2005 Cruising
Spithead International Review and Trafalgar
Son & Lumiere - Tuesday 28th June 2005
On Ramprasad attended the Spithead International
Review on Tuesday - we had a good day with 11 people on board - picked up 3 very
distant cousins with whom I have a common ancestor who fought at the Battle of
Trafalgar and its aftermath (from Hayling Island Sailing Club) and sailed out
towards Horse Sand Fort and then across to Seaview - quite a brisk Easterly wind
- sailing back towards Horse Sand Fort we were fairly hard on the wind and a bit
leany-over - leading Frigate of flotilla of 5 gave us 5 blasts - ("I doubt
whether you are taking sufficient action to avoid collision" - to be polite!)
and so we tacked back towards the Isle of Wight and then tacked back to cross
the main shipping channel before the next flotilla of 5 frigates came. Seaview/Ryde
area looked quite lumpy - Southsea side looked marginally better - so after
Horse Sand Fort we took sails down and found there was plenty of space to anchor
on the Southsea side of there quite close up to the submarine barrier - a bit
rolly but that was inevitable given the wind strength and direction - lots of
naval vessels and square riggers on view in the distance - saw the Ice patrol
vessel "Endurance" go out on which the Queen was reputed to be doing the review
- lots of tiny bee-sized sailors lining the decks of aircraft carriers - had
very good picnic lunch brought by cousins - new cockpit table put to good use -
many crew members had afternoon nap - Red Arrows did very impressive display
including smoke heart and arrow - saw Martin Lawrence, Meirion and others in
Martin's Cat cruiser - after soused-mackerel, veg and rice dinner eventually saw
line of square riggers sail into main ship channel towards Portsmouth - a few
small flashes and bangs as it gets dark - perhaps this is the Trafalgar
re-enactment - then firework display off Southsea common - fairly impressive but
at a good distance - video could follow - returned to Hayling Island where the
sailing club boatman provides a good ferry service for cousins - fairly long
day!
Yesterday went up Chichester harbour to Emsworth where more
of the crew disembarked then went into Northerney marina where we picked up
Malcolm who had a 92 square metre sailing kite to demonstrate see
www.kiteship.com <http://www.kiteship.com> - went out of Chichester harbour -
the wind seemed not really in the right direction and not a lot of it - went out
to the Owers buoy - tried flying the kite - very interesting to try a new
sailing technique but not really enough wind to keep it up let alone sail
anywhere - see pictures below - ended up motoring virtually all the way to
Shoreham in very thick fog.
2 views of the 92 square metre sailing kite which Malcolm
brought to demonstrate on our way back to Shoreham - see
www.kiteship.com
Long Cruise No 4
Ramprasad has had a good trip so far. We left Shoreham more or less as planned on 31st of July and sailed to Cherbourg from where we did a nice Channel Island and Brittany cruise stopping at Alderney, Sark, Guernsey, Ile de Batz, L'Aber Wrac'h and Camaret. We then made a good crossing of Biscay in just over 3 days to arrive at La Corunna on Saturday 13th. There the crew left and so I have been continuing single-handed doing day sail hops around the Galician coast. We are now at La Puebla del Caraminial in the Ria de Arosa. We had a good sail from Muros yesterday(Sunday 21st) which involved threading our way through the rocky channels around Cabo Corrubedo and through the Canal de Sagres and past the Piedras del Sargo to make the Northern entrance into the Ria de Arosa. I had done this twice before but this was the first time single-handed. In what could have been an embarrassing moment the wind headed us and caught the genoa aback at a critical moment with the Eastern rocks of the Isla Sagres close ahead. However Eric the Perkins started with his usual reliability and we motored out of the narrow channel, past Las Forcadinas, through the Paso del Carreiro and safely out into the wide waters of the ria. In the gentler winds there we then shook out our 2 reefs and had a nice gentle beat up the ria to make a dramatic arrival under sail at Caraminial. The last time I was here there were considerable local festivities so it was not a great surprise to see and hear a fairground on the common behind the waterfront and hear some announcement by loudspeaker. However there were and still are forest fires burning on the hill behind the town and the fire service were employing helicopters to fight the fires. These flew down to hover a few metres above the water some 200 yards away for a moment while they filled the bucket they were carrying and then flew off to dump the contents over the burning hillside. In between the helicopter visits the locals were trying to get on with their festivities - This involved marching down to the slipway, embarking important people on to a speedboat, zooming off to put an offering into the sea and letting off lots of very noisy rocket fireworks. Those who live in British coastal communities are often used to the lifeboat station firing off 2 maroons to summon the lifeboat crew in cases of emergency. These rocket fireworks were similar but probably 300-400 were fired off in the space of an hour. I am glad to report that no helicopters were hit! And to remind us that the celebrations continue about 20 were fired off at 0930 this morning. I believe that this festival is in honour of the virgin Mary who is a very important figure for the fishing community here. I am looking forward to cruising these delightful rias in the next week or so before heading down the Portuguese coast.
