I have been remiss… so
let me catch you up regarding the last half year of adventure AURORA.
We sailed from Tortola
to Newport in May of 2016 – Cleared out of Jost Van Dyke and my mate, Eilo, set a straight course for Newport
somewhere around 1800 miles distant. We
were joined by Ed Miller for the trip, he proved to be a great sailor and
wonderful company! Quite the
entertainer! We all shared night watches
which made the trip easier.
I was very careful to
download a map of the Gulf Stream from the Predict Ocean site, right before
hoisting anchor. Aside from a few
lighting storms we had a great sail. But
I neglected to open the map of the Gulf Stream prior to arriving the Gulf
Stream, as I assumed “that picture” would have changed in the 8 days since it
was downloaded. I am older and wiser now
and realize the Gulf Stream does not change as rapidly, for instance as the
weather. We were averaging about 180
miles per day which gave us a 10 day easy passage. Well we hit the Gulf Stream and made 24 miles
in 24 hours so I opened the “old” Gulf Stream chart and noticed we were in the
middle of an intense red band which signifies 6 to 7 knot current and that
current was heading directly south (it is called a back eddy) while we were
headed almost directly North. So with
all the sail out and our engine at 2000 rpm we were making less than 1 knot
speed over ground. Had I looked at the
chart and minded it a day before I could have headed 60 miles east or west of
where we were and would have picked up 2 to 3 knot northern eddy currents – BUT
NOOOOO. So instead of making Newport in
10 days it took us 11.
On the trip we saw a
whale and a couple of Great White Sharks….and dozens of Portugese-man-of –war!
The reason we sailed
AURORA to Newport was to update all the safety gear on board (like life
raft, man over board module, off shore life vests, etc.) with a high level of
confidence. The “No problem – we can do
dat” axiom we heard with high frequency down in the islands, was not workin’
well for me regarding the safety stuff – plus we heard a few horror stories
regarding getting that safety stuff done in the islands. I also put a new water maker on board and
with some reticence turned it on and tested it using Narragansett bay sludge as
feed water and was making nice pure drinking water in less than 3 minutes after
activating the unit. So the only thing
left to do was to get our daughter, Lara, married off passing the
responsibility for her off to Christian.
That was going well until I completely blew out my right Achilles tendon
3 days before the wedding. No problem
really except that I could no longer sail AURORA back down to Tortola so we
hired a delivery crew from the UK and the 2 gentlemen sailors they provided and
Eilo set off from Newport on November 1st for Sopers Hole on the
west end of Tortola. While I relaxed and
watched old movies from the comfort of the Captain Freeman house on Cape Cod
they took AURORA through 4 days of North Atlantic gales. AURORA’s bilge pump came on over 8,000 times
in the 10 day passage keeping up with the sea water shipped each time the bow
was buried in the significant size waves as well as a leak from the rudder
stuffing post! This used up significant
power! The gales disallowed solar power so the house bank was drained of
electricity and the wave action stirred up 25 years of sludge in the 4 diesel
tanks causing fuel delivery issues rendering the generator inoperable 2 days
from Tortola. So the captain, being from
England, where they have little sun and thus lack a true understanding of the
concept of solar energy decided to turn the solar panels off and replace the
house bank (of 6 batteries) with the single windlass battery and needing to
conserve electricity to run the navigation systems also turned the refrigerator
and freezer off wiping out the half year of provisions we acquired for the
World ARC at a bargain price at Costco.
They also ran out of Diesel and wind one day from Tortola so they bobbed
for almost a day waiting for wind. All
in all a tough trip but the boat was delivered and we learned about some issues
needing attention!
In Tortola AURORA was pulled out of the water and had
her hull cleaned (getting ready for the Galapagos), new sails and a new bimini
and dodger were installed and a second alternator was installed on the main engine which allows the
house bank to charge when there in no wind and we must motor – if you are
keeping track that is the 3rd way we have to charge the house
batteries… redundancy is our new way of life.
Nanny Cay splashed
AURORA on December 19th as planned and we sat in a slip there until
Christmas day, giving us time for final minor repairs and re-provisioning. A wonderful Christmas Eve (French style) with
Clive and Aude and friends. On Christmas
day we sailed to Jost Van Dyke, said good bye to Foxy and cleared out. The next day we set sail for Martinique but
the wind was blowing about 20 knots out of the north east and that allowed us
to point straight at Saint Martin so we changed tack and headed for Saint
Martin.
