to a black manager about why it took so long to do a simple job in Africa, and was told, " You whites have got the watch---- but we've got the time!"

We have also heard of a few dinghies and outboards being stolen in French Guyana , and apart from strong currents, muddy water and mosquitos, Surinam receives favouable comment, in terms of safety, shopping, and Hurricane hideout!

And Tobago? In the words of a local Rastafarian musician, named Sqezy, "Tobago Sweet, Tobago Nice, I tell you mon, it Paradise!" Its very laid back, and very relaxed and slow--- nothing will ever get done in a hurry! BUT, after being here nearly 6 weeks, nobody lifts or locks their dinghies, and if a newcomer arrives at the dock, and proceeds to start locking up his dinghy, he is likely to be told what I overheard yesterday.

"Yous wastin yo tahm mon, No need lockin stuff hea, We doan do no shit hea mon!"

How refreshing, and after my time here, I believe him. They are very proud of their reputation , which you will hear confirmed by one and all, including Customs and Immigration! So, we intend to enjoy it a little while longer, before heading North , where careful and sensible vigilence will once again become the order of the day!

Views of Tobago

2010-01-19T05:26:00.000-08:00

Snaptails caught in the anchorage!

Pirates Bay Anchorage

Man of War Bay

Fishing Boats at Sunset

Dutch Schooner Eendrag

Charlotteville

Knee-pads, Goggles and Weanies!

2010-01-04T09:30:00.000-08:00

All the way up the Brazillian coast, we have found ourselves amongst a 90% French cruising community. Sadly, apart from 2 couples, their English is no better than our non existent French! It makes a change therefore, to be surrounded by Scandinavian Cruisers, who use Tobago as their arrival point in the Carribean, after crossing the Atlantic via the Canaries, and Cape verde. They then work their way North through the islands, before heading home via Bermuda, and the Azores in May /June.

At present, there are mainly Swedes, Danes, and a couple of Norwegians, plus a few Dutch cruisers here. The big difference, is that they all speek good English, so we don't sit around looking like stunned mullet when they talk to you!! But...... they do things a little differently. For the most part, clothing and costumes appear irrelevant on many of their boats! The Ocean crossers are all over brown, with bleached white hair, while their short term guests vary from transparant white, through pink, to bright red..... with white /blond hair! Our Swedish neighbours of 10 days, left for Grenada yesterday, and it was interesting to see their pre departure rituals !

Skipper puts on his knee pads. (He always wears knee pads, and seems to crawl everywhere . He obviously feels naked without them!) He jumped off the stern , wearing his knee pads, to clean the Aries foil, and then got back on board, and made his way up to the anchor locker, before dropping to his knees again. His son , meanwhile, with pink/white/blond girlfriend in attendance, dives over the bow, wearing nothing but black goggles, and proceeds to "inspect" the anchor chain by doing a series off "duck dives". Meanwhile," Knee pads", still on all fours, then starts hauling up anchor with the windlass, leaving his wife at the helm. They all seem oblivious of the boat moving forward along the chain, to within a metre of the boat in front of them,lying on top of their anchor. "Goggles" proceeds to pull himself up the chain, until he is hanging from the bowsprit, and with bare arse and weenie flapping in the breeze, proceeds to try and push the other boat away with his feet! No sign of fenders: no calling out to the other boat....just skipper on his knees driving the windlass, and the goggle wearing weenie flapper using his feet to stop the crunch! Mom continues to steer, and girlfriend admires! Eventually, the anchor breaks the surface, and goggle man drops down on to it in a scrubbing frenzy. In this fashion the boats works its way to a point 100mts outside the anchorage, and then everyone jumps overboard for a last swim, around the drifting boat! Fortunately there are no sudden gusts, and they manage to re -assemble on deck to now start preparing for departure;.... to lash down the dinghy, to clear the deck of loose gear etc etc. An hour until they are all set, and start slowly motoring on course towards Grenada. Two hours later, as the sun starts promising another lovely sunset, we watch them still slowly rocking and rolling along, without any sign of sails!

Bon Voyage folk!! Good luck in Prickly Bay!

Ille du Salut to Tobago

2009-12-13T03:39:00.000-08:00

Attached is the photo of two Big Eye Tuna caught that night at 9 knots! I suppose with the current being what it was, you could say it was really only 7knots!
The last four days from Salut to Tobago were not that pleasant. The wind was generally in the 20-25 knot range, but the sea state was very confused and uncomfortable, making rest and sleep almost impossible. There was about 3/4mtr swell running from the stb quarter, (sometimes 4/5), but on very short intervals, so the boat was being perpetually lifted and twisted, and fighting its way back on course. On top of this, we were running across the widespread ITCZ zone, and were being hit by squalls every hour or so. They were not particularly vicious, only ever getting up to 35kn, but it meant keeping the sails reefed to deal with them, as shaking out, and re reefing each time in that sea was not an option. The nights were very black, and one could often not see them coming until you felt them! And poor little Fredlet, our rubber band Autohelm 3000 back up had a torrid time. We were however incredibly impressed by its performance, and economy, to the extent that when we have finally got Fred sorted( or deep sixed, and replaced!), we will probably use the Autohelm as the primary, and Fred as the backup! I think the Autohelm was only ever expected to cope with a 7500kg boat, and not a 12000kg fully loaded cruiser! We will just take extra belts, and in fact Roy McBride has sent one or two to Crews inn, in Chaguaramus for us. Whereas the run to Ille du Salut (1369nm) took 194.5hrs, (7.02kn avr, 168nm pd), the 600nm to Tobago took 99hrs, ( avr 6.06kn, 145nm pd). The current was still in our favour, but down to 1kn. I think if we had been able to use the B & G hydrolic pilot, we could have carried more sail, and powered through the conditions more effectively. We definitely noticed that when we were in mid squall, doing 8.5kn- 9..00kn SOG, that our tracking improved, and the ride was easier.
Man of War Bay is a charming anchorage, and we look forward to spending a relaxing couple of months here, before going down to Trinidad for Carnival , haul out, antifoul,and refit. We have now done 8880nm in Sheer Tenacity since we left Hout Bay, and whereas the boat has been fantastic, the electronics , many of which were second hand, have been a real trial to us,often causing uncomfortable levels of stress..... No Radar, No SSB, Main Autopilot u/s, Satphone iffy, VHF Radio failed( Fortunately bought an old spare from anaother cruiser to see us through) B & G Wind - direction 100% garbage, wind speed sometimes garbage! ST deserves some better kit!

Ilha da Salut

2009-12-05T06:52:00.000-08:00

We made the 1370nm trip from Jacare ( Cabadelo) to Ille du Salut in 8days and 3hrs , which is by far our fastest avr speed for a passage ( 7.02knots !) En route we clocked up 4 days over 170nm, and one incredible 197nm day! But before you all get either impressed, (or disbelieving), it is only fair to point out the amazing current that can assist one on this leg! I would like to roll it up and take it with me wherever we go sailing! It is mostly in the 1.5kn range, but I swear there were times when it got nearer to 2.5-3.0 knots. On our 197 nm day, we had received a boost from a 35 knot squall, which had us reducing sails to 2 reefs and a rag, in good time. But when it was all over, and the wind had settled back to 14-17knots, I did'nt feel the need to shake out the mainsail reefs, as our SOG hardly dropped below 9.0knots. It had to be the most painless way of sailing fast in a 39ft boat imaginable! We kept the two reefs in the main for the full 24 hrs. At 1.00am that night, after another minor squall, both our fishing lines were taken, and we had to furl the headsail away, to slow down enough to bring in the two Big Eye Tuna. Usually, we pull in the lines after dusk, as its not lekker to fight, gut and fillet a fish, just when you have gone off watch, and need to have a couple of hours rest before your next watch! I've also believe, that ones best fishing time is sundown, not midnight! WRONG! Falacy two, Tuna are best caught at 6-7knots .Wrong Again! These were caughtdoing 9-10knots, although it can be argued that the fish were also in a 3 knot current! That said, however, I did catch a Longfin Tuna in the Med, off Zephiro, doing 11 knots! Obviously , one has to slow the boat right down to give yourself a chance!

The anchorage at Ille du Salut is very rolly, and on the day we arrived, windy, dirty, and rainy as well!Lying in our bed that night, I could sworn we were in the middle of another 170nm day!
Yesterday, we spent the day doing all the post trip repairs we could. Genset impeller, High pressure wash down pump, Spinaker pole beak ( A McGyver job), and the fuel transfer pump (again!) Today was spent exploring the ruins of this old french Penal colony. It is only when you wander through the lightless solitary confinement cells , the rows and rows of what were steel frame cots, with their manacle chains in the walls , and the cells of the condemned, does the inhumanity of the Bagne system , (with its "Doublage", to extend by two, the sentence period for misdemenours), really hit home.

It would seem that "Papilon" was rather a collage of various prisoner tails, whereas, the counterfeiter "Flag" Legrange, certainly left his mark in the form of artwork in the chapel and elsewhere, much of it now in the museum in Cayenne. The eventually reprieved Dreyfus, spent a number of years on Devils Island, protesting his innocence from day 1. As we wandered around the complex, we were aware of a great deal of lawn mowing, repainting, etc, when suddenly a cruise liner appeared in the bay. This realy put the gendarmes and workers into overdrive, which left Mary and I free to explore to our hearts content. We collected a good dozen mangoes, as yet unclaimed by the large rodent type animals whose staple diet seems to be mangoes! These animals (Agouti's?), are about the size and colouring of a red duiker antilope, but are some distant relative to cane rats! We watched them fearlessly running around taking a bite out of each and every mango they could find ! We in turn were watched from the tree tops ,by some dark brown lemur like monkeys, as we looked around the old cemetary. These were the last resting places of wives and children of the gendarmes, not the prisoners.... their lot was to be tossed into the sea in an open, weighted coffin, for the sharks to remove ! Legend has it that the coffin was then retrieved , and used time and time again!

We left the Island to the Cruiseliner( "Rotterdam", out of Fort Lauderdale, and en route to the Amazon), and returned for a late lunch of Grilled Dorado, with Mango Salza, and a Caiperinha ,: in time to watch the raucous Macaws do their sundown flypast,while listening to "Fiona's Travelling Tunes", a special collage compiled for us, just before we left last year. We have now been cruising for exactly one year, and its unusual places like this, which make it so rewarding. Tomorrow we leave for Surinam for a few days, and then its on to Tobago.All our fellow cruisers, being French, have gone into Cayenne, but we are likely to all meet up again in the carribean in a few weeks .So long for now!

