26/9/09 Saturday

After finishing up my last few calls for work, I managed to get home by 10.30 and we left at 11.05, farewelled by the gang from Fambridge Yacht Haven.

I reset the trip meter in the main GPS for this trip and I have set my alarm to remind me every 24 hours to check distance travelled for the day.

The wind and the current was directly on our nose for the trip down the river, so we didn't pull up the sails till we were well out into the Thames Estuary near the wind farm.  After that we took off at a great rate of knots, motor sailing.  We would like to get clear of the English Channel while we can do so easily.  The winds are light and forecast to stay that way for the next few days, and will eventually come around behind us.  For an hour or so last night we were travelling at 9 knots over the ground....Flying!!!  There was a lot of traffic in the Channel last night, although fortunately we don't have to deal with bulk of it, as we are staying out of the shipping lanes until we have to cross them sometime in the next 24 hours.

We discovered that there is a problem somewhere in the wheel pilot and can't use it at the moment, which is a pity, because it would be perfect in these flukey conditions.  We will have to hand steer until the wind picks up and we can use the wind vane, although the boat has been tracking quite well and we don't have to adjust the wheel for twenty minutes or more at times.

It is now 11.05am, we are at 50.135.95N and 00.19.268W and have covered 148 miles in the last 24 hours.

28/9/09 Monday

Shortly after writing my last log entry, we discovered that the starter battery appeared to be dead (3 Volts), so we decided to head to Guernsey and get a new one.  When we arrived, I double checked it and no matter what I did, the battery showed up as being good.  :-(  This was an opportunity to fix the autopilot (after hand steering in light winds for the last 48 hours) and do a few other little jobs.  We went for a walk around St Peters Port, and it looks like a sweet little town, although it is pretty much closed on a Sunday.

We enjoyed a full nights sleep last night after our 3 hour watches over the last few days.

We will do a few more jobs today and leave after lunch which is high tide.  We will top up with diesel on the way out, it is 56 pence a litre here, the cheapest we have seen it since the USA.

Daily Mileage 126

Oops.  Looks like we have changed our mind.  Are we allowed to do that?  It looks like we are going to Madeira now instead!!

30/09/09 Wednesday

It is just after 2 in the morning.  We left Guernsey at 3.35 in the afternoon the day before yesterday.  We had a great run down the French coast, motor sailing with a light northerly breeze, normally the wind here would have been directly on the nose, although I was given a thorough telling off by a bird who was paddling directly in our path and had to get out of the way. We arrived at Chenal De La Helle (Western most point of mainland of France on one side with an island on the other) yesterday and went through against the current (I wouldn't want to do that in anything but the calm weather we had)  Our 24 hour run yesterday was 135 miles,  Once we got into Biscay, the  breeze picked up a little and we are now running downwind in about 10-12 knots of breeze.  Its a little rolly, but nice to have the engine off at last.  Once we get across Biscay, I can relax and we won't have to motor so much.  I am just a little paranoid about Biscay after all the horror stories I have heard about people getting caught in wild seas and storms.

Daily mileage 144

1/10/09 Thursday

I spoke too soon.  The wind died down and we had to put the engine back on, then eventually we had to drop the sails as well, they were driving us nuts slapping from one side to the other in the sloppy swell with no wind to fill them.  We have since seen a couple of pods of dolphins, which is normally nice, but I am trying to get some fish to commit suicide on my fishing lines, and I worry about the dolphins taking the lure.
The wind has just picked up again, and we are back to motor sailing, I am looking forward to being able to turn the motor off soon, about another 70 miles to the other side of Biscay and we can relax and not rush so much, but the fuel tanks will need another top up, and I will need to do an oil change.

The sheave in the block for the main sheet disintegrated overnight, I found bits of it on the deck.  I jury rigged another block into place.  It is a sheave I don't have a spare for.  Bob from RM Engineering would be handy about now, a pity he is about 300 miles away...

Daily mileage 134

2/10/09 Friday

At about 1 O'clock this morning there was a mad rush to swap to the other diesel tank.  We could hear that the engine was starving of fuel.  Did I get my calculations wrong?  I expected another 12 hours at least.  I will see how much fuel we put in it when we fill the tanks.  We have just anchored in Camarinas in Spain.  The holding was poor in the first spot, we tried to anchor there twice.  We have now moved to another spot a little further away from town and the anchor has set.  It is the first use of our new 32Kg Delta.  We are going to have showers, breakfast and then go and find the officials so that we can clear in and then have a look around the town, check emails etc....

Mileage 769

Shelley's take:
Oh, my creaking bones. I'd forgotten how tiring sailing overnighters can be. The English Channel, however, is stimulating enough to keep anyone awake. The AIS was a worthwhile purchase - neither of us were about to play chicken while crossing the 22 mile wide shipping channel - there was a lot of traffic. And just when we'd started getting into the rythm of our alternate 3 hour watches, we had to call into Guernsey. I'm pleased we did. It's a friendly, picture perfect town, with excellent facilities. 