Arrived Saturday 10th September in Cascais - an elegant seaside suburb of Lisbon with a good and popular anchorage outside a large new marina. Had a gentle 33 hour passage of 134 miles from the harbour of Aveiro where I had been at anchor for a couple of days. I had gone ashore for the first time in the village of Sao Jacinto (which had one ostrich and a Jet fighter to its credit!) and been ashore in the small seaside resort town of Barra at the entrance of the harbour (which had one very tall lighthouse to its credit). I had gentle Westerley and North-Westerley for the trip from there until I had rounded Cabo Raso, with some 4 Miles to go, and when the wind came over the land it freshened up into a decent breeze for my arrival.
The Ostrich and Jet fighter in the village of Sao Jacinto near Aveiro
Barra's lighthouse provides elegant accomodation for the keepers and is convieiently situated in the centre of town
After almost a fortnight's stay in Cascais it's time to move on and I sail to Alvor on the Algarve (South coast of Portugal). It's a lovely harbour which I hadn't visited before and I meet up with some old friends and make some new ones.
A view of the Alvor anchorage from the village, Nick Skeet and Wylo II which he built and Nick sailing his dory with another friend in the anchorage
Arrived Saturday 9th Oct in Porto Santo
(Holy Port) near Madeira Grande after doing 484 miles from Portimao in 5 days.
Remarkably both the Nasa Paddlewheel Log and the Garmin GPS agree on the
distance run - that shows that I've got the calibration about right! Had a
fairly uncomfortable 1st night getting past Cape St Vincent with 2 opposing
swells and very little wind, then had favourable light winds for a couple of
days. Thursday was glassy calm with me motoring to minimise sail and halyard
wear, then Friday morning the predicted unseasonal Southerly wind started and we
had about 18 hours of vigourous sailing on the wind until arrival here. This is
the smaller populated island in the Madeira group and is a delightful place.
Madeira Grande could be compared to the Azores as being more touristy, more
mountainous, more sub-tropical and wetter, whereas Porto Santo should be
described as being slightly less mountainous (but still quite hilly), very dry,
and touristy principally for Madeiran and other Portuguese who like a week-end
on the beach. For Porto Santo undoubtedly has the best beach in Madeira being 2
or 3 miles of golden sand, whereas Madeira Grande's best beaches are dark grey
volcanic shingle and many are simply steep piles of boulders. The town here is
quite a low key affair but where most requirements can be met. It is perhaps of
a similar size to Littlehampton, Lymington or Swanage on the South coast of
England. I was impressed with the new Cybercafe which is a real bar/cafe with
four computers in the back with a fast connection at reasonable cost.
Subsequently I found it has a bit of competition in the form of a free wireless
Internet hot-spot around the town hall which I shall try out tomorrow. This will
be the first wireless Internet place that I have come across so far on this
trip. Indeed it does work and has permitted me to download and update this
website. Three Cheers for Madeira Wi-Fi!!!
