Friday, July 10, 2015

St Thomas

I am sure there are plenty of American people who know where St Thomas is and that it is an island in the Caribbean. For us, it is a well traveled island, with massive cruise ships dropping off tens of thousands of human souls for the day. Some days there are 6 or 7 cruise ships, stacked up, tied up and the island seems to practically sink in people.

For us, we were dealing with equipment failure while we were in St. Thomas. Our forward hatch cracked, which means when we go to sea, any water over the bow goes cascading into the forward berth. 


Oops



We were able to borrow a friends car and find a man on the island who was an old sailor. He provided us with a new sheet of the exact kind of plexi glass we needed. The main challenge was how to bend it to the previous specifications. We took the spinnaker pole and tied it down on one side, and everything that was heavy for the other side : diving weights, chain, and even a can of antifouling.



This took more than a week of hot sun beating down on it, and in the end Philip finally took a blow torch to it and created the bend we needed.


We did leave the cruise ships behind, and headed the 16 miles to Culebra, to finish the job.



The other side of the anchorage in Charlotte Amalie




The sailboats behind the cruise ships look like little toys compared to these big boys.












Thursday, July 9, 2015

Anguilla April 2015

The island of Anguilla is about 6 miles north of St. Martin. We had a fast sail to our anchorage on the western side of the island, Road Bay. The bay filled up with boats and even a regatta for the Easter weekend. 
 Anneleize and Jabez's sailing dingy behind the boat, without mast or sail. Sometimes they row it over to their friends' boat, without sailing gear.


A salt water lagoon near the anchorage had some good bird watching. I took these photos for Herman.





This is an old well, still in use. The flip flops belonged to the guy washing his car, using the well. 


More birds for Herman


I'm waiting for someone to tell me what the names of these two are.


This is the beginning of the regatta, for the Easter weekend. The boats are basic, just a hull, with one mast and two sails. And lots of people for ballast.
They are getting ready to sail out of the bay to the starting place, which was up island.



Saturday, April 25, 2015

Some people have a dog or a cat that live on board with them, some might even have certain types of fish. My family, on the other hand have a pet chicken. How's that for eccentric? We found a chick about to be eaten by a (black) cat. After searching for it's mother and coming up with nothing, we took him (or her) home. The next day was the same, so the decision was made that we would keep him (or her). Jabez and I decided it was a boy and christened him Chico (which in Spanish means little annoying boy....   Actually I made up the annoying part) He's about 3 inches tall and he's yellow w/ black stripes on his back. He is also utterly adorable.
                               The chicken is the one in the middle, that's not wearing a striped t-shirt.


Baby Chico


And now the air is filled with incessant cheeping. He may be very cute to look at but behind the warm and fuzzy exterior, a  little devil lurks. ( I meant that in a good way Chico, stop biting my feet!)




By Anneleize Strauss
25 February, 2015

14 degrees, 48 minutes North
24 degrees,  48 minutes West

First entry in the log book, leaving Ilha Brava in the Cabo Verdes islands, heading for St Martin in the Caribbean, a distance of 2,210 miles on the open ocean.

From the Captain :
3 times, that‘s how many times we got pooped in this one passage. 5 times, the number we have been pooped in 13 years.
Pooped meaning that a wave comes, jumps over the stern or the poop, over the boat, enters the cockpit and comes down the hatch and supplies you with a wet bed, a temporary indoor swimming pool, and then the interior of the boat with sheets hanging to dry, sheets crusted with salt water. Needless to say we do not have enough fresh water to wash sheets while on passage. So after the second linen change the boat looked like an alley way in an old Hong Kong movie.
3 is the number of fish we caught, with 2 being the number we actually landed and 1 being the number of the one that got away.


 mahi mahi mid ocean

We left on a morning with a stiff breeze, created by the capillary action of Ilha Brava. Within 20 minutes of our friends, ‘Fun en Bouille’. With the wind from Brava, we were in 30 knots of wind within 10 minutes after leaving the anchorage.  But the idea of sitting for another stint of reinforced trades, the siroccos, was not appetizing. With the williwaw’s pushing the boat from side to side, winds blowing from a 180 degree range at gale force and then be gone, just enough to break an anchor loose.
We set our sights on the Caribbean.
Sailing next to our friend’s yacht, it was nice to see the family on board, with their baby in hand and their dog on deck, standing, barking at us. Though we would only stay in this position for a few hours, and by early evening, even their navigation lights were far behind us.

our pals sliding off waves

The wind and the unusual action of the sea didn’t dissipate much. We mostly sailed across the Atlantic with winds in the 20 to 35 knot range, constant.
The only time the wind dropped to less than that was 5 days out from St. Martin, when the barometer dropped 5 points, too rapidly, and then steadily raised up. The thunderheads started building big looming anvils on the horizon, which would blow up the tops like they do in the Midwest in the summer, sucking moisture, and by early evening start accelerating in speed, which, a pure nature lover might say, ‘a beautiful array of lightening was to be had’, though as a sailor we pronounce that same term as , ‘ouch, here it comes.’
Days rolled into days, with a steady pattern. Each person being woken up for their individual watch, finally the dream has come full circle: where we have these two totally capable crew members, called Anneleize  and Jabez.