The forecast was very good when we departed Guernsey and we made excellent time down the coast of France, until we reached Chanel de la Hell - a very deep, narrow channel between the mainland and I. de Keller, just north entering the Bay of Biscay. We could see how this had earned its name. Fortunately, we had very light winds and mild seas - but still a 3.5 knot current against us.

Cross Biscay was uncomfortable - little to no wind with sloppy seas, we had done way more motoring than expected and needed to fill our diesel tanks. It was during this passage we started to rethink our route. Why not stop in Spain and Portugal. What was the big hurry? So here we sit in Camarinas enjoying the sunshine and the warmer weather.

3/10/09 Saturday

Yesterday morning I rowed into town to find the port captain so that we could clear in and go ashore.  There was a sign there that I think said that the office was closed between 10 and 12 for that day.  It was 11.30, so I waited for the next 45 minutes and nobody showed up, so I headed back to the boat for lunch.  After lunch we waited till after siesta time (we are in Spain after all), I took Shelley with me to clear in so that we could go for a wander round the town.  Still nobody there, so we went and had a bit of a look around the town and did a bit of shopping.  I was hoping to find a nice little cafe with internet so that we could let everybody know where we were, bit most of the cafe's looked like they were bars and didn't feel inviting.  We went back to the boat and had a very early night, we hadn't had a full nights sleep since Guernsey on Sunday night. 
We are obviously out of practice cruising and anchoring, we forgot to set the anchor light last night!!!
This morning we are doing some chores and general sorting out.  We are now waiting for the some wind and we will sail down to Lexioes in Portugal (a few miles North of Porto).  I am trying to figure out how to receive weather faxes on the SSB radio again, so that we can get a weather forecast.

7/10/09 Wednesday

We are still in the same bay.  A low pressure system that was crossing ahead of us has stalled and been with us for the last three days.  We have been sitting here with  strong  Southerly winds  for the  last three days, and guess which direction we want to go.... The forecast is for the winds to come from the North tomorrow, so we are hoping to get under way then.
On Monday we had a bit of a drama, the boat settled side on to the wind while we were anchored.  Uh oh!  We were dragging in toward the nearby shore.  All hands on deck!  We found it a little difficult pulling the anchor up in 25 to 30 knots of wind, while try to miss the lines and floats of nearby fishing pots.  When we eventually managed it we motored very slowly against the wind to the other side of the bay (about two miles) and found another anchorage.  The chart is a little bit out here and shows us on the shore!!  The water has been smoother here and the bottom is sandy, which gives our anchor a better grip on the bottom than the shingle we were previously in.
A catamaran that was on the other side with us also moved over to this side of the bay.  We enjoyed a lovely lunch on board with the very friendly French family who have just set off a week ago for a planned circumnavigation.  They are planning to go to Madeira, the Canaries and the Caribbean as well, so with any luck we will catch up with them again somewhere down the track.

10/10/09 Saturday

On Thursday morning the winds changed to the North, so we headed out for an overnight trip of 130 miles to Leixoes (which is about 5 miles North of Porto).  The winds were very light until the last couple of hours of the trip, so we ended up motoring and rocking and rolling from one side to the other yet again.  We decided that we weren't going to leave Leixoes until the winds were favourable so we wouldn't have to put up with those conditions again  When we got there, we found our information about anchorages was out of date.  The only place to keep the boat was in a marina, which we don't want to do as it will eat our budget very quickly.  After discussing the situation for a bit and looking at ports further South and deciding that we wouldn't find many anchorages, we opted to head for Madeira immediately.  So we now have about 490 miles to go to Madeira, which should be about 4 days.  The winds have been consistantly from the North West at 10-15 knots.  Great sailing!!!

12/10/09 Monday

Saturday night we had a reminder to reef early, when we got caught with more sail up than was comfortable, the wind had picked up and we had a triple reefed mizzen and had to double reef the main.  In the end we dropped the mizzen all together, and we could have possible even taken another reef in the main, but didn't want to do it in the dark (we are out of practice reefing).  On the bright side though, I eventually figured out that to run downwind with the wind vane, I need to drop the mizzen all together.
Last night the wind picked up again and we needed to reef again, when the reef was in we went to jibe, and the temporary repair on the main sheet block broke.  In doing so it went from a three part purchase to a single part and almost pulled my right through the dodger with the sudden amount of force applied.  I fixed it again, but added some dyneema line as a back up to the block, so that if it breaks I won't be hurled around the boat any more.
This morning the wind dropped to under 10 knots for the first time since leaving Leixoes and the speed dropped quite a bit.  We were used to seeing 6, 7 and 8 knots on the GPS and up to 12 knots while surfing.  We are now down to a sleepy 4 to 5 knots, which means there will be two more nights before we make port, but the slower speed is a little more comfortable while we are running downwind, so its not all bad.
Saturday we did 147 miles in 24 hours.
Sunday we did 156 miles in 24 hours.
Today we did 133