Battle of the Bulge nearly over, and a re-take on Bolero!

2009-11-11T04:52:00.000-08:00

On 10th May 2004, I sat drinking a beer in the cockpit of a Gibsea 44, anchored exactly where we have just anchored Sheer Tenacity, up the Paraiba river , at Jacare, Cabedelo. At the time, I told Malcolm,( my host, who was delivering the Gibsea to Cape Town, on what was to be his 53rd Atlantic crossing), "'One day I am going to come back here and show Mary this place! " Well, here we are, and it is still rather special, although very much more development has taken place during the last 5 years. There are many more riverside restaurants and bars, all competing to play the loudest music in Brazil. There is a new private marina owned by a Frenchman, Captain Phillipe,and he has taken over the bulk of the yachting trade previously done by Brian Stevens, of Cabedelo Nautica.

On my last visit, I had been crewing for Chris Sutton, to sail Enigma, a Compass 47 from Fortaleza to Gibraltar. I had drawn the short straw, and was required to take a 900km bus trip down to Cabedelo, with only the mainsail as luggage, in order to have it repaired prior to our departure. The recommended sailmaker, was Claudio, a windsurfer sail maker in Cabo Branco. He did a fine job, and Brian Stevens was fantastically kind and helpful to me at the time, asking his wife Sylvia to feed me, and his daughter Pamela to take me and the sail back to the Rodovario in Joao Pessoa, in time to catch the bus back to Fortaleza, with seconds to spare!! Yesterday, I was able to visit Brian again, and give him 4 Pugs T-shirts for Sylvia and Pamela , by way of saying thank you for all he did for me in 2004! I also took the liberty of passing on Roy McBrides best wishes, as I know he would have expected this of me. Brian has got to be one of the best preserved 72 year olds around, and still looks as strong as an ox ! He is now building huge tourist River catamarans, and has by his reckoning now built over 100 of them during the last 6 years. There are about 6 of them in service here, and they are partly the reason why the Riverfront restauant businesses have grown so much.

But, getting to Cabedelo from Salvador, at this time of the year , can be tricky, as the prevailing winds are on the nose, as is a 1.5 to 2.0 knot current ! We first tried to leave Itaparica on Wednesday 28th October.We had just received an sms from Kate, saying that my Mom had been admitted to hospital with a gastric infection. At the time it did not seem too serious, and there was a rare easterly wind affording us a chance to leave. There are however bigger plans afoot, and for reasons best known to Fred ( The Autopilot), he went on strike again , with an entirely new set of symptoms. We were forced to turn back. When we got back, it was to learn, that Moms condition had deteriorated rapidly. Sadly she passed away in the early hours of the 2nd November. At least we were able to stay in touch with the family through these difficult days, and be "there" for each other.

That day too, the wind again went Easterly, and we took the gap, and beat our way up the 290nm to Maceio, arriving after of 65hours of tough motor sailing in pretty uncomfortable conditions. Once again, Sheer Tenacity proved her mettle, arriving a couple of hours ahead of our fellow cruisers who took the same gap. En route, the diesel transfer pump died, and I was forced to syphon my deck jerry's into the day tank. We were all very pleased to arrive safely in Maceio. When Estrella arrived on the Monday, they knew it was Moms funeral day, and they knew too how we were battling with all forms of communication to RSA. They arrived at our boat to deliver a special "Wake Cake",in her honour, which was delicious, and greatly appreciated. We then all rested, and waited for the next window ,which came on Saturday the 7th. We refilled the jerry cans with diesel, rigged up a manual transfer pump using a spare manual bilge pump, and left at 4.am.

The first 6 or so hours were quite tough, but as the coast turns Northwards, the wind angle improved to the point where we could sail very efficiently into the current. The 214 nm took 35 hours, with Sheer Tenacity once again took pole position ( Not that we are racing of course!!)

As we entered the river mouth, we saw for the first time, signs that the dreaded current was diminishing. The point of sail from here on , together with the reduced current, should enable us to get around the Bulge ok. Mary and I are not sure whether we feel like going to Fortaleza, where we would have to pay $1 per foot per day ( R360per day!), for mooring. We are inclined to rest up here, and then prepare for the long haul straight to the Caribean, stopping perhaps at Illle de Salut, and Surinam, before making for Tobago. Whatever we decide, this could be the last stop over where Constante , Estrella, and Sheer Tenacity will be together, before heading our different ways. We have decided therefore to have a Battle of the Bulge Party shortly, to celebrate our voyage up from Ilha Grande, where we all met up in the first place!

A new fuel transfer pump is on order, and should be here in a few days. Brian is quoting on a bit of stainless steel work we want done, to beef up our bimini, and Yes Chris, it will make the boat a bit heavier, but we think she can handle it!

We decided to brave the loud music, and visit one of the riverside restaurants for a beer, and to watch the sun go down from land, for a change! We rowed down the frontage, to select the venue with the least offensive volume of music. Each of the restuarants has it own live music, and dance area. While we were commenting on how much like similar the music in our venue was to the "Boom -Chick" Boeremusik back home, a sudden hush came over all the restaurants, as one by one, they stopped the music. We then noticed a gondola, drifting down the river, transporting a Demis Roussos type figure, dressed in a white Kaftan, with an orange sash, and a saxaphone held to his mouth. It was about 10 minutes before sunset, and slowly one became aware of the haunting, rythmic melody of Ravel's Bolero, emanating from all the restaurants sound systems. I was first introduced to Bolero. in Musical Appreciation at school, but I must confess, that my lasting impression of the piece was indelibly etched in my brain, by Bo Derek, in the movie "Perfect 10", as she achieves orgasmic ecstacy , as Bolero ends with the grand crescendo! Now there's nothing wrong with holding on to that image all these years, and I'm sure I'm not alone ! But the simple beauty of hearing it being played live, over the water, as the sun went down, was very, very special.! The last notes coincided with the sun dropping below the horizon, and the hundreds of patrons emerging from their trance like state, to burst into raptuous applause. We saw it as a fitting requiem for Mom.

Camamu to Salvador-Hooligan fish and Dragon Woman !