Of course the wind changed to
east about 30 miles out so we dropped the sails and motored the last 30 miles
in 10 hours directly into the wind. Took
2 waves directly into the dodger – which I figured was history at that point,
but it stood up well and strong. Caught
up with some friends – George & June on FATHOM THIS whom we met last winter
season and made plans to sail to Nevis and catch up with them there after we
had our fill of excellent baguettes and café au lait. We left Saint Martin a day later than planned
so we could sort out a few electrical issues and headed to Nevis on the 30th
of December. A school of about 30
dolphins escorted us around Montserrat and we latched onto a mooring in front
of Sunshine’s bar in Nevis, mooring
right next to FATHOM THIS.
It was
late in the afternoon so we headed over for cocktails and nibbles. A gentlemen sailing on Fathom This, Bill, had
just caught a 40 pound Wahoo that afternoon so they turned us on to some very
fresh fish. Bill was also a green flash
guru when he lived in the Keys, as he could predict a green flash event around
90% of the time. As we were sitting in
the cockpit of Fathom This drinking and nibbling Bill predicted there would be
one of those fabled green flashes everyone hears about but nobody ever sees and
as the sun set about 3 minutes later, sure enough we saw our first green
flash. It is an iridescent very intense
green of greens – the flash seemed to last for about a second – a green you
have never seen before - amazing.
We never cleared into
Nevis and rather than trying to explain our transgression to customs and
immigration we elected to get up before those guys so we departed the mooring
about 5:30 am. Running by Guadeloupe a
few hours later I was on the helm and heard this weird noise like loud snoring and
then I saw a spout and was thinking there are no whales in these waters this
time of year and I almost ran over a small sleeping whale about 10 miles off
the east coast of Guadeloupe. He dove just as Eilo came on deck so we enjoyed
seeing the fluke. We decided to head for
Fort De France, the capital of Martinique, and arrived there early morning on
New Years day, dropped anchor by the old fort and headed into a very dead town. Found one hotel open so at least we scooped a
few New Years day beers. The second of
January about half the town was open so we were able to do some final
provisioning and have a last French meal before we hit Tahiti in a few months. January 3rd we set sail for Saint Lucia to
get ready for the start of World ARC on the 7th. We arrived at our slip in Rodney Bay around
3:00 in the afternoon and before we got off the boat Gerry (whom we met last
winter sailing on Northern Sky) was cranking down the dock and jumped on board
for big hugs from a big guy. He gave us
the grand tour of all the bars in the area and allowed us a few minutes to
check in with the ARC staff… then more beers and after that more beers – you
get the idea. I think we slipped in dinner
in at some point but I could not swear to that.
Suffice it to say we had no problem falling asleep that night – I know
it is very hard to draw a clear line between falling asleep and passing
out. We had a few more days and nights
like that with Gerry. We did attend a
few good ARC seminars on off shore sailing and what to expect over the 15
months as well as being briefed on the 1st leg sail to
Columbia. They guaranteed us big wind –
probably the biggest wind we would see until the east coast of South Africa.
January 7th
noontime spelled the start of World ARC 2017.
It was a clean start on nice day – blue sky filled with lots of cumulous
cloud. About 15 to 20 knots of wind in
Rodney Bay – all 26 boats (with about 77 souls on board) respected each others
space and it was a very friendly get go.
AURORA was late to the start line crossing about 12:03 as I was
attempting to video the start and lost track of the time. We had a good 5 day sail to Santa Marta,
Columbia. The 3rd day the wind died so
we did what all bad sailors do and prayed for wind and started he engine,
motoring for 6.75 hours until the wind came up.
And it kept coming up. When we rounded
the corner into Santa Marta Bay the wind was gusting to 40 knots and was still building. (note
from Eileen: this is when I said…Holy Cow did I sign up for this??? It was
bloody terrifying!) We crossed the
finish line and headed for the Marina.
