We left Cape Town as planned
starting Leg 15 at 11:00 on January 6th. The wind was good at around 16 knots and the
start was OK for AURORA. We had a new crew member on board… Dan from Jersey City. Dan was a friend of a friend of Ken’s from
work…never met! Not a sailor but a
fisherman and windsurfer. He wanted an
adventure and to sail. We broke him into
sailing fast. Unfortunately after 30
minutes the great wind soon gave way to variable winds imbedded in a thick fog bank,
which rolled in from table mountain:
…and swallowed the fleet whole in a matter of
minutes. You could see maybe three boat
lengths at best and then guess or radar out to fill in the missing pieces. The
best part was all the large cargo ships steaming on in seemingly random paths
through the fog with their tell tale fog horns blaring, all the other fleet
boats bobbing and weaving through it all
and Robin Island and it’s attendant
reefs somewhere out there in the white… all collectively doing much to increase
the blood pressure of the fleet captains. This lasted for what seemed like
hours but was actually about 45 minutes.
Luckily there were no touches.
When the fog lifted the fleet boats were strewn about pointing in random
directions – as though we all had no idea at all where we were going. Then the wind died to below 10 knots and most
boats started their engines and headed on a rhumb line toward Saint
Helena. Not AURORA nor ALTAIR. We did the best we could to escape the Cape
Town coast sailing with what wind we had.
AURORA ended up heading more west than north and a day later we had made
almost 100 miles and only got about 25 miles closer to Saint Helena. At best it was an ugly first day of our South
Atlantic passage. Unfortunately the SE
wind which eventually found us forced us to sail AURORA wing on wing which is
our slowest point of sail - OUCH. After
traversing ¾’s of the planet AURORA finally dropped a fish hook in the
sea. Dan caught a MahiMahi on our 5th
day:
… and that event and the
ensuing diner were the high point of the first half of our SA passage. We had 1 day of sun while sailing to Saint
Helena making it the cloudiest part of the circumnavigation to date and that
did extract some of the fun from that experience. Day 11 at sea found us entering James Bay at
the capital of Saint Helena, which is Jamestown. The south side of that 45 square miles island
is constantly touched by the SE trade winds and benefits from a good amount of
rain (except for the collapsed volcano cone on the right which is still
relatively devoid of vegetation):
The north side where we were
moored was bone dry:
We were only there for 3 days
and found the Helenaeans to be a very friendly lot – about 4,000 of them on
Island. We, with crew from 2 other boats,
hired a van and a guide (Albert was 82 and a character) to show us the
highlights of his chunk of paradise over the course of a day. We got to see the 600 million pounds Sterling
worth of international airport just completed.
It was closed. Apparently the
British, who funded the project to boost tourism, decided (actually their
politicians decided) to save money and orient the runway counter to expert
recommendation. It is turned 90 degrees
to the prevailing trade winds creating a dangerous and continuous cross wind so
they cannot land any large jets there.
They have started trying to use small jets and so far the one jet, which
uses it each week, has not crashed. The
islands claim to fame is Napoleon was exiled there by the British after his
loss at Waterloo. He spent 6 years there
before succumbing to the big sleep. When
first on island and being whisked around he saw and then requested to spend time in Briar House. He spent about 3 months at Briar House (while
a cow barn was being converted to his prison)the resulting Longwood House was
quite beautiful…not at all bad for a “prison”.
It also had wonderful gardens:
At Briar House he made
friends with the 13 year old daughter of the house as she spoke excellent French. There were lots of juicy stories written and
movies made about those 3 months but the locals and our guide all insist they
were just good friends. Could you
imagine being a 13 year old and having as your good buddy the emperor of
France? They did a real nice job on the
conversion of the cow barn into Longwood House:
Napoleon died 5 years later
in the room under the attic window. He was under house arrest the whole time and
he was not allowed to see outside (note all the shutters) lest he see ships
potentially coming to rescue him. Note
the shutters on his bedroom windows which would be closed when he was in his
bedroom:
And here is the view he
missed – or did he?:
Another story goes that the
Emperor was handy with a knife and he carved the 2 little holes in this shutter
(in bottom right panel and bottom left panels) so he could look out to James
Bay with his secret telescope to see what ships were in port:
Well the 3,000 troop garrison
Britain posted to St. Helena to prevent Napoleon from escaping worked and his
first tomb was and still is in a nice little quiet and well kept place about 2
miles down the road (His body was removed from St Helena and now rests in
Paris):
The old Emperor can still be
found everywhere around the island. Here
is our friend Lars cozying up to him at one of the local hotels in Jamestown:
Toward the end of our island
tour we passed Hayley’s Hill. Remember
Hayley? He set up his telescope on top
of the hill and over many many nights discovered that he was not having any fun
like all his friends down in the pubs of Jamestown however he did discover
Hayley’s Comet. So who is remembered? Haley or his bousy friends? Hum – must be a message in there. On the
way back to town we stopped by to see if the Governor was at her
residence. She was out for the day – no
doubt making final arrangements for her wedding day on January 28th
– but we did find the oldest inhabitants on the island were at home... George
and his buddy the local tortoises:
We still had some time to
kill so we climbed what may be the longest single flight of stairs in the world
known as Jacobs ladder. Here is Dan on his way down the 699 steps:
That exercise really beat us
up so we headed off to our favorite restaurant for a beer (Annie’s). Note there are 2 ways to enter this fine
establishment. You could be normal and
walk around the left and up a ramp and then in or you could climb the ladder on
the right, cross the hedge and then climb down another ladder on the inside –
guess which way captain Ken preferred?