2009-10-27T10:38:00.000-07:00

As we sit here in Itaparica at the Amigo Restuarant and Bar, owned and run by South Africans, Willie and Robyn, we are once again struck by how the world is shrinking! They arrived here 3 years ago, having sailed over in what was Free Spirit, the Lello 48 from Hout Bay, which they bought from Mike and Sophie ! They lived here for a year, sold the boat and bought the property, and turned it into a bar/restuarant. We then met Annalize and Peter ( The Plankies), who also lived in Hout bay, and sailed over in their 29ft black steel boat, Nor, and who have also bought and renovated a Pousada, and become Brazilian residents. They have a house and the Pousada here, plus a 8000sqm tract of land on the island , and intend just to sell the pousada , and retire, as they dont need to work! Well, good luck to them.. they certainly seem very happy here!
　
In my last blog, we had just arrived in Camamu. Three days later we were joined by Constante, from Abrolhos, and we went down the river to Marau together, with an overnight stop beteween two islands. The town was interesting, but I had expected something more like Paraty. Not so. When we returned to our anchorage behind the Goia island, we found the 65ft Gunboat "Gazelle", with our mates Jon , Nicky and young Travis, plus the owner& girlfriend. Just able to say hi, and touch base again! We then motorsailed the 45 miles up to Morro de Sao Paulo, where once again we anchored in 6m, on dry land, ( according to Garmin Blue charts !) opposite the village of Gamboa. We took the local ferry up to Morro, and had to pay the R$6.50 tourist tax, and found a most enchanting and delightful little island town. The beach , which opens onto the Atlantic is very pretty, and surrounded by palms, Pousada's, shops, bars, and restaurants, and the biggest Foofi slide ever, from the lighthouse point, down into the sea in front of the main beach! The umbrellas and chairs are serviced by enthusiastic young men with watering cans, who keep the surrounding sand cool, and wash the sand off the ladies feet! There are no cars on the island, and the building materials are transported by mules and donkeys. Morro, has a definite charm, and is the most upmarket, tourist oriented place we have seen to date.
　
The following day at 5.00am, we upped anchor fom the brisk current at Gamboa, and headed for Salvador. Once again I got smashed up by Hooligan fish.. not once, but twice in three minutes! I get very little sympathy in this respect- My son Steven, told me I was using Mickey Mouse tackle against the "A" team, and the other cruisers dont know why I should complain, as we still are the only ones who always have fish in the freezer! I did get a consolation prize of a 2 kg Kingfish , when I replace the lures! My logic relating to tackle selection stems from the desire NOT to catch anything over about 20kg, as we dont have the freezer space to spare, and we would rather have a supply of smaller, different fish species ! No one can argue with the
logic- except I must confess to beginning to get very P..d off , with getting smashed up time and time again, losing line and lures, while Mary says" I thought you could fish?". On this occasion, I had a Rapala on the tuna rod, and a pink/yellow squid on the handline. First the rod rachet started screaming, and while we were trying to slow down the boat, the handline went off like a rifle shot, as the bungee was streched to its limit, and the 40kg line bust! When the fish had stripped about 350mts from the reel, and I was down to the last bit, I started working the beast-- then it was gone ! I reeled in the line to find a Rapala sans both double hooks! Another first for me! I've had staightened hooks, broken hooks, but never NO bloody hooks! The stainless steel split rings must have just opened up!
　
We arrived in Baia dos Santos, and went around to the Itaparica marina anchorage, where we met up with Estrela again The following day they joined us as we took the ferry over to Salvador to take care of the paperwork, and to search for a new VHF , since my Navico had finally give up the ghost! Now all the Brazillians we meet, are so friendly and helpful, that one cannot imagine how it is possible for the Brazillian Authorities to select staff who can so frequently be difficult, rude, and downright offensive, to visitors to their country!! Yes, there are thankfully a few exceptions, but there are more than enough of the others ,to make sure that any check in day will be a horrible experience! Enter Dragon Woman to the scene, but first a little background!
　
After an interesting taxi ride across Itaparica, and ferry ride to Centro Nautica , we headed first to Receita Federal, where we were pleased to be told that all we needed to do was check in with the Port Captain ! What a doddle! He is just round the corner. But, its 10.15am, and he only opens at 12.00. So after a bit of VHF research, we go back to the port captains office, only to be thrown out because we need to go to the Policia Federal first. Having got our visa extensions in Angra, until 24/11, and having found in Rio, that only the Port Captain needed to be advised, as we were "quite legal", and with the Receita saying the same thing in Salvador, we were flumoxed. I had walked the 2km to the Policia once before with Chris Sutton, so off we set.... and it is by now very very hot, and I am now wearing my obligatory long pants, ( to show respect for the office of the Port Captain). The walk down the length of the docks, is much like walking down a 2 km urinal, as every pillar along the way makes up for the lack of public conveniences for the truck drivers waiting to get into the docks! The smell in that heat was sickening! We made it by 1pm, only to be told that they open at 2pm, but in any event, they have now opened a new division, called the Delegation of Policia Federal, which was next to Receita Federal! So back we trudge through the same smelly route, finally taking shelter in the garage to get out of the sun. At 13.55, a kind gent sees our purple hue, and invites us into the corridor of DoPF, and points to the door marked "Immigration. I knock, and enter, and am confronted by Dragon Woman!
　
We had heard stories about this woman, from Jeremy (Jervon), and many other cruisers, and thought they must be exagerating.. From Ilha Grande to Vitoria, we had heard about her, her looks, her manner etc etc. Well, "DW", is alone in her office watching a Soapie on TV. She glares at me with a look of pure hatred, and points at her watch, indicating that it is 3 minute to 2pm . Then the like the Doggy show host on TV, she screams the Brazilian equivalent of "SIT!", followed by"SHUT THE DOOR"!, and proceeds to carry on watching the soapie. When the program is over,she begins shuffling papers on her desk, achieving nothing at all
　
, until she eventually sticks out a hand , and grabs my folio of papers. Determined not to be phased by her abusive manner, I smile, and say " Muito obligado". Her response is to continue muttering about interupting her lunch hour . It took her all of a minute to fill out the magic form that we could take back to the Port Captain.
　
When we get back, the queue is long, and the only official dealing with Saida Veleiros, is too busy chatting to colleagues to help riff raff like me, all dressed up in my long trousers, (to show him respect!!) By 3pm, we are stamped and legal . 5 hours to do what could be done in 15 minutes!
　
Up the Elevador, into the old Historical Pelhourina area, in search of a beer and salad. There we were lucky to meet larger than life itself, Cintia, who it turns out is a multilingual translator for Yachting events, Police, and a teacher, apart from her afternoon job entertaining foreigners at this restuarant. She immediatly lightens our mood, as she goes on to tell us that all the International yachties complain about that bitch, and goes on to tell us some choice
stories which are best left out for fear of libel! Cintia, whos
stubby little legs stick out from her ample frame at 45 degs, says she has trouble walking since she fell off he motorbike hitting a pothole and wrecking her knees. She got no sympathy from her daughter, who confiscated the bike, saying she was "too old, and too fat to ride a motor bike!" She speaks German French, English, Spanish and Italian, and is starting to learn Mandarin so that she can be sent to China by the Brazilian Government. In her capacity as a translator, one of her most common duties, is to mediate between the German tourists, and their Black prostitutes, as it would seem that they truly believe you have not tasted sweets, until you have tasted chocolate! Once they have finished tasting, it would appear that they have a tendency to refuse to pay, and thats when the police call in Cintia to mediate!
　
By the time we caught the ferry back , our battles with officialdom was but a distant memory! Like all things Marine, VHF radios in Brazil, are 3 times the catalogue price in the Caribean, so I was lucky to find that Doug (Estrela) had a pre DSC Raytheon spare which he was happy to sell for a modest sum. So we are up and running, and hoping for one last southerly to help us on our way!
　
The attached pic is Constante, our travelling companion in a spectacular sunrise leaving Morro de Sao Paulo.

Guarapari to Camamu

2009-10-11T00:14:00.001-07:00

Guarapari proved to be a surprisingly attractive bay,with a choice of anchorages giving protection from either Southerly or Northely winds. We had never heard Guarapari mentioned ; its just 30 odd mile South of Vitoria, and thats probably the reason. We spent three nights there, catching up on sleep, chilling and fishing, but felt very isolated, as there were no other boats around, and we always feel a bit uncomfortable anchored alone in unknown places! When the cold front arrived we headed out, and started out with a good wind for Vitoria. We caught 4 Tuna mackeral in a hurry, and the biggest Shad( Elf, Bluefish) I've ever seen( about 9-10kgs). The arrival in Vitoria was interesting, as the entrance is very precise, and the seas were doing their best to make life difficult! There is a 20mt gap in the reefs at the end of the shipping lane, which is the recomended route to the Yacht club. A Tug had decided to anchor right in the gap! We thundered past his stern with about three mts to spare , and made for the Yacht club, where the entrance depth was only 2.2Mts, and the only visitors berth was beam on to the Southerly, and very exposed. Elected to go back outside and anchor in the lee of an empty marina adjoining the yacht club, and go ashore by dinghy . The yacht club told us to anchor within the marina , but not to use any of the cleats on the jetty !

Vitoria is also an interesting and attractive city, with graceful sweeping bridges, palm fringed beaches, and some sophisticated shopping... and the most filthy black dust when the North wind blows! And it sure can blow!Its a windsurfing paradise, and the experts scream around at incredible speeds . Each day , the wind piped up to 30-38knots, and the boat was covered in this film of soot, with the boat staining at the stern mooring bouys.

During one heavy southerly blow, I was forced to acknowledge that RSA does not possess the worldwide monoploy for bureaucratic idiots-- Brasil definitely has its fair share too- and as usual, in positions of power!While anchored in this new Naval marina, equipped with cleats on all four sides,( which you are not allowed to use), and with stern and bow bouys which you may. We had dropped the anchor, and gone astern to pick up the stern bouys . No mean feat in a Shearwater in a beam wind. Long lines and Tinker were the only solution. We were the first of three yachts to arrive, and I was able to offer Tugboat Tinkers services . With the wind then turning North, and covering us with soot, we all wanted out as soon as the wind went south. Mary and I did our shop on the day it was due to turn, while our French Neighbours were enjoying their second day in the Port Captains office dealing with their extension request. We got back to find a SE wind of 30knots, beam on to the anchored yachts. We had twisted 45 degs, but the French Yacht (Joz 111), had dragged, and was threatening to side swipe a 51ft Brazilian Power Cruiser. As the French couple were still with the Port Captain, Frank ( Constante Singapore) and I set about rescueing the situation. Fortunately, Joz had let out about 40 mts of chain, and we were able to crank in about 20 mts , clearing the Brazilian stern, and presenting the bow to the wind, but with only about 5 mts between them. The only logical solution was for me to use my 60 mt second anchor warp, and straighten, and secure Sheer Tenacity to the forbidden Jetty, and then secure Joz to Sheer Tenacity. This all took about 2 hours, with Tinker struggling in the 30 knot winds, and Frank and I were pretty knackered , when eventually, the Marina Boat pitches up : To thank us we assume, for having saved the French Yacht, and the Brazilian Launchero. But NO.... He only arrived to tell us to remove the line from the wall, because the Navy will be very cross! Needless to say , I got a little cross too, and refused ."Noa, meu para Director!!" Well, the director had gone home already, so I decided the best form of defence was attack! I laid an official complaint with the secretary of the club, along the lines of: 1) We were paying for the mooring, and where was the Marina official when help was needed. 2) For employing a marina official too stupid to recognize the dangers to the other boats, and 3) For failing to thank us for our efforts to save their club from a very expensive and embarrasiing experience!

Frank added the final valid observation, that the Brazilian Navy spend Millions of Reais every year rescueing and saving boats in distress, and that if they had been called in, they would have done exacltly what we did! The Secretary agreed, promising, to inform the Director, and to tell the Marina official that the safety lines would remain until the wind dropped!

Next day, we set off for the Abrolhos Archiplego, in a stiff SE. En route we were joined by a Brown Booby( its a feathered bird, guys!), determined to hitch a ride on our spinaker pole. He got tossed off three times by the bumpy ride, and on his fourth attempt, he misjudged his landing, and wiped out against the headsail, falling into the sea in a ungainly heap! Undaunted, he shook himself off, and landed on the pushpit, where he managed to cling on for about a 10 minute roller coaster ride!Got some hilarious video footage of his trip!

We made Abrolhos in good time, before evening on day two, and were able to swim in clean water again, and clean a very dirty hull. I was helped by a superfit Frank, who had arrived on the same day, and volunteered to do the prop, shaft and keel! The carpet of crustaceans that we scraped off was amazing.. and quite alarming , when I saw that the carpet covering my costume and body, when I got out of the water, was in fact, alive! After 4 beautiful sunsets, over the Palm tree'd islands,we tired of being the only yacht there without the prerequisite passport for a shore visit... Kids!

The gribs indicated a gentle easterly for two days, so we decided to take the gap, and not wait for the next low front.We enjoyed a really pleasant sail, and motorsail for the 280 miles to Camamu. Once again we were lucky , and caught well ;two nice wahoo, and one tuna mackeral, so, the freezer is well stocked! It was also a real treat to enjoy pleasnt conditions, instead of the wild and tiresome cold fronts we have had since Ilha Grande!On arrival, we found Joz 111, who had bypassed Abrolhos, who treated us to a Bahian lunch at a beach restuarant, by way of thanks for our efforts to secure their boat in Vitoria. As a result of their input, we will now be setting off down the river to Marau, an interesting, very old and traditional town 20 miles downstream. No doubt we will catch up with them again somewhere up the line! Right now, its raining again- seems like Sundays' predicted low has arrived a day early! At least the sea temp is up to 27.5degs!

Sao Tome Squeeze!

2009-09-28T01:34:00.000-07:00

Do not be mislead by Mary's picture of me chatting this brassy young blond !! The squeeze to which I am referring is an altogether more nautical one, as opposed to my wishful thinking!