17/10/09 Saturday

On Tuesday our speed slowed to around two knots, so we fired up the engine and it stayed on for the next 20 hours or so until we got into Porto Santo.  We approached Porto Santo in the dark, there are a suprising amount of lit roads for an island with a population of four or five thousand people. We timed it so that we would arrive at the island just as the sun came up and entered the little harbour.  There is no longer any anchoring in the harbour, so we took up a mooring ball.  The island is quite dry at this time of year.
We cleared customs and checked in the with the marina.  The lady on reception was very friendly and spoke great English, we found out the she had lived in Jersey for three years.  The marina was 14 Euros a night, so we decided to spend only two nights here, which is a shame because we would have liked more time.  There is a bus tour of the island that leaves from the petrol station in town at 2pm and we took that.  Unfortunately, I couldn't take any photos, because I cracked the screen of my phone (which I use for a camera) one night during the passage.  The tour took two hours and we got a great overview of the island, it was well worth while.  We met some Poms, Jim and Anne, from Impressionist on the trip, and stopped at their boat in the afternoon for a few beers and a pleasant chat.  They are planning on crossing the Atlantic at around the same time as us, so I'm sure we will meet again.
On Thursday, I installed the new pressure pump for our fresh water on the boat.  The new one is great, it is very quiet and the pressure is as at least as much as what you would get in a normal house!!  I had a bit of a look at our electrical problem, and I'm not happy with the tension on the alternator belt, so I need some shorter belts, but the overall solution is to replace the bracket that holds it in place (it has been repaired and is not quite right), we will probably have to wait until we get to Funchal to get the belt though.  We met an Aussie cruising family Al, Deb and their kids Laney and Nicky along with a friend Luke from Coffs Harbour on a Hanse 47 called Sunboy.  They want to be back in Oz at the end of next year, so we will be seeing travelling mostly the same route as us until we slow down once we hit the Pacific Islands. 
Friday morning we cleared out of customs, walked into town and collected some supplies, went to the fuel dock for 60 litres of diesel and headed out for the island of Madeira 29 miles away.  The winds were light, but we were still able to sail and it was very pleasant.  We had some fun on the trip as we were slowly catching up with a catmaran and about to overtake, he put the engine on and motored to keep ahead of us, which we found amusing.  When we arrived, we found a very pretty little bay, Enseada Da Abra 32.44N, 16.41W.  The water is very clear, and there will be plenty of exploring here.  After we tidied up we went over to Sunboy, who had arrived here earlier, and had a few beers, hot dogs and some great laughs.
The sun is just about to rise, it has been a bit rolly in this anchorage overnight, but it has been very peaceful.
Total trip mileage so far - 1575 Nautical Miles.

25/10/09
I've been a bit slack and haven't written for a while.  We stayed in Enseada Da Abra for three days.  While we were there, we caught up on some more chores... who said cruising was all about taking it easy?  We saw a big seal, he must have been 8 feet long.  He went past us toward the shore, where a spear fisher was working his way along the shore.  Shortly after we saw the seal go past, the spear fisher got out of the water, and stood on the shore with his hands on his hips, looking a little frustrated.  I would have loved to have seen that meeting.....  The day before we left, we climbed to the top of one of the hills surrounding the bay.  Magnificent views.

The day before we left, all the other boats in the bay left, most of them headed for Funchal.  We had been debating where to head next. We had a weather forecast that looked like our only opportunity to head for the Canaries for the next two weeks, so we decided to head there.  We chose Tenerife as our destination.

We left a little earlier than planned, there was a catamaran anchored a little too close to us for our liking and the wind swung during the night.  As we were planning to leave anyway, we raised the anchor about 3 am and headed off.  Our first day out was great sailing weather, about 15 knots of wind from behind and we were making  a comfortable 7 knots.  However, it didn't last.  During the early hours of the following morning the wind died off and didn't come back until about 10pm, so we had a lovely day of motoring, although we were a little concerned about our fuel levels, as we had only put about 60 litres in our tank at Porto Santo (they only took cash and that is all we had cash we had).  We finally made it into Marina Santa Cruz after two nights at sea.   On entering the marina we were met by a couple of staff in the boat and they motioned for us to follow them.  They then tried to stuff us into a berth which if I had have made it in, would have been a very tight fit.  I had to back out in the end and ended up going into the slot where the marina kept there little run about.  All very embarrassing, although with perfect hind sight now, the marina staff shouldn't have even thought about trying to fit us in there as there were other spots available.  This marina also charges an extra tax for using a public marina, and is the only one in the Canaries to do so.  My advice is to not use this marina!!!!! 
We spent three days in Tenerife, which is a pretty little town.  I went to the chandleries in search of parts again, and found almost everything I needed.  We went shopping at a large supermarket and ran into some friends from Lotus, who had our shopping delivered to the marina with theirs (just as well, there was quite a bit).  That night we cued some Mission Impossible music and when the sun went down, we snuck around to the wharf behind us and moved some of the pontoons that were in the way for our exit.  We didn't want to have to rely on the staff for anything when we went to leave.  Early the next morning we tied a line onto the wharf behind us and warped our way out.

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Last modified: 04/23/09