We had previously furled the Genoa, before rounding the corner, as we
knew it would be a little too windy. In
the bay I attempted to drop the main and
she partially came down so I had to climb the mast a little to coax her down
and to my surprise I found 3 out of 5 of the batten cars – which hold the main
sail to the mast, had blown out and the bits of plastic from those cars inside
the mast’s main sail slide were jamming the rest of the sail slugs and batten
cars preventing the main from dropping.
So Eilo took us back and forth across the harbor about 5 times (over
about an hour) while I was screwing around with the main and was finally able
to drop her. A good crew on the dock
another in a RIB tender were able to get us into our slip without damaging
anything else. So we turned in our
passports to the agent so we could clear in and were told not to leave the
Marina until they returned our documents.
So we did the logical thing and headed for town. The old part of the city (which is one of the
oldest towns in South America and boasts the oldest cathedral in South America)
was pulsing, very alive – energetic street dancing – talented street music –
sidewalk cafes buzzing. We found a nice
one a settled down for some Columbian fare.
It was still honkin’ in the marina when we returned and it was rumored
the wind would continue to build into Friday night. Other than the new harbor in Mykonos the
Santa Marta Marina is the windiest harbor we have ever been in. Friday provided more explorations of Santa
Marta and more arrivals of ARC boats. We
arrived somewhere in the middle of the ARC pack. We had another great diner in the old part of
town and about 9:00 walking up the marina pier Eilo noticed a guy on AURORA and
a few more on the dock next to her –
never a good thing at night. Well we get
to our slip, the wind is gusting to 75 miles per hour and the finger dock we
are tied to is starting to separate from the main dock. There are a bunch of ¾ inch stainless steel bolts
starting to fail and the stainless dock structure at the joint to the main dock
is bending severely out of shape and making awful noises. More guys from the Marina show up and also
about 10 ARC Angels with rope. I broke
out a lot of rope and approximately 20 of us roped our failing dock to other
docks and roped AURORA so she was trapped in a spider web. Typically 3 lines or sometimes 4 are used to
secure a boat in a slip. By midnight we
had used about 2000 feet of rope and had AURORA secured with 14 lines. She was even roped across the water to the
opposite dock I thanked everyone and
crashed out soundly around 1:00AM. Eilo
could not sleep. We rode that blow out with just a little mental trauma. That was the worst of the wind – thank God. We did get out of town with the ARC folks for
a Columbian beach bar-b-q and to get out of the wind –which suited everyone
just fine. We also checked out a fairly
large nature preserve and managed to sneak in a 2 hour river tube ride through
the jungle to the ocean (including red howler monkeys, caimans (Eilo: looks like a gator…just a little smaller and
they didn’t tell us they were in the water until after we had tubed) ,
exotic birds, and laughs ) – a highlight
of our stay in Santa Marta.
So what to do with 3
broken batten cars? Terry and Val have 3
spare ones for us and will bring them to Panama when joining us for the canal
ride. We could sail to Panama under
genoa only or Eilo suggested we could go wing on wing with the Genoa and our
small stay sail… that would give us a little more speed. Columbian’s have a can do attitude and they
offered to machine us some batten cars out of solid aluminum so I checked with
our sail maker and he gave that a big thumbs up so up the mast the machinist’s
assistant went and recovered one of the 2 good cars and they will machine them.
The next leg starts
tomorrow from Santa Marta to the San Blas Islands off Panama. Of course their customs clearance office has
shut down in San Blas so we are, by law, not allowed to stop there. So have to work hard at not getting caught. Then we will head on to Puerta Linda. Until then….
I have been remiss… so
let me catch you up regarding the last half year of adventure AURORA.
We sailed from Tortola
to Newport in May of 2016 – Cleared out of Jost Van Dyke and my mate, Eilo, set a straight course for Newport
somewhere around 1800 miles distant. We
were joined by Ed Miller for the trip, he proved to be a great sailor and
wonderful company! Quite the
entertainer! We all shared night watches
which made the trip easier.