When we anchored in Guarapari bay at 4.00pm on Tuesday, we had without any shadow of doubt, completed by far the most harrowing and stressful 36 hours and 180 miles of sailing we have ever experienced! But before going into detail, another anatomical analogy is called for, to describe the coastline around the Sao Tome cape. Sao Tome would be the elbow on your half bent left arm, with your knuckles being Cabo Frio, and wrist, Buzios. The port of Victoria would be up near your shoulder. Lying 50 miles offshore from this elbow, is Brasil's largest offshore oilfield, comprising any number of oilrigs and platforms, in a rectangle 70miles long, by 20 wide. These rigs are serviced by the port of Macae,somewhere on you forearm! There is a constant stream of tugs, supply and service vessels, running backwards and forwards between Macae and the oilfield.The area between Sao Tome and the oilfield is also very shallow, with the first 15 miles off the point being never more than 25metres deep, and the remaining 30miles between 40 and 60metres deep. The shallow Sao Tome banks, are a very rich fishing area, and are alive with fishing boats, day and night. All of the very considerable South American coastal shipping , has to pass through this narrow 30 mile gap, between the Oilfields, and the Sao Tome banks.

To compound the problems facing yachts, is the fact that the prevailing wind is a 20-25knot North Easterly, which is right on the nose, and is accompanied by the 1 knot Brazilian current! Clearly one does not want to spend too much time tacking backwards and forwards in this area, making slow progress.Our Strataegy was to wait for a cold front to come through, bringing the Southerly winds, and get the hell through this piece of water ASAP! This stategy makes sense, but brings with it, additional problems.... like 25knot winds against the current, over shallow waters, which makes for a pretty horrid sea state! Cold fronts also bring clouds, rain, pitch black nights and poor visibility at times! With our Radar being U/S, we decided to leave Buzios at dawn, to get far enough offshore to be outside most of the smaller fishing boats in daylight, and through the Macae/Oilfield traffic as well, as most of them do not have AIS transmitters( less than 200 tons). By night , we reasoned, we would be in the shipping routes, where we could expect proper navigation lights, and, AIS positioning.

The first 12 hours were uneventful, and plain sailing. By evening, the wind freshened, and we had put in two reefs, and shortened the headsaildown to about a no.3 or 4. But all too soon, we were barrelling along like a bat out of hell, in a wind against current, wild sea, an ink black night, on a marine highway, feeling like tenpins in a bowling alley! Normally, Mary and I do 3 hour night watches, but knowing it was likely to be challenging, and for one night only, we had planned on 2 hour watches for the passage. Fat Bloody Chance!! The sea conditions, and the sheer volume of shipping and traffic, required that both of us had to be on watch, right through the night! I plotted and logged the tracks of about 20 vessels which at some time had appeared to be on a collision course with us. Thanks to AIS, I was able to call up 4 by name, when they got to within 2 -4 miles of us, doing on average 14knots, and alert them to our position and course. In those conditions, our echo would have been lost in the sea clutter on their radars! In each case, they acknowledged my call, and took appropriate course changing action, for which they received my grateful thanks! At times, the AIS screen looked like a shotgun pattern ! All in all, we must have "seen", 40 to 50 tankers (or freighters), a similar number of fishing vessels, as well as an array of exploration rigs, platforms, and flashing bouys , in just 10, very dark hours! And every so often, the rain would block out all nav lights, and leave us drenched, not to mention the electrical storm that tormented our already frayed nerves!!

Never has a dawn been more welcome!! By 5.00am, we had both been awake for 24 hours, and were physically and emotionally knackered ! Then the fish decided to hit our lures! After landing three nice fish, we pulled in the lines, and set a course for Guarapari Bay, some 25 miles short of Victoria, as we did not feel up to entering a difficult new port entrance,at night, in our exhaused state! We dropped the hook at 4pm, in a surprisingly pretty , and sheltered bay ; had a couple of Scotches, a bite to eat, and hit the sack at 6pm, and slept for 12 straight hours! We had squeezed through the Gap!

Beautiful Buzios!

2009-09-17T09:24:00.000-07:00

We hauled anchor at 3.00am on Monday, and worked our way out of Guanabara Bay , and up the coast towards Cabo Frio. We had hoped to benefit from the cold front SW winds, but in reality, they were too gentle, and we had to motor sail almost the entire leg to Cabo Frio. Without Radar, and the enormous number of unlit fishing craft, we wanted to do as much daylight sailing whilst close to the coast. We had therefore planned to stop overnight in a little bolt hole anchorage between Cabo Frio island ( Light House Point) and the mainland. It has a narrow (50mtr) head entrance on the West, which can get quite boisterous, with strong currents, before opening up into a very pleasant safe haven. As seems to be our usual habit, the wind started honking just 4 miles before we reached this target, and we had to run the gauntlet! Once inside, we did a right turn to get behing the cliff shelter, and dropped the hook. Despite the rather rolly anchorage, we slept like babes, as neither of us had got much sleep the night before, getting the boat and ourselves set for the early start.

Although the anchorage opens up into a lagoon facing east, which is theoretically navigable via a shallow channel, the charts show chart datum of 1.2mt at the deepest, and as we were leaving at 7.00am, and it would be Spring Low, we elected not to explores the moving sand banks, and go back out the way we entered , through the heads. This added about 4- 5 miles to our leg up to Buzios, but we enjoyed the trip around this Cape that always seems to be the change over point in the weather systems. The wind dropped down to about 8 knots, dead downwind, so we were forced to motor the whole way again, in a rather lumpy sea against the 0.8 to 1knot current that runs down the coast.

We arrived in Buzios at about 1.00pm, and checked out the anchorage options, before chosing a spot outside the Yacht club, with good SW protection, and some NE protection behind a point and reef. We were surprised to find ourselves anchored near "Basta", the yellow steel French boat owned by Francis and Silvia, last seen in Abrooa nearly 2 months earlier. They were heading off to the Carribean in search of work there. Instead, they found Buzios, and have entered into a long term lease and project, to renovate, and then run a Pousada restuarant & Bar on the waterfront here. Francis is working like a dog to have it up and running in October, to coincide with the arrival of the cruise liners. His long term plan is to build up a successful business in 5 years, and then sell ti for a big profit, with 5 years of his lease option remaining! Quite a project, and we wish them luck!

The wind has now swung NE, and the sun is out again, which always brings out the best of a place, and Buzios looks quite special. It started out as a quaint fishing village, with numerous small protected beaches around the rocky peninsula of Cabo Buzios. It is now a major tourist driven, and holiday home resort, being only a couple of hours by road from Rio. Bridgitte Bardot spent many of her early years here with a Brazilian boyfriend, and she is depicted in bronze, in one of the three very good sculptures, along the waterfront. The most striking one is of the "three fishermen", lifesize figures hauling in nets , from rocks set in the sea. Very realistic ! The other, is of President "DK", whose full name escpaes me ! Brigitte is depicted sitting on her suitcase looking out over the sea from the side walk. Her lap , head and lips, are polished shiny bright by all the tourists wanting to strike a pose with her!

With the sun out, it is time to explore again, and to find a wifi spot to check out the weather pattern again,and to see how long we have got here before continuing North!

The Amazing Suzie of Samba!

2009-09-13T01:09:00.001-07:00

We had originally planned to spend our time in Rio at either Gloria , or the Royal Rio Iate Club, which is where we stayed when we took African Rennaisance back to SA....But , that was before we learned about Suzie! Every cruiser we met in Ilha Grande, who had sailed down from Rio, told us about this little blond dynamo at Club Naval Charitas, who was so wonderful to the cruising fraternity. And they were so right!

Suzie and her husband, Ronato, circumnavigated about twenty years back, in their bright yellow, Bruce Roberts designed steel ketch, "Samba",taking 6 years instead of their planned three. They came through the Red sea, instead of the Cape route, and changed the boat from a ketch to a sloop thanks to a sudden unplanned meeting with a tanker! Suzie and Ronato still live aboard Samba, moored right next to the visitors embarkation jetty. Quite apart from being the Official Ombudsman for the Club Naval Charitas, and speaking English and French fluently, she has made it her mission to be the best friend and service provider a cruiser could ever wish for!

She had been away the week Mary and I arrived, so we missed out on the normal welcome, but she made up for it in double quick time! Need your gas bottles filled? Sure, SA French, US..no problem ! Meet me at the Aquarium at 8.00am with the empty, and I'll get it back to you the following day! Want to go up to the top of our mountain and overlook the best views of Rio, Corcavada, Sugar Loaf, watch all the hang gliders taking off, and have some really good Brazilian coffee?

We leave at 10.00 tomorrow. You need an electronics man to check out your Radar problem, someone to fix you hyperlon dinghy, your outboard, your anyhting! Chances are Suzie will know someone and phone them to come and help you !

Want to go to "Horti Fruiti" this Thursday? Its an amazing really upmarket Fruit and Veg City in the middle of Nitaroi , and she takes any cruiser who want to stock up ,with her when she goes to do her own shopping each Thursday. Who wants to go to a free music concert in the old museum in Rio tomorrow , the film festival here, or the dinner dance there? Suzie will organise!

We went to a regular monthly Brazilian "Braai" a while back, and met a mixture of cruisers and club members. The food kept flowing all afternoon, food and drink included, for R$22 per head ( R80) ! This last Friday she organised a Potluck get together for all the cruisers, and everyone attended.

She organises talks ,slide shows and DVD presentations by cruisers, for cruisers and club members interested. I was seconded to give a talk, and show our DVD, in English, with Suzie doing the Poirtuguese translation.After our aborted Buzios departure last Saturday, we came back and attended Doug & Kyles presentation covering their six years circumnavigation in their Westsail 32, "Estrella", with their two daughters. We were shown the DVD of the talk, and rescue of the crew ,by the Brazillian Navy,of the traumatised SA couple, 2000 miles off the Brazilian coast, in Colin Minty's old boat, "Dikiri".We have since heard that it has been seen sailing around the Buzios area recently, so it seems that the boat survived abandonment.

It is no wonder that cruisers tend to grow roots here! Suzie and Renato... you are gems, Bless you both!

Marking time in Rio!