They are able to stand a watch, make a meal in the kitchen (galley) and generally entertain themselves and sometimes us, while life goes by in 6 hour increments.

 Lines and lines of Sargasso on the ocean, getting tangled in the fishing lines/

Something new for us on this crossing were floating beds of sea grapes.  For more than 1000 miles most probably the biggest aquarium in the tropical  region, that usually seems nearly devoid of life. There were gardens upon gardens, lines upon lines of these bunches of golden sea grapes. Never were there 20 minutes that didn’t go by that you weren’t sailing in between or through a patch of this sea grass.
At one point we startled a shark, fast asleep, nestled in a patch of this sea grapes. When we saw him, our boat was within 2 meters of where he was sleeping. That was a first for us.

At times the boat would start vibrating and shuddering, like an old bicycle with a skew tire, when you pick up just a little too much speed. It turns out that the sea grapes would accumulate around the propeller in such a huge cluster that it would form disturbance around the rudder drag, which caused this wobble in the boat. Only by swinging the propeller, turning the shaft inside the boat, were we able to release the sea grape clusters. Strange how something that they make women’s perfume products with can be such a nuisance while we sail. But quite unusual to look at, in the sunlight the leaves shine yellow, which is quite a contrast with the deep blue ocean , these lines and patches of gold.


 the mighty flying fish looks like a B 52 bomber ready for take off!

We had thousands of flying fish taking off daily, we spotted whales or sometimes just their spouting, and dolphins coming to play with the bow of the boat.




dolphins, hard to capture in a photo.





moving through day and night

One thing we did notice, we did not have one clear sky sunset. The western horizon was always covered with a slight bank of clouds, and the first thousand miles the haze in the air that was caused by an easterly wind, like the sirocco or williwaw, blowing the Sahara sand, which covered the sun many days, and left a thick mud cake on the rigging, the sails and the lines .

When I was first told that the reason why there are surf-able sand dunes in Colorado, in the Rockies, and the sand originates from the Sahara, more than 4,000miles away, I though it a little bit of wishful thinking.



But I have seen the sand dunes in Colorado , pure white, and I’ve also been in a Sahara sand wind storm 1,300 miles off the African coast, that you can barely see the disk of the sun. Interesting, this little Mother Nature of ours.

Anneleize as we approach St Martin on our 15th day

For one thing we were fed exceedingly well on the trip. And one of the delicacies that we had aboard was a leg of Serrano ham, a type of prosciutto,  from Iberia, Spain. A swinging pendulum from where it hangs next to the mast, an ever shrinking pendulum .
What were the high points?
Getting out of fleece.
Catching dorado for the first time in years.
 Seeing how our children do understand and have benefitted from being around a life where a lot of responsibility, including a responsibility of safekeeping their parents, in the middle of the night, have blossomed.

After 14 days at sea and 14 nights, there was not a single uninterrupted smile when ‘land ahoy’ was uttered.  We glided around the NE of St. Martin, rolled into Marigot bay, and I wasn’t sure whether the champagne was opened first or whether we were in the water first, once the anchor was in the sand.

When that same day someone noticed there was a strong wind warning out for the last few days, only then did we realize that maybe that was the reason we didn’t see a single sailboat out when we did our last few hundred mile approach  to our landfall in the Caribbean.
The joke is what’s the difference between a surfboard and a sailboat? On this trip, maybe only that we had a refrigerator on our surfboard.

That was from our Captain.

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Cabo Verdes islands

29 March 2015 
We are sitting in the Caribbean as I post this, as we did not have internet for quite some time, I am back peddling a bit.

From Santa Luzia, we had a brief sail to the bustling town of Mindelo on the island of Sao Vicente. Mindelo is the big city of the northern islands and as we knew Anneleize and Jabez's friends, on an English sailing boat would be there, we spent a few days in Mindelo before heading to one of the southern islands of the Cabo Verdes, Fogo.


Anneleize in the sailing dinghy, 'Bear Necessities' in Mindelo
 
 Anneleize, Jabez and their friend Lochland rowing to Lochland's boat in the harbor of Mindelo, Sao Vicente, Cabo Verdes islands
Lochland in his sailing dinghy with Jabez, the two boys, and Anna in 'Bear Necessities', competing with the boys : who has the fastest sailing dinghy

 The children had some good playing together and sailing in their sailing dinghy and we tried to get information about the island of Fogo. We knew there was a volcanic eruption on the island the end of November, 2014, but were unable to find anything more current on the internet to tell us if the island had been evacuated or if we would be able to stop and show Anneleize and Jabez a volcano. None of the locals I quizzed in Mindelo knew much about it.
I went to the Red Cross in Mindelo to ask if there was anything we could take on our boat to help with destruction from the volcano but they told me they didn’t need help, and were quite confused as to why I would want to do anything like that. A woman from the local sailor’s bar told us a Red Cross boat went to Fogo with supplies and aid, apparently overloaded, and sank in the harbor of Fogo, killing 15 people.
Armed with that pile of information, we sailed overnight to the island, seeing its conical shape against the backdrop of  a golden sunrise.