I was very careful to
download a map of the Gulf Stream from the Predict Ocean site, right before
hoisting anchor. Aside from a few
lighting storms we had a great sail. But
I neglected to open the map of the Gulf Stream prior to arriving the Gulf
Stream, as I assumed “that picture” would have changed in the 8 days since it
was downloaded. I am older and wiser now
and realize the Gulf Stream does not change as rapidly, for instance as the
weather. We were averaging about 180
miles per day which gave us a 10 day easy passage. Well we hit the Gulf Stream and made 24 miles
in 24 hours so I opened the “old” Gulf Stream chart and noticed we were in the
middle of an intense red band which signifies 6 to 7 knot current and that
current was heading directly south (it is called a back eddy) while we were
headed almost directly North. So with
all the sail out and our engine at 2000 rpm we were making less than 1 knot
speed over ground. Had I looked at the
chart and minded it a day before I could have headed 60 miles east or west of
where we were and would have picked up 2 to 3 knot northern eddy currents – BUT
NOOOOO. So instead of making Newport in
10 days it took us 11.
On the trip we saw a
whale and a couple of Great White Sharks….and dozens of Portugese-man-of –war!
The reason we sailed
AURORA to Newport was to update all the safety gear on board (like life
raft, man over board module, off shore life vests, etc.) with a high level of
confidence. The “No problem – we can do
dat” axiom we heard with high frequency down in the islands, was not workin’
well for me regarding the safety stuff – plus we heard a few horror stories
regarding getting that safety stuff done in the islands. I also put a new water maker on board and
with some reticence turned it on and tested it using Narragansett bay sludge as
feed water and was making nice pure drinking water in less than 3 minutes after
activating the unit. So the only thing
left to do was to get our daughter, Lara, married off passing the
responsibility for her off to Christian.
That was going well until I completely blew out my right Achilles tendon
3 days before the wedding. No problem
really except that I could no longer sail AURORA back down to Tortola so we
hired a delivery crew from the UK and the 2 gentlemen sailors they provided and
Eilo set off from Newport on November 1st for Sopers Hole on the
west end of Tortola. While I relaxed and
watched old movies from the comfort of the Captain Freeman house on Cape Cod
they took AURORA through 4 days of North Atlantic gales. AURORA’s bilge pump came on over 8,000 times
in the 10 day passage keeping up with the sea water shipped each time the bow
was buried in the significant size waves as well as a leak from the rudder
stuffing post! This used up significant
power! The gales disallowed solar power so the house bank was drained of
electricity and the wave action stirred up 25 years of sludge in the 4 diesel
tanks causing fuel delivery issues rendering the generator inoperable 2 days
from Tortola. So the captain, being from
England, where they have little sun and thus lack a true understanding of the
concept of solar energy decided to turn the solar panels off and replace the
house bank (of 6 batteries) with the single windlass battery and needing to
conserve electricity to run the navigation systems also turned the refrigerator
and freezer off wiping out the half year of provisions we acquired for the
World ARC at a bargain price at Costco.
They also ran out of Diesel and wind one day from Tortola so they bobbed
for almost a day waiting for wind. All
in all a tough trip but the boat was delivered and we learned about some issues
needing attention!
In Tortola AURORA was pulled out of the water and had
her hull cleaned (getting ready for the Galapagos), new sails and a new bimini
and dodger were installed and a second alternator was installed on the main engine which allows the
house bank to charge when there in no wind and we must motor – if you are
keeping track that is the 3rd way we have to charge the house
batteries… redundancy is our new way of life.
Nanny Cay splashed
AURORA on December 19th as planned and we sat in a slip there until
Christmas day, giving us time for final minor repairs and re-provisioning. A wonderful Christmas Eve (French style) with
Clive and Aude and friends. On Christmas
day we sailed to Jost Van Dyke, said good bye to Foxy and cleared out. The next day we set sail for Martinique but
the wind was blowing about 20 knots out of the north east and that allowed us
to point straight at Saint Martin so we changed tack and headed for Saint
Martin. Of course the wind changed to
east about 30 miles out so we dropped the sails and motored the last 30 miles
in 10 hours directly into the wind. Took
2 waves directly into the dodger – which I figured was history at that point,
but it stood up well and strong. Caught
up with some friends – George & June on FATHOM THIS whom we met last winter
season and made plans to sail to Nevis and catch up with them there after we
had our fill of excellent baguettes and café au lait. We left Saint Martin a day later than planned
so we could sort out a few electrical issues and headed to Nevis on the 30th
of December. A school of about 30
dolphins escorted us around Montserrat and we latched onto a mooring in front
of Sunshine’s bar in Nevis, mooring
right next to FATHOM THIS. It was
late in the afternoon so we headed over for cocktails and nibbles. A gentlemen sailing on Fathom This, Bill, had
just caught a 40 pound Wahoo that afternoon so they turned us on to some very
fresh fish. Bill was also a green flash
guru when he lived in the Keys, as he could predict a green flash event around
90% of the time. As we were sitting in
the cockpit of Fathom This drinking and nibbling Bill predicted there would be
one of those fabled green flashes everyone hears about but nobody ever sees and
as the sun set about 3 minutes later, sure enough we saw our first green
flash. It is an iridescent very intense
green of greens – the flash seemed to last for about a second – a green you
have never seen before - amazing.