The unseasonal Southerley wind continues making the anchorage outside the
harbour quite untenable and this anchorage inside the harbour quite rolly but
safe. I shall probably stay here until a change in the weather makes going on to
Madeira Grande a viable proposition.
A rather impressive religious azulero in Porto Santo
The bar at one of the restaurants which I frequented for lunch
The entrance to the municipal building in the centre of town where free Wi-Fi was available
Wed 12th October - sailed from Porto Santo to Madeira Grande. A pleasant 30 mile sail in about 6 hours reaching SW with a NW4-5 wind in company with several other yachts. See Photos-5 for new pictures taken by John from "Aventura". Sailed around Sao Lourenco at the Eastern tip at about 1600 and decided to stop at Machico, Madeira's oldest settlement which I had last visited in 1998. Things have changed a bit here but it's still a very pleasant town with a good selection of hardware shops. You can get free Internet here too at EspacoNet but it is very poor compared to Porto Santo. There was another place in Machico which sounded better but was closed after some vandals damaged it. Perhaps in Funchal it would be better.
Sun 16th October - sailed from Machico having had an uncomfortable Saturday at anchor with a moderate Southerley swell coming into the bay. Motored past the Ilhas Desertas, the other Madeira islands, deserted for good reason - no water or vegetation to speak of - got a light SWley eventually which gradually veres.
Wed 19th October - Arrived at Graciosa just North of Lanzarote after a fairly slow calm trip - spent the last 8 hours motoring in a flat calm to get here - it is a stark dry volcanic landscape. I motor past Montana Amarilla (the yellow mountain) and anchor in the bay off Playa Francesa with several other yachts. It is in fact fairly crowded with about 20 cruising yachts anchored in the part of the bay that's of suitable depth and bottom quality (Sand but with quite a few rocky patches). But the water is clean, clear, warm and blue and is a delight to swim in. The waters around Graciosa have been made into a National marine park and are regularily patrolled. Lots of small fish swim around lazily and I enjoy snorkelling and inspecting Ramprasad's bottom. Not at all bad since she's been afloat since the last haul-out 18 months ago and the paint I used was different and softer to the one I had used previously.
Thurs 20th Oct - I row ashore in the Seahopper folding dinghy and walk a couple of miles into the village. Lots of sand-dunes topped with sparce dry vegetation. I get there just at 1400 when the shops (inc Internet place!) are shutting for the 3 hour afternoon lunch break. Well at least it's not Ramadan here and I can have a good lunch! Then I look around the village (called Caleto de Sebo and La Sociedad - actually two villages now combined into one) and check that nothing much changed since my last visit about 2 years previously. It is a dry sandy place with a few new buildings going up to cater for the increasing number of visitors who like the quiet atmosphere here. Next day (Trafalgar Day!) I get out the Seahopper's sailing rig and sail around the anchorage. It is indeed a lovely experience and something which I should do more often.
Mon 24th Oct - I sail round to Arrecife the capital of the island of Lanzarote. It is a town with more facilities than can be found on Graciosa. I get out the new inflatable called "Lodestar" and try it out for the first time. I am quite impressed even though it is a bit smaller than the Calypso. It has an inflatable floor, inflatable keel and robust looking rubbing strakes and anti-wear patches. Being of PVC construction however it is likely to be less long-lasting. I have picked up a nice mooring in the outer harbour of Arrecife. This means "reef" in Spanish and it is appropriately named. This outer harbour is open to the South which makes it OK in the prevailing NEley conditions. However it clearly can get uncomfortable or worse in a S-SWley which I did have here 2 years ago. Eventually I moved round to the other more commercial (but smelly) Puerto Naos which has good all-round protection. Here I now have had a swim around to look at the mooring. It is a large solid looking block of concrete. However there are several smaller mooring blocks (with unbuoyed sunken ropes) some of which have clearly been dragged and/or tumbled. So my advice here is to check your mooring (by looking at it) and trust it only accordingly. These mooring are clearly maintained by someone (stainless shackles are used) but nobody has ever charged me for their use.