2009-09-12T04:49:00.000-07:00

After our presentation talk and DVD show to the cruisers and club members of Charitas , we set about provisioning and preparing Sheer Tenacity for our trip North. We left last Saturday as planned, but had to abort after only 2 miles, as Fred, our B & G Autopilot went on strike again! On the same day, our Jabsco loo pump had also developed an unpleasant leak, which necessitated immediate attention, and to crown it all, the windlass started misbehaving as we hauled anchor!

So we turned around, and resigned ourselves to another week in Charitas, attending to our new collection of problems, while waiting for the next window. It was a good call, and we managed to sort out all the problems , with the exeption of the Radar, which will have to wait until we reach the Carribean to be repaired. We were also able to attend the next cruisers talk, given by Doug and Kyle, with daughters Lisa (14), and Abergail (11) on "Estrella", about their 6 year circumnavigation. They have only to reach the Bahamas to complete this voyage, and will be moving up the coast during the same period as ourselves.

Fred's problem turned out to be a dead "memory backup battery", a little coin sized CR2032 affair, soldered onto the circuit board. Fortunately I had a spare on board, (for my watch!), but the real challenge was removing and replacing it, as it is soldered in place. Eventually, with a Brazillian assistance, I succeeded, and Fred was up and running again. We had also decided not to sail again, without our backup Autohelm 3000 (Fredlet), working perfectly as well, and he too, is now working well.One of the strange spares I stowed before we left Cape Town, was the pump section from the second marine toilet on the scrapped old Gumbula.I whipped it out , and installed it.... yes, another shitty job, only to find it leaked as badly as the cracked Jabsco unit. After two further removals, and refits, the last with every gasket and joint set, and given time to cure, with sikaflex! We finally had a pure and sweet smelling loo again! What a joy!! But,... we had to endure a day of" bucket and chuck it" first! When one considers that this is effectively no different from what a few million other people in Rio and Nitaroi are doing every day, one should'nt feel too bad! One only has to look at he colour of the water here to know that !

However, the marine heads do a fine job of mascerating the nasties, and pumping it under the boat, and out of sight. Real "Bucket and Chuck it" is a liitle more cold blooded and premeditated , and not quite so easy! We were fortunate to have our Porta Potty on board too, ( our version of a holding tank for USA waters), but we decided to use it only as a comfortable seat, rather than commission it fully for one day. Layers of toilet paper were layed in the bowl,and a fine firm offering placed thereon .This was then picked up, carefully, like a delicate parcel, and dropped overboard, while nobody was looking! In theory, it should have quickly sunk out of sight, with nobody any the wiser. Theories however, dont always work! One such offering, ( exactly whose shall remain anonymous!), refused to sink, and set sail across the anchorage, with the upturned toilet paper acting like a spinnaker! We desperately tried to bomb it with the high pressure deck hose, but it gybed, and sailed out of reach, and we had to stop trying too hard for fear of drawing attention to ourselves! Now there was a fair amount of activity going on in the bay.... waterskiers, an Oppie race, windsurfers, and a couple of jetskies. No prizes for guessing which type of craft we were hoping would finally collide with and sink our newly launched craft! We just ducked below, refusing to acknowledge or watch, but our imagination ran riot with the possibilities!

Later that afternoon, the wind piped up again, and we were soon back to normal, as yet another French Cruiser came dragging past us, while he was enjoying a late lunch ashore. Fortunately, his anchor hooked and re-set after 100mts, and I was able to Tinker ashore, and fetch him. He let out another 30 mts, said "Senk ewe", and went back to lunch!

Next blog ,the Amazing Suzie of Samba!

The Brazilian Paradox!

2009-09-04T06:10:00.000-07:00

There is apparantly no nudity in Brazil. Certainly we have not been aware of any, total nudity , that is! There is however a great appreciation for the body beautiful, and a great willingness to show as much of it as possible, within the confines of their legal limits. The National costume for women, is of course the "Boude floss " bikini.. (there just is no other description, in any other language, which describes the item quite as well!) For those of you not familiar with this very descriptive Afrikaans term, I will do my best! One has to start off with the kind of "Itsy Bitsy, Teeny Weeny" bikini that made Frank Sinatra go "AAAAHHHHH", when he sang about the "Girls on Ipanema!"

Then one removes the little triangle on the back that tries to cover the derier, and replace it with a single strand of Dental Floss, which connects the bottom of the front itsy triangle, with the waistband , such that the ladies neat little butt becomes an extension of her lovely long legs! Well, thats the theory, at any rate! And to be sure, there are loads of beautiful bodies on display, offering healthy old men of my inclination, opportunities to drool over their particular pre-delictions! I am un- ashamably a legs man! Others , I know ,are boobs and bum men, not I hasten to add, that there is anything wrong with that! Its just that I can still remember watching the most Beautiful Legs in the World, ( Steffi Graf), playing Chrissy Evert , in the Wimbledon Final, and perpetually losing track of the score!

Now, keen observer that I am, it does not escape me, that the Golden, the Bronze, the Coffee, and the Ebony, beat the hell out of the transparant cutworm White, no matter how well put together they are! It should also be pointed out, that these thousands of girls displaying the body beautiful, are nevertheless, a very, very small minority in the scheme of things!! The only onepiece bathing costume I have seen in Brazil, was being worn by a very serious competitive swimmer in full training, in the Club Naval Olympic pool! She would have looked great in a Boude Floss ! But the point is, that the vast majority of women wearing these bikini's, simply dont give a fig!

There they are, any number of orange peel butts, of all shapes and sizes, soaking up the sun, with their equally miniscule tops, totally at peace with the world, and with themselves!

The beaches are a focal point of Brazilian life, and all boast beach soccer fields, Volley ball courts, Foot Volley courts, parallel bars, and all manner of playgrounds for their men, to strut their stuff, and impress the female audience. The seriously wealthy, of course use different tricks, such as the enormous "Lanchero's" and Luxury Power craft , to attract their women. It certainly seems to work, because it would appear that these luxury boats cannot start, without at least one or two elegant pieces of "Deck Jewelry" adorning their foredecks in the national costume. But , whether they use their finely chisled bodies, their athletic prowess, or their mighty cheque books and charm, the men too, adhere to their own style of swimming attire.

The young dudes, 14-17yrs, stick to their "Boardies", and Surf shorts. Thats because they rarely seem to partake in any serious sport, apart from tongue wrestling,or face sucking, which is something of a fad here. Not that it is a male dominated sport... on the contrary, the most active participants seem to be their girlfriends, and this could have something to do with their need to wear Baggies at all times! Once the men hit twenty, they graduate to the tight, skin fitting, lycra swim shorts, that my son Steve calls "Budgie Smugglers", or if he's in a generous mood, "Hamster Hammocks"! In the same way that the Boude Floss Bikini leaves little to the imagination, much the same can be said about the Budgie Smuggler! They present the goods, as it were, like merchandise on a supermarket display rack, with only the price tag missing!

So there we have it ! A nation who have perfected the art of wearing nothing, whilst avoiding nudity at all costs ! Methinks this false modesty is just a giant con! I mean , how could this much loved and world famous landmark be called a Sugarloaf?

Welcome to Rio!

2009-08-21T23:05:00.000-07:00

As most blog followers would know, we had planned to leave Ilha Grande a couple of weeks back, and numerous factors conspired to delay our departure ; the arrival of new cruisers, friends, weather ( good and bad!), and Mary's tendancy to throw out a second anchor whenever we spoke of setting off! We had planned to leave on Wednesday last week, but the gribs started showing nasty easterlies, which is NOT what one wants. So we looked for the next break in the weather pattern, and saw a possible gap this last Tuesday. Having resigned ourselves to suffering yet another week in paradise, we decided to sail back round to Siteo Forte for one last visit. (This was the beach Mary first set foot on Brazilian soil, and after 15 days sailing from Ascension, she needed to learn how to walk again. ) The weather was great, and we enjoyed our three days there, swimming, cleaning the hull. Plus the odd cerveja in the little restuarant where a young "Britzy" fell in love , (and equally quickly out of love) with Caiperinha's, when Chris Sutton first introduced us to it, en route to Cape Town, in" African Renaisance", after the 2006 Cape to Bahia race.

We headed back to Abraao on Monday, and set sail for Rio at 21.00hrs on Tuesday. The gribs indicated a gentle passage up the coast , with the front moving out into the South Atlantic. We spent the first couple of hours dodging fishing boats in the ink black moonless night, with their unique ( or totally non existant) Nav lights. Thereafter we had a leisurely motor sail up the coast to Ipanema, catching a metre long Cutlass fish, and a decent sized Bonito at dawn. Then the "front" realised we were trying to slip into Rio behind it, so it changed plans and came to welcome us to Rio! The wind veered to NE, and quickly built up to a 40 knot gale ! I had put in 2 reefs when it reached 25kn, so with our baby staysail we were hard pressed as we worked our wa right across Guanabara bay, to broaden our approach tack . There was a mad scramble of fishing boats and tugs all trying find shelter. We were fairly flying in, in a mass of spray, and for the first time ever, we saw a fishing boat actually trying to get out of OUR way! Some of the bigger fishing boats were towing daisy chains of little fishermen behind them. We worked our way past the fort, and found some shelter behind Jurajuba point, before heading into the bay, past Nitaroi, and down to Club Naval Charitas to drop anchor. The trip was 65miles and took 14 hours, a leisurly 4.6knot average! Sadly, our Radar died between Ipanema and Copacobana, so its one of the first things we will need to get fixed here. It's one of the only defences one has against the fishing boats at night !

We met up with Paco , the Belgium single hander, who had left Abraao the previous Wednesday, when we had called it off. He did 15miles in his first 24hours , and ended up taking 48hours for the trip. He was quite philosophical about it, and said that we had made the right call! He had broached a few times, and been thrown off some big breaking waves, with a "crash", but no damage! When he opened his anchor locker to anchor here, he found his chain and anchor had turned upside down in the locker, and had to take out all his chain and warp to find his anchor! He has now decided NOT to sail directly from Rio back to Begium, and intends to work his way up the coast and leave from the Caribean in May 2010, so we will no doubt meet up with him again! He checked out yesterday, en route to Buzios, and asked if I would like to go in to Rio with him, so that he could take me to "check in" with the Port Captain. What a pleasure, after all the hassles of Angra! We caught the10.30 Charitas ferry into Rio (R$ 8), which takes 14minutes to do the 7miles, walked for 8 minutes to the Port Captains offices, with a few minutes to spare, as they close the doors at 11.00am. They then deal with everyone inside, so that they can go on lunch at 12.00! I was checked IN, and OUT , in twenty minutes, and, they took all the photo copies themselves!! I was back on the boat at anchor in Charitas before they went on lunch!!