We never cleared into
Nevis and rather than trying to explain our transgression to customs and
immigration we elected to get up before those guys so we departed the mooring
about 5:30 am. Running by Guadeloupe a
few hours later I was on the helm and heard this weird noise like loud snoring and
then I saw a spout and was thinking there are no whales in these waters this
time of year and I almost ran over a small sleeping whale about 10 miles off
the east coast of Guadeloupe. He dove just as Eilo came on deck so we enjoyed
seeing the fluke. We decided to head for
Fort De France, the capital of Martinique, and arrived there early morning on
New Years day, dropped anchor by the old fort and headed into a very dead town. Found one hotel open so at least we scooped a
few New Years day beers. The second of
January about half the town was open so we were able to do some final
provisioning and have a last French meal before we hit Tahiti in a few months. January 3rd we set sail for Saint Lucia to
get ready for the start of World ARC on the 7th. We arrived at our slip in Rodney Bay around
3:00 in the afternoon and before we got off the boat Gerry (whom we met last
winter sailing on Northern Sky) was cranking down the dock and jumped on board
for big hugs from a big guy. He gave us
the grand tour of all the bars in the area and allowed us a few minutes to
check in with the ARC staff… then more beers and after that more beers – you
get the idea. I think we slipped in dinner
in at some point but I could not swear to that.
Suffice it to say we had no problem falling asleep that night – I know
it is very hard to draw a clear line between falling asleep and passing
out. We had a few more days and nights
like that with Gerry. We did attend a
few good ARC seminars on off shore sailing and what to expect over the 15
months as well as being briefed on the 1st leg sail to
Columbia. They guaranteed us big wind –
probably the biggest wind we would see until the east coast of South Africa.
January 7th
noontime spelled the start of World ARC 2017.
It was a clean start on nice day – blue sky filled with lots of cumulous
cloud. About 15 to 20 knots of wind in
Rodney Bay – all 26 boats (with about 77 souls on board) respected each others
space and it was a very friendly get go.
AURORA was late to the start line crossing about 12:03 as I was
attempting to video the start and lost track of the time. We had a good 5 day sail to Santa Marta,
Columbia. The 3rd day the wind died so
we did what all bad sailors do and prayed for wind and started he engine,
motoring for 6.75 hours until the wind came up.
And it kept coming up. When we rounded
the corner into Santa Marta Bay the wind was gusting to 40 knots and was still building. (note
from Eileen: this is when I said…Holy Cow did I sign up for this??? It was
bloody terrifying!) We crossed the
finish line and headed for the Marina.
We had previously furled the Genoa, before rounding the corner, as we
knew it would be a little too windy. In
the bay I attempted to drop the main and
she partially came down so I had to climb the mast a little to coax her down
and to my surprise I found 3 out of 5 of the batten cars – which hold the main
sail to the mast, had blown out and the bits of plastic from those cars inside
the mast’s main sail slide were jamming the rest of the sail slugs and batten
cars preventing the main from dropping.
So Eilo took us back and forth across the harbor about 5 times (over
about an hour) while I was screwing around with the main and was finally able
to drop her. A good crew on the dock
another in a RIB tender were able to get us into our slip without damaging
anything else. So we turned in our
passports to the agent so we could clear in and were told not to leave the
Marina until they returned our documents.
So we did the logical thing and headed for town. The old part of the city (which is one of the
oldest towns in South America and boasts the oldest cathedral in South America)
was pulsing, very alive – energetic street dancing – talented street music –
sidewalk cafes buzzing. We found a nice
one a settled down for some Columbian fare.