Jamestown is said to have one
of the best-preserved Georgian architecture main streets in the world. It is impressive:
One morning, when we were
feeling civilized, we found this coffee shop to be superb:
All good things must come to
an end. After spending 70 hours at the
island nation of Saint Helena we raised AURORA’s main sail and then dropped
AURORA’s mooring lines and sailed off our mooring on a western heading bound
for Brazil – 1927 nautical miles distant.
We fought the wind shadow behind St. Helena for 3 hours before gaining access
to the clean trade wind breezes. This
leg promised to have good winds from the East, which would hit AURORA’s beam in
her sweet spot and propel us on our fastest point of sail westward. That didn’t happen. We got ESE winds and had to go wing on wing
for 9 days as we headed WNW – on AURORA’s
slowest point of sail. To add to our
slow misery the days and nights were completely clouded over, and for the first
seven days, and the trades never blew over 12 knots. We missed the stars at night and the solar
during the day all at a very slow pace – 5.5 knots – the pain! All bad things must come to an end as well
and they did on day 7. The sun came out
as did the stars and the wind picked up a little and switched to the east… our
fun factor increased significantly as did AURORAS’s speed. Then Dan bagged another fish. This time by VHF radio from Lexington. LEX caught a big Mahi-mahi and offered AURORA
a fair few meals if we could catch up the mile difference in our
longitudes. Captain Ken sprang to action
and in a very uncustomary measure started AURORA’s engine and powered her up motor
sailing to 8 knots. In about 40 minutes
we were ready to either collide with Lexington’s rear starboard quarter or
catch a bag of fish. 1000 miles off the
coast of Brazil Dan executed the later like a master:
Eilo cooked up a very fresh
and tasty diner as evidenced by smiles all around the table once again. We sailed alongside Lexington for another day
and a half until the wind died to the point that they started their engine and
headed for the horizon. We bobbed and
made slow progress which we were getting good at. It looked like we would not even get to the
finish line in time and gain ourselves the honor of a “Did Not Finish” award for
the leg but the real goal had not changed and that was to sail across the South
Atlantic with as little engine time as possible. Our engine ran for 4 hours during the 4,000
mile crossing. That works out to a fuel
efficiency of around 2,000 miles per gallon… not bad. So why sail with a fleet? First it’s the safety in numbers game. Then there is that humans typically like
other humans around factor to consider.
That being a consideration and another factor, when passage making is,
you typically do not see any of the other fleet boats thus we voluntarily stay
in contact twice per day by short wave radio or single side band, using the
vernacular. At each skippers briefing,
preceding the star of a leg, we agree to a morning broadcast time and an
evening roll call time and then look for volunteers to host each session
daily. The multinational fleet agrees
that Eilo is very clear and easy to understand so she is a regular on the
SSB. The morning broadcast to each boat
is in alphabetical order. They report
their position as well as the wind speed and direction, which is dually recoded
by the host and anyone else who cares.
The afternoon roll call is just that – just want to make sure everyone
is still safe and sound. Also tales of catching fish , broken boats, medical care
advice etc. is exchanged and discussed.
For instance one night around mid-night SANDVITA, our Swedish friends,
had a very scary experience which they related to the fleet at the morning
broadcast. Captain Lars was on the helm
and all of a sudden Sandvita hit something big and soft. They went from 7+ knots to zero knots in
microseconds then the boat heeled over probably 30 degrees in the next half second. The next instant their cockpit filled with water
and a torrent washed down the companionway into their Saloon. Everyone on board was terrified specially
those who were woke out of a sound sleep to this new brand of ocean
mayhem. Then it was over- in less than 4
seconds – except for the mental trauma which will live on. They had hit a sleeping whale – a big
one. And as the whale cleared town with
a flick of his tale he turned the boat on it’s side and filled the cockpit with
the best the south Atlantic could provide and it may also have damaged their
rudder. Here is Eilo in action –
keeping the fleet safe:
Day 10 out of St. Helena the
wind finally picked up (16 to 23 knots out of the east) so we finally were
flying along at a 24 hour average of almost 8 knots. It started looking as though we might arrive
Salvador Brazil before our unborn grandchildren died. Yes the Captain often gets negative during
wind lacking slow passages and this one has been the slowest of our
circumnavigation so far. Eight miles off Salvador the Captain heard a low base
noise and thought – great – Now what’s broken on AURORA. Lucky - It was only the low base of a band playing on
shore – loudly. Early warnings of
carnival about to arrive. Let the games
begin. The wind and its direction
persisted for the last 3 days of the voyage and we arrived Salvador after 13
days at sea, on Feb 2. Nothing to be proud of but we did arrive
alive. Yipee! Now all we have to do is
find a mall so we can acquire a SIM card so we can post this blog. If we survive carnival (Feb 9th – 13th)
we will post another, before we leave Brazil.
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