The Club Naval Charitas is a super club, with fantastic facilities.They charge R$10 pd for 3 days,at anchor, R$20pd for the next 3days, and R$30pd thereafter. Its about twice that if one takes a marina berth. We are looking forward to meeting the legendry "Suzie", who make a point of meeting and greeting every new cruiser, and showing them the ropes, but with the weather so foul at the moment, we only expect to see her on the week end.

Frogs, Anchoring and a final blast from Abrooa!

2009-08-11T12:48:00.000-07:00

Last week, for the second time in as many days, our Sheer Tenacity was under threat from a dragging French ketch. He is STILL determined to go round the Horn, despite inadequate ground tackle and a manual windlass.On the first occassion, I was helping Chris Hull deploy a safety anchor from his bow in a Southerly buster. He was on a mooring bouy in a congested anchorage, and was understandably worried about the condition of the ground tackle. Tinker and I reversed in 25 knots to drop a 20kg CQR 30mts ahead of the mooring bouy , while Chris paid out the rode and made fast. I then headed back towards Sheer Tenacity , who was holding firm on our 30kg Bruce, and 50mts of 10mm chain. Mary was standing on the bow yelling at this French Fellow, who was dragging down on us, sideways , while trying to pull UP his anchor on the manual windlass. Mary's yells finally produced results, and his wife started the engine, and just managed to avoid us. He then proceeded to power around, looking for another place to anchor, wisely out of our earshot! But not far enough, and still upwind! Two days later , we went through exactly the same drama, and once again he dragged 100mts down towards us, and only just avoided taking out our bowsprit , when I exhorted him to START YOUR FROGGING ENGINE!!!

Jeremy and I had shared a few laughs about Brazilian anchoring techniques, which usually involve trying to get as close as possible to the beach, and tossing out an undersized anchor attached to a few metres of chain, and a piece of string ! Thankfully, they are mainly day/fair weather sailors, and have not been around when things get nasty. But we have been advised to excercise caution when in close proximity to some French yachts! Suggestions about keeping a safe swing circle are normally acknowledged by their National single digit salute! Our Fellow was too busy winding chain, to waste time saluting, so our kindness went unacknowledged. Thankfully, he then chose to re anchor about a mile away from us.......leaving just enough room for another Fellow, to squeeze in on his 48ft blue steel ketch, and drop his anchor and 20 mts, on the run, wrong way to the prevailing wind, almost on top of our Bruce. I was en route to refill water jugs, so detoured past him to point out this fact, and that we had LOTS of chain out because of the sudden strong southerly winds. He smiled, and as is their norm, ignored me.

Yesterdays last fish and chips lunch in Abrooa was cut short, by a sudden, and violent wind, which preceded the front. As we Tinkered our way back to the boat, we watched with relief, as the big Blue ketch, dragged his way between Sheer Tenacity, and Jervon, and only just managed to avoid the rocks half a mile downwind. He took off across the bay blowing blue smoke, as he powered his way against the 30-40knots of wind, to seek shelter . We took turns on anchor watch, from 15.00hrs until 02.30 the this morning, when the gale abated. During the night, nine large trawlers and fishing boats came in to seek shelter from the elements, and we were once again very pleased that we have chosen the ground tackle we have, and take the time and trouble to set the hook properly! Don't they teach them this in France and Brazil, or are they just slow learners?? Mind you, poor technique is not the sole prerogative of the Latins . We have witnessed a fellow South African, proud of his amount of chain, drop his hook, and all 80 mtrs of chain on top of it, in a heap, like a doggy doo-doo, when he's only 40 mts from the beach! One can never afford to be too casual (or arrogant), and even when you think you have done everything by the book, the sea can, and will often, still teach you a lesson!

Next stop Nitaroi.

Of Cormorants and Maestros!

2009-08-09T13:41:00.000-07:00

Perhaps it is the return of Summer, but there are definitely more Comorant Club applications around. Yesterday we witnessed a very unusual new age blonde application, from, it must be said, a real "Maestro"... Well that's the name of their 45 ft Bavaria anyway She certainly put on a spectacular performance, synchronised with screaming engines, vertical take offs, and very real danger to life and limb! Maestro arrived elegantly enough in the anchorage, towing their tender, and after doing a lap of honour they chose their spot, and dropped the hook . When all was secure, Madam Maestro was delegated the task of collecting their waiting guests from the shore. So eager was she to meet them, and so confident was she in her duck driving, that she started the powerful little outboard, and took off with a tail walk. The only small problem was that she had forgotten to untie the tender from the mothership !

We heard the roar of the engine, followed by a bang and a scream, and looked up in time, to see the tender heading skywards, while Madame Maestro was being thrown backwards out the boat butt first. The tender landed upside down a few metres in front of her, with engine still racing, and prop spinning! Thankfully the plugs were soon immersed and it soon cut out. Jeremy, from Jervon, had also witnessed the drama, and being the closest to them, he had his boat up on the plane in short time, as he rowed to the rescue. He arrived to find Madame Maestro lying half on the sugar scoop gasping, while Master Maestro was describing in his very best Spanish, what a clever lady she was! After this, his main concern was to get the tender the right way up, trying to start the drowned engine, and, fetching his guests. Jeremy boarded the boat, and helped Madam Maestro up onto the sugerscoop, while ascertaining that she was not hurt. My immediate urge , when I realised that apart from her bruised ego, she was unhurt, was, of course, to rush across with New Membership forms. Why should Mary be the Cormorant Clubs only new member this week?

Another cruiser helped him sort out the engine , and had it running again in quick time. Jeremy received a very nice bottle of Argentinian red wine which will be enjoying with todays braai, and I received a follow up blog story- PLUS, proof that some people are just slow learners! Mr Maestro drove up to Jervon, with the "Kill" lanyard STILL unattached to his wrist, as had been the case with his wife yesterday! They are there precisely to STOP spinning propellers cutting up and killing people, when accidents happen!

Still on Cormorant Club membership matters, I was in Salvador, and on the jetty , when "Thunderchild" arrived after the 2006 Cape to Bahia race. There I witnessed what was for me, the biggest single, simultaneous Cormorant club application by a crew !!! The moment the yacht was secure, the entire crew of 8 ,hurled themselves into the smelly Club Nautica water, with only a beer can in each hand to keep them afloat! The circumstances were as follows. Thunderchild had left Cape Town like a bat out of hell, and had opened up a significant overall lead in the race, having done something like 1200 miles in the first three days.... Then they noticed a structural crack in the frame supporting their modified new keel. Faced with the choice of abandoning the race, and beating back to Cape against the South Easter and swell, or flattening the boat out and heading dead downwind for Salvador, they chose the latter. They cross braced the frame as best they could, prepared the boat for immediate "Abandon ship", alerted one other competitor , with whom they reported their situation daily. Their relief when they finally arrived in Salvador, with life jackets lashed to all the railings, was palpable. I nominate them all as all Honorary Members!

Next in line , Frogs and Anchors!

Mary joins the Cormorant Club!!

2009-08-06T07:48:00.000-07:00

Membership of this elite cruising club is usually a well guarded secret, although when discussed among the "yachtie" community, it is a surprisingly well patronised club! Membership to this club is usually granted very suddenly, unrequested, and accompanied by an extremely wide range of emotions. These emotions cover the full orbit from Hilarity, through Mirth and Chuckles, via Care and Concern, too Full on Rage.... Depending upon the circumstances and perspective. Whether one is a bystander/spectator, a participant, or a brand new member.

How exactly does one qualify for membership to such an exclusive club? Is it expensive? The answers two these questions are...Very easily.... and Sometimes!!! Membership is automatically confered on all those who cannot resist the urge to take a quick swim, fully clothed, in that small, but usually widening gap, between the yacht tender and the Yacht or Jetty. Membership is often accompanied by much shouting and screaming, culminating in laughter when the new member is found to be safe and unharmed!

Most new members choose Individual Membership, but this is not always the case, and it is not unheard of for entire crews to become members simultaneously. Chris and Helen Hull chose this strategy when boarding their tender at the restuarant jetty in Ubitubinha. After a very festive meal, Chris manouvered the tender alongside, and leaned over to hold onto the jetty at precisely the same moment that Helen chose to board. With their combined weight on one pontoon, the tender squirted out like a bar of soap in a shower, and landed perfectly safely, the right way up, on top of my Tinker. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the two new members of the Cormorant Club, who were very busy playing the Blame Game while splashing around next to the jetty in their going out clothes! Apart from expensive dents to their pride and wet wallets, cellphones, and digital cameras also joined the club with more expensive consequences. Women can usually recover their dignity much more quickly than men. A common ploy is for them to claim, with nipples erect from either shock or cold, that they have always wanted to enter a wet T-Shirt competition, but have never had the courage! Men dont often have such a convenient excuse on hand.

Mary's membership, however, is somewhat debateable. Normally one is either a full member, or a non Member.These are the circumstances, and her membership qualification will have to be put to the vote. We had been invited to dinner on "Jervon". We had also been asked by Fransisco to look after his tender while he had taken a ferry into Angra to sort out his visa problems. His tender was tied on to Sheer Tenacity just behind the boarding ladder, which meant that our position relative to the ladder was a little different when we returned after dinner. Having climbed in and out of Tinker a thousand times, Mary was perhaps a little "casual" when standing up and grabbing the ladder, and unaware that we were a teeny bit further away than normal. ( Caiperinha's are a well know cause of casualness in Brazil!)

Tinker widened the gap, and Mary was left hanging on to the ladder, with a midrif waterline. She was therefore denied even the wet t-shirt excuse ! Now you can't be a Half Member of the Club ! Mary says she only applied for Temporary Membership, but others might say she qualifies as a Country Member! It will have to be put to the vote!

Leaving Home---Again!