It was still honkin’ in the marina when we returned and it was rumored
the wind would continue to build into Friday night. Other than the new harbor in Mykonos the
Santa Marta Marina is the windiest harbor we have ever been in. Friday provided more explorations of Santa
Marta and more arrivals of ARC boats. We
arrived somewhere in the middle of the ARC pack. We had another great diner in the old part of
town and about 9:00 walking up the marina pier Eilo noticed a guy on AURORA and
a few more on the dock next to her –
never a good thing at night. Well we get
to our slip, the wind is gusting to 75 miles per hour and the finger dock we
are tied to is starting to separate from the main dock. There are a bunch of ¾ inch stainless steel bolts
starting to fail and the stainless dock structure at the joint to the main dock
is bending severely out of shape and making awful noises. More guys from the Marina show up and also
about 10 ARC Angels with rope. I broke
out a lot of rope and approximately 20 of us roped our failing dock to other
docks and roped AURORA so she was trapped in a spider web. Typically 3 lines or sometimes 4 are used to
secure a boat in a slip. By midnight we
had used about 2000 feet of rope and had AURORA secured with 14 lines. She was even roped across the water to the
opposite dock I thanked everyone and
crashed out soundly around 1:00AM. Eilo
could not sleep. We rode that blow out with just a little mental trauma. That was the worst of the wind – thank God. We did get out of town with the ARC folks for
a Columbian beach bar-b-q and to get out of the wind –which suited everyone
just fine.
We also checked out a fairly
large nature preserve and managed to sneak in a 2 hour river tube ride through
the jungle to the ocean (including red howler monkeys, caimans (Eilo: looks like a gator…just a little smaller and
they didn’t tell us they were in the water until after we had tubed) ,
exotic birds, and laughs ) – a highlight
of our stay in Santa Marta.
So what to do with 3
broken batten cars? Terry and Val have 3
spare ones for us and will bring them to Panama when joining us for the canal
ride. We could sail to Panama under
genoa only or Eilo suggested we could go wing on wing with the Genoa and our
small stay sail… that would give us a little more speed. Columbian’s have a can do attitude and they
offered to machine us some batten cars out of solid aluminum so I checked with
our sail maker and he gave that a big thumbs up so up the mast the machinist’s
assistant went and recovered one of the 2 good cars and they will machine them.
The next leg starts
tomorrow from Santa Marta to the San Blas Islands off Panama. Of course their customs clearance office has
shut down in San Blas so we are, by law, not allowed to stop there. So have to work hard at not getting caught. Then we will head on to Puerta Linda. Until then….
Eilo: I feel the need to add a little something here! Some friends wished us a good cruise as we
left the states and I need to address the image that conjures up. I would like to imagine myself on deck,
bikini clad, drinking cocktails. The
reality is that when we are in port I may be found with my head in the bilge
(the deepest part of the boat where any water that finds its way in
collects. If there is any slime from
anywhere it ends up there and ours had not been cleaned in years…I cleaned
it! At night when we sail I do the 7:30
pm watch to 12:30 am and the Ken is on till 6 am when I relieve him again for a
couple of hours. We do the day sailing
together with some naps. Luxury this is
not! Ken told me that downwind sailing
is a breeze (ha) and that we would set the sails and then leave them for
days. Not so….he is forever trying
different sail positions and with a spinnaker pole on the Genoa the whole thing
looks super complicated!!! So…yes this
is incredible but it is also hard work and I find myself swallowing fear on
many occasions (at night as I try to figure out if that container ship is going
to t-bone us, on rounding a peninsula to find the wind goes from 25 knots to 35
knots gusting to 45 knots and Ken fights the helm as I release wind from the
main sail, or when Ken can’t get the sail down and we go backwards and forwards
across the harbor in strong gusts of wind fighting the sail). But…just in case you thought it was us….when
we are all gathered in the marina I hear from other boats….”we ripped our main
sail”..two boats… “our vang is becoming detatched from the mast” “we spent two
hours up the mast out there in the ocean trying to fix our main” “we anchored
in the harbor and before we were set and snubbed the wind gusted and twisted
our anchor roller” and other miscellaneous issues. This is the first leg. Omg