Fogo in the distance, with a golden shadow sunrise

As we get closer, we see more definition of the island and more clouds



 We anchored in the tiny harbor, a local guy swimming to the boat to take a stern line ashore. The next day we made the trek to the volcano.

We had two young guys driving us in an old beat up van. Creole is the favored language of the Cabo Verdes and we didn’t have any to use up. We tried for conversation in Portuguese and English, but the two guys were not that interested in conversing.  We drove for an hour or so, around the southern side of the island and then began climbing. The road was a mix between being newly tarred and old cobblestones, and at times dirt.
Cobblestones
and fresh tar road


We drove until we couldn’t drive anymore because a large lava flow had passed over the road, covering it.


The  lava flow covers the road

Volcanic lava, 4 months fresh


 We got out of the van and walked to the flow, feeling the heat still coming through at places. Standing on top of the lava, we could even see many heat shimmers in the distance, though the rock had cooled enough to be solid. We walked up one of the hills to get a better idea of the destruction.


Layers of lave
Newly formed rock, a bit rough

There was a village that was completely wiped out, nothing but a few roofs were visible. A local man told us his government knew the volcano was going to erupt, but didn’t inform the public. He and his family were luck y to have gotten out when they did but they lost everything they had.  We handed out clothes that the children had outgrown and an old second hand bicycle was well received.  It seemed there was not much more we could do.
Roofs of houses in the distance, underneath lava

Inside the crater
Walking around the lava flow


We sailed the next day for Ilha Brava, the western most of the islands and our last stopping point before heading for the Caribbean.
Brava provided us with a lovely anchorage, steep hills surrounding it with a small fishing village peeking over the top of one of the hills. Again, dusty, barren, rocky and brown, I wonder how these hardy people can carve a life for themselves out of this desolate and harsh ground. If you didn’t know greenery existed, you wouldn’t long for it.
Arriving in the anchorage of Brava

Philip put into action a diving course for Anneleize and Jabez and after studying the dive books, they had their first open water practice, going to 15 meters.

Philip and the children take the dinghy for their first 'open water' dive


One of the fisherman from the village took special care with us, Jose, introduced us to his family, spoke to us about village life, we had a few meals together. He rows 2 or 3 miles around the corner, between Brava and Fogo, to do his fishing, and then rows back again. His wife takes the fish to the main village to sell it.

Jose and his family

We had 3 almost 4 days of a sirocco wind coming through from Africa. Because of the steep hills of Brava, when the winds finally reached our anchorage, having picked up speed coming over the island, the winds would race down to the water and whip it up, bringing more than 50 knots of gusts at a time.  We sat with Abracadabra for this, not wanting to drag anchor, and even dug out our massive stern anchor, from the depths of the boat, and deployed it to keep us more secure.  
The winds coming, roughing up the water

Philip sits on the boat with the winds pushing the boat against the anchor in Brava


When the sirocco comes, it brings with it sand and dust from the Sahara. It also obliterates the sun, making it a surreal disk in the sky.
These photos are from Gran Canaria, when we were also buffeted by the scirroco winds

To try to show how the sand and dust gets into the air and atmosphere and lays a find cloud between the blue sky and you

When it would have been a stunning day, with the scirocco winds, the skies turn grey

During this time we had a local fishing boat from one of the other Cabo Verdes islands, Santiago, that came into the anchorage to sit out the bad weather. We watched them anchor and re anchor over the course of 3 days. We also watched ourselves, checking where they were during the nights, so they didn’t bump into us.
They anchored with rope and we anchor with chain, and because of this the two boats swing differently. We swing in a fairly tight circle around our chain, while the Santiago fishing boat, well it is as if they swing hither, tither and yon. They were all over the place.
We were all ashore, at the rocky beach with Jose, we were watching that fishing boat moving around, and they were coming to close to Abracadabra. Philip jumped in the dinghy and raced out to the two boats, but arrived only after they had collided with our starboard side, putting a nice scratch into our brand new paintwork.
I did mention that we painted Abracadabra for the very first time, while we were on the hard in Portugal? It was a bit traumatic to go from gelcoat to paint, and we spent hours and days coming to this momentous decision. She is a 38 year old boat and the gelcoat was becoming a bit thin. So to have an old fishing boat make fun of our sleek new look, putting a reminding mark on the side of the boat, it was distressing and more than a little disappointing.
We were able to get fresh vegetables from the local gardens, a stalk of bananas as well, and Jose helped us to top up our water tanks before we began our crossing to St. Martin in the Caribbean. 

Driving North

Since bad weather and sickness made us miss Torres del Paine, this was the next best thing for me. The colony of Rock-hopper pen...