2009-08-04T01:53:00.000-07:00

We really can't believe that we have spent over three months in Ilha Grande, and that we are now preparing to head Northwards ! The weather has been a lot cooler, with low fronts and rain every 4/5 days, but it is still a whole lot more pleasant than winter in the Cape!
　
We left Jervon in Abrooa, and came around to ICAR again on a wet and miserable Monday,to give us the rest of the week tocheck out with the authorities, as we had a feeling that it would again take a ridiculous amount of time! We were right, but at least this time we were prepared for it! We now KNOW why the Amazon rain forests are under seige ! Its not hard wood that they need, its the paper they need to fill in and photocopy all the Policia Federal and Receita Federal forms !!
　
On Tuesday we caught the bus in to Angra, armed with copies af the required forms which we had downloaded from the website. We then went to the stationery shop to buy the required DARF form( yes, thats what its called!), and headed of to the Policia Federal, only to be told we were in the wrong place, as in the last two months they had opened a "new" facility, down at the Warf. This new facility was actually a run down building staffed by the same obnoxious people we had to deal with when we first arrived! After a while Mary was presented with a voucher indicating that she should now go to the Bank of Brazil, pay R$67, and come back with a rainforest of copies. I was told I must go to an internet cafe to get my form, then pay by direct transfer, and come back with the same plethura of paper. We did not need the DARF form, but had to use the new payment form given to Mary. When I queried why we were being told to do things separately, I was given short shift by an arrogant official who said it was "Impossible" and I must go to an internet cafe!It It transpired later that their system had crashed half way through our process !
　
So we headed back to the boat determined to get every thing sorted, and copied, and paid for the next morning, so that we could get on with our provisioning.
　
The bus ride in was interesting! It was so full, we had to get in the back door, which at least meant we could not pay, as this is done up front! A gallant Brazilian gave up his seat for Mary, but it might have been because the small family sitting on the seat in front of her were sobbing their eyes out , and suffering some very traumatic and private family grief, and the poor fellow could'nt take it! While I hung on for my life to the overhead handrails above the aisle,the liitle girl wedged into the seat at my knees, spent most off the trip puking into a leaky shopping packet, and in serious danger of spilling the contents all over my only Porto Capitano smart clothes ! All the while, Barricello Bus Driver was trying to break Aryton Sennas ICAR to Angra record ! We tumbled out into the hottest day we have had for a while, and learned that the Bank only opens at 10.00am.!!
　
Determined to stay cool, we then found a Xerox shop, got all the copies, waited for the bank to open, paid the R$134( R532), and headed back to Policia Federal. This time we were met by sweetness herself, who must have been embarrassed by her boss the previous day, and she ushered us down the passage to a fellow who had us stamped , approved and extended until November in less than an hour ! Time to get to Porto Capitano before 12.00!! We made it with two minutes to spare!! Relief turned to despair when we read their new opening times ! Mondays 13.30-15.30, Tues-Fri 08.3--10.30! From 24hrs per day to 2 hrs for only5 days, shows an interesting approach to productivity and customer service! Once again, our simple checking out will take three days, even when we know the ropes!
　
Spent a frustrating Thursday trying to get to the bottom of my genset ptoblems. The general consensus from all the local experts, including that my Nuclear Power station friend, Celso, is that the reiring done by B M Power in Cape Town , is not exactly in accordance with the Mase Specs, and that either the number of turns on each section of the rotor, or the guage of wire used, is incorrect I will probably have to take it out in Trinidad, and leavehere for a few weeks to be rewired.
　
Left the boat at sparrows this morning, in the pouring rain, to pay my last respects to the Porto Capitano. Now one has to dress up smartly for this very important man, who is only availailable between 8.30 and 10.30. Its quite a tricky challenge to board ones tender in pouring rain, land on a beach at spring low, drag the tender 40 mts up the beach, secure it, walk 300mts to a bus stop, catch one in rush hour, get off in Angra, and walk another 500mtsin pouring rain to the BIG mans Headquarters, and........still look dignified and respectable..... and more importantly, remember to be respectful!! Surprise , surprise! I was stamped, cleared for Salvador, and back in the rain within 5 minutes !
　
I was so chuffed that I ducked into the fish market to by a Kilo of Queen prawns for supper, which we will be sharing with Michael Martin, a new American friend, who has just launched his steel DeVilliers 45 ft yacht, and who will be sailing up the coast to the Carribean, with his lovely Brazilian wife Larissa, during the same time period as ourselves.( de Villiers trained under Dudley Dix I believe, and when Mike sent him photos of Sheer Tenacity, he replied saying "they are damn fine boats!"!
　
We plan to do a shore power battery charge here, top up with diesel, and head back round to Abrooa, for a re union /farewell party with Jervon, before waiting for a good weather slot to leave for Rio, where we will spend a couple of days at the Club Naval Charitas, in Nitaroi. After that we plan to head for Buzios, Abrolhos, Victoria, Camamu and then only Salvador.!
　
When we finally say farewell to Ilha Grande, I guess it will be like leaving home again! Officialdom aside, it has been a wonderful introduction to the cruising lifestyle, and an experience we will never forget!
　
　
Cheers from ICAR!

Inaugural Meeting of Ilha Grande Chapter of HBYC !

2009-08-04T01:45:00.000-07:00

August 1st has seen the return of the sun, which went missing a week ago! Time to shake out the feathers, and stretch the legs ... at least to do a little shopping for fresh veggies and fruit, before congregating on the beach front bar/restuarant to attend the inaugural meetiing of the Ilha Grande chapter of the HBYC ! Present are likely to be JC and Jackie, (Taniwa), recently arrived,( but more of their arrival later!) from St Helena via Rio, Jeremy & Yvonne ( Jervon), Chris and Helen Hull ( Sea Lion), and ourselves, Rod & Mary, ( Sheer Tenacity). I cant help but to realise that this unusual gathering of HBYC cruisers, some 5000miles from home has a greater probability of representing a quorum, than the usual turn out at a HBYC AGM!

Out of the mist and rain yesterday morning, we were hailed by JC and Jackie, who had taken a gap in the weather, and motored down from Rio. They had spent the previous evening in Enseada Palmas, before popping round to Abrooa. Taniwa circled the anchored yachts, before presenting us with an unusal challenge after showing us his uniques Irish /American Anchoring style ! He chose his spot carefully, and dropped the hook..... all 120ft plus 45lb CQR, with a minor splash, and a fair amount of Blue Cursing, as JC watched in disbelief as the chain parted at the 120ft mark, and took its leave of Taniwa! They had been anchored for days off St Helena on the same chain, and it chose this moment, in gentle rainy conditions to fail! The headed out into the bay to calm down, lick their wounds, and prepare a second anchor and rode

Our challenge, was of course to recover the 120ft of chain and anchor from the black mud on the 9mt deep seabed ! I headed off in Tinker with a handheld GPS, and when lined up with our reference points from SheerTenacity, Mary called 'Mark!". Jeremy rigged up a grappling hook from his dinghy, and began to troll the area. After persevering for about 40 minutes , he hit paydirt, and hooked something heavy. His efforts nearly ended with him in the water, as his little rigid dinghy did some serious duck dives under the load! A flotilla of tenders arrived to "help", and after a noisy committee meeting, the Plan of Action was agreed upon...... then Re Done..... and Revised again! After a while, the stern of Taniwa was dragged to the drop point by Tugboat Tinker, and the load was tranferred by warps and rolling hitches round to the bow rollers, until the 120ft of chain plus CQR were safely back on board Taniwa. Beers an Rum are the promised rewards! Todays meeting could be fun!

Catch you later!

2009-07-05T07:05:00.000-07:00

Abrooa., Ilha Grande

Our run back to Abrooa from Angra was interesting! We decided to give Fredlet,our newly aquired back up auto pilot a test run. Anyone behind us on the water must have thought we were smoking our socks! I'd set the course, engage the pilot , press "SET", and then "1", and we would immediatly do a 180deg spin! Because of the position of the pedestal brace, and the length of the belt, the drive unit had to be mounted back to front. To compensate, I had mounted the gyro compass a matching 180 deg in reverse! But it was TOO Clever, and would not be fooled as simply as that ! It could work out where it really was, and decided to prove it! So I then took the gyro out of the bracket, and held it facing forward, as was intended, and tried again. This time we started out ok, until a small course correction was required, at which point the correction to port, generated a starboard command to the drive unit, which immediately demanded a further port correction, which resulted in an even bigger starboard command to the drive unit, until we were going 180 deg backwards again! I then tried to adjust the settings manually, which threw the whole system into a succession of ever increasing wild zig zagging adjustments. Two islands . a power boat, and a fisherman watched our unique methods of pilotage and resulting koeksister course !

Jeremy joined us on the beach for a Moqueca and beer lunch , on Mary's birthday, before we headed back to the boat ahead of the threatening cold front. We had invited Jeremy and Yvonne, and Fransisco & Petro , (who had heard it was Mary's birthday, and arrived at the boat with 2 fresh bonitos) for supper and a party! We had a "lekker jol", and sat up late, playing music, burning lights, and generally flattening our batteries! With all the overhead cloud, and little wind, we are getting no help from nature in recharging batteries, and are reliant on the genset and main engine to do so.

The next day was spent trying to persuade the genset to be reasonable, and give us some help! It had obviously been conniving with Fredlet, and the "heads", and decided not to play ball! Roy Mcbride says that Autopilots and Marine toilets are related cousins. He's right, but what he does not know, is that they were all educated by gensets ! It seems the governer adjustment has wandered to a point where the voltage and cycles are out of range of manipulation by loading all appliances, and it has once again joined Cosatu, and gone on strike! Today is the beginning of the Festival of St Pedro & St Paulus, which is yet another of the Brasilian excuses to party! The whole village of Abrooa has been decorated with flags, and stalls selling all manner of things are lining the streets. We know the music will go on to the small hours, and we a pleased, that once again we have chosen to anchor some way off! Meanwhile, we will definitely venture forth to watch and enjoy their celebrations, before having another crack at the genset tomorrow!
cheers for now .

Freddie lives on, and we have aquired a Fredlet too!

2009-06-25T01:16:00.000-07:00

One of the saddest bits of news from home was that our beloved German Shepherd, Freddie, who was adopted and loved by Alan when we sold our home to him, had passed on to the big kennel in the sky. As most blog readers will remember, we named our Autopilot Fred after him, as it sings and moans just like he did! After a few mid Atlantic scares, we finally seem to have sorted out the autohelm problem by giving it a hydrolic fluid transfusion. We have been using Freddie whenever we have sailed or motorsailed just to make sure he is up to speed. So Far so Good. We have just done a 25 nm leg from Paraty up to Ubitubinha on the Island, and Fred was once again, well behaved! Since the pre St Helena failure however, we have been very aware of how utterly dependant one becomes on the autopilot, when sailing short handed.

We made up our minds to make sure we had a back up in the event that Fred retired hurt again. Ideally, we would like to use the wind vane /trim tab option, as it is not power dependant. However, as we have elected to have davits over the transome, for lifting the dinghy out of the water each night, the wind vane system would have to be offset to one side, and be reliant on a transverse lever. It can work, but introduces yet more points of friction in a system which requires absolutely minimal friction to work well. So we also asked other cruisers about their systems, and their current demands.Two names which came up were APT, used by Niekie on "La Rose", and Alpha, used by Bob & Robyn on "Misty Dawn". Interestingly, La Rose also have a B & G Network hydrolic pilot, but they prefer to use the belt driven APT when conditions allow (95%), because it uses 1 amp vs the 4 to 5 of the B & G. The Alpha is also pretty basic, but apparantly bullet proof, and uses very little current. Both can be found and read about on the internet. With the APT being about $1500 compared to the Alpha +/-$3000 , both of these options were outside our cruising budget , for a second ,back up system. We decided to look out for a second hand option as we move up the coast. We did'nt have to look far! Jeremy and Yvonne had just fitted a very expensive Aquavane system to "Jervon", and had changed the gearing on their hydrolic steering, which made their Autohelm 3000 obsolete. A deal was done , and "Sheer Tenacity" now boasts a Fredlet as her back up system! An added bonus is that it only seems to draw 1 -1.5amps! We need to check this out in more challenging sea states.

One of the least appealing jobs of the skipper, is to sort out a blocked and jammed heads system! This was my lot yesterday on fathers day! I started at the Jabsco pump end, and ended by virtually dismantling all the bathroom/heads cupboards in order to remove all the pipes, anti syphon loops, diverter valves etc. That was the easy bit!! Chipping out all the calcium /uric acid build up that sets like concrete, beating the hoses, overboard, with a stainless steel pipe until you crack it up, and the clearing it all out of the pipes and fittings, can only be described as a Really Shitty Job!! From now on, its a bottle of vinegar into the system every week to stop the build up. ( Its creates a very graphic picture of what a chelesterol build up would look like in ones arteries! Enough to make one go on a fat & cholestrol free diet for life!)

On a happier not, I got an email from my man Hector in Frade, whose assistance I had requested, in chasing up the shop to whom I had returned the Merc 3.3 for fixing. "OK Rod. The owner he said to me the out board motor on tuesday it will be in your hands." Much better to get a Marina Manager to bomb on the shop owner in his own language , on your behalf! Well done Hector ! You really are a star! We plan to go back to Angra on Wednesday, pick up the outboard, do a provision shop, and then head round to ICAR and Itanhanga, and Frade. I would like to introduce Jeremy & Yvonne to ICAR, and Jeremy is keen to meet Hector! A very good man to know!!

Paraty revisited- rowing , chilling ,shopping for cheap whiskey!

2009-06-19T01:20:00.000-07:00

Motored down to Ilha da Cotia on Sunday and arrived in time to see the weekend visitors hauling up and leaving us to enjoy the peace and quiet. Spent a day waiting for the showers to pass, and another quiet day before motoring round to Paraty. First mission was to visit Sea Lion at Imperial Marina, to drop off a tillerpilot that Chris Hull had agreed to take back to RSA for me. Imperial is a top end Marina, where security and services looked top notch!. Sea Lion was having the cockpit hatch and surround revarnished by someone dressed like a surgeon! Seemed to be doing a good job, at I'm sure,what was a GREAT price!!

It is also an easy and deeper than usual (3m) fuel and water dock, with diesel a bit cheaper than Pirata's Mall Angra. (+/- R10.20 per lt) After that we rowed into the schooner dock, about 3/4 mile from our anchorage, to explore and do some shopping. Our lunch of Aipim Frita ( deep fried manioc ) and beer, was threatened by a familiar looking black cloud ! Last time we were at the same beach pub we got caught in a thunderstorm and drenched on the way back to the boat. This time we rushed back, knowing we had to row. We stopped long enough to buy a bottle of Scotch and a fish for supper, and rushed to the Schooner Jetty. By the time we got there the wind was pomping, and the 3/4 mile row into the teeth of the wind represented a major challenge.. especially as Mary and I had both neglected to utilise the Ela and Ele, before we left the beach! After rowing fit to bust for 20min, and getting about half way back, we were spotted by a Brazilian Boat taxi good Samaritan. He roared up in his long boat, indicated that I should pass him the bow line, and hit the gas ! Mary nearly went arse over tranny, ( cross between transome and fanny!), and tinker broke the world water speed record yacht tenders, as she was up on the plane in a nano second, and we were delivered to Vermelho veliero in style! A cheery wave and our hero was gone, with no suggestion of payment required! Yet another example of Brazilian kindness!

The next day we had thought about heading back to Siteo Forte on the Island , but felt it wiser to allow Mary and Yvonne, who had both been bitten by something crawly and toxic, an extra day in the vacinity of a hospital. They are both taking Antihistamine tablets, and Mary antibiotics as well, as the bite sit looks quite infected with pink lines right up to her armpit. As I write, she is clearly on the mend, but itching fit to scream!

Instead, we took another walk around town , had a crab cake, and stuffed manioc and shrimp roll for lunch, and searched out some cheaper local whiskey options. Results for those interested:
Taylors R$ 36 / ltr R144/ltr verdict : quite acceptable
Old Eight R$ 28/ltr R112/ltr equally acceptable, better value
Drury;s R$ 22/ltr R88/ltr manageable, esp if 2nd dop after one of above!

Also discovered that it is possible to get a Brazilian sim card which one can use for RSA sms calls, and on which one can receive incoming calls, and make internet connections. The "Tim" operator card costs R$15, and is a pay as you go. Internatinal SMS cost R3.20, and local ones 80c.

We are now optimistic that with a little self medication of the above prescriptions, Mary will be well enough to cruise on tomorrow!

Cheers from Paraty

Of old friends,reality checks, special Ilha Grande anchorages, and prawn pig-outs!

2009-06-16T13:25:00.000-07:00

Sitting here at Ilha do Cedro, waiting for the rain to clear, I thought it about time to write another blog , which hopefully i can send from Parati. We're both well again, apart from Mom having suffered a repeat bite/sting on her ankle, which has swelled up like a tennis ball, and has driven her nuts! I will try to cover quite a long period, so I will try to cover it all in the blog!

After the tedium of checking in again at Angra, and doing a MultiEconomia shop for provisions, we headed back to Frade to hand over Receita's letter of "Liberation of boat" to Hector, ( Marina Manager) entitling him to give us our boat back ! I had also fitted the new Mastervolt 100amp Battery charger, which we brought back from RSA, but it refused to work off the genset, indicating that the Hz cycles were too high (77hz). We needed to check it out on shore power, and were relieved to see it performing fantastically. Hector called in some local genset experts to see what could be done to correct the cycle problem. Basically, the output voltage and cycles are controlled by the rpm, and when the revs were dropped to the range where the cycle was acceptable, the voltage dropped below the low limitrange, and when the revs were increased to get the voltage above 220v, then the cycles went to 77hz! They tried increasing capacitor sizes, and spent about 7 hours over two days trying to fix it, without success. In the process, they had to replace the impellor, but when we they eventually decided that the problem lay with the rewiring of the rotor ,which was done in Cape Town, I called Enough! They refused any offer of payment, even for the call out, or impeller replacement, saying they had been unable to fix the problem! Would that happen in Cape Town??? Later in the day I opened an Email from Chris Sutton, who had answered my queries on the subject, and he had suggested "load" as a factor.
So next day I started the genset, and applied loads sequentially--- calorifier, freezer, and eventually, when I included the old battery charger, via the plug circuit , in addition to the new charger, we met with success, and the charger started pumping in between 60 and 90 amps! Thanks Chris!!

We headed back to Itanhanga, where we met up with Yvonne & Jeremy from "Jervon", and caught up with each others news. One of the things we chatted about was the sad story about Nic Robinson and Wendy Meyer, from "Sea Jade", with whom we had shared Christmas on St Helena at Annes Place. They were the couple whom I had referred to as Adrenalin Junkies in a blog from the Island. It seems that Wendy was bi polar, and that much of their frenetic lifestyle was an attempt to overcome her depression. Sadly it was in vain, and she OD'd in early Jan while Nic was out kyacking. He took her in to the hospital, where she died. Nic stayed on at the Island until autopsy etc was done , and set sail back to Walvis , single handed, in early April, where according to press reports, he apparantly fell from the mast while effecting halyard repairs, and was lost. Sea Jade was found driftting 300 miles south of St Helena. It was all the more poignant give our own worries about "Jervon"s apparant failure to arrive in St Helena. In fact, Jeremy & Yvonne had checked in with customs and Immigration, and spent two very happy weeks on St Helena, and had many meals at Annes, as well as filling in the Visitors book not far from "Sheer Tenacity"'s entry. Sea Jade was still at the Island at the time, and they had heard about Wendy's demise while there! It just goes to show that government bureacracies cannot always be relied upon, how mortal we are, and how the sea can never be taken lightly!

From Itanhanga we went back to Angra , where we both stocked up on essentials, and dropped off the Merc 3.3 with the shop from whom I had bought it,( as I had finally run out of patience), before working our way down towards Parati. The shopping is very easy and civilised there, as one can trolley directly from the supermarket to the boat. We spent a night anchored behind Gipoia, before motorsailing down to Ilha do Cedro for a few days. The trip down was glorious, and we enjoyed a great lunch on the beach at "Nelson:s bar. As the weather looked set to change, we moved around to the more protected anchorage, which we called "Sand Dollar " bay in our movie, and found a number of local fisherman anchored. It was the start of the Prawn catching season, and so we each bought a kilo of prawns for 12 Reais, and pigged out!

We intend waiting for the weather to clear, and will probably head down to Parati Sunday /Monday. Till Then!