Fri 28th - Mon 31st October I do the trip to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in four day sails with night-time stops at anchor. On Sunday night when motoring in towards the coast near Morro Jable on Fuertaventura I am approached and checked by the Guardia Civil in a large motor launch. They are perhaps a little surprised that I am sailing alone but they are quite civil. They look at my passport and boat registration papers - they are perhaps a little surprised to see how few details are included in the Small Ships Registration paper but they are happy and depart leaving only their boot-marks behind. This is in fact the first time ever that the authorities in Spain have checked my details but this is in a place not far from the coast of Morocco at a time when so many Africans have been making quite desperate attempts to reach Europe. So I expect these officials have seen their fair share of these attempts and just wanted to make sure that I wasn't carrying a large number of illegal migrants.
Sun 27th Nov 2005
This morning saw the peaks of Santo Antao, the Westernmost of the Cape Verde
islands, at a range of about 17M. This is about 900M SW of the Canaries and
about 500M West of Cap Vert the Western tip of Africa. It is a cloudy morning
with not particularily good visibility. Two years ago we saw this island at a
range of about 40 miles! This trip from Gran Canaria has had a rather slow start
with very little wind and consequently rather a lot of motoring. In the first 7
days we clocked up almost 74 hours on the engine and as you may be able to
imagine it has been a great relief to get more consistent winds in the last 3
days. John Crawford from Aberdeen is sailing with me. He has an Equestrian
centre there with 45 horses an so I have been able to learn a little about a
very different sport. Engine noise and radio propagation permitting I have been
checking in with Trudi in Barbados (on 21400kHz 1300GMT) and Herb in Canada
(12359kHz and 8294kHz 2000GMT) for weather information. As many of you know this
has been a very active year for hurricanes and other tropical storms and the
season is not quite over yet. Currently there is one Tropical storm in
mid-Atlantic called "Delta" which is causing some problems for some of the
faster ARC boats which left Las Palmas 2 days after we did and are heading for
St Lucia. I hope that by the time we leave the Cape Verdes "Delta" will have
filled up and that the trade winds will have become established. We shall have
to wait and see!
Next Day - Mindelo is hot sticky and windless and very crowded with yachts. No dinghy dock as there was 2 years ago. We have engaged boat boy Arlindo to look after our dinghy when we leave it on the beach. Had a pleasant meal in a nice restaurant last night but being Sunday not much was open and the restaurant had no bread.
Fri 16thDec 2005
So far this passage from Mindelo in the Cape Verdes couldn't be more of a
contrast to the previous one from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria or from the similar
one 2 years ago. We are on Day 16 of a 2000 mile passage and if present progress
continues we shall be almost in sight of our destination by this time tomorrow.
In contrast to both of the other passages we have had wind enough to sail and
rarely too much of it. On the trip to Mindelo we had to do rather a lot of
motoring in the 9 days that it took - 77 hours using 182 litres of diesel. On
this trip we have so far used the engine for 2 hours since leaving Mindelo. We
have been lucky in this respect - there are quite a few yachts behind us still
slowly progressing Westwards that have suffered extensive calms and are short of
diesel to motor much further. 2 years ago we had a very slow week a bit after
leaving Mindelo where we sailed slowly against light Westerleys until we found
the Easterley Trade winds. This slow week delayed our arrival and kept our
friends waiting! These last few days we have been making good progress and doing
daily runs of around 140 miles and to noon today managed 157 miles. This is
almost a record days run for Ramprasad but it was however at the cost of
extensive damage to the head of the No 1 Genoa which we got down just before
dawn this morning. We had quite a wet and windy night to be fair but our sail
handling was somewhat aided by a strong full moon albeit somewhat shrouded by
cloud. One compensation when sailing in these latitudes is that when you get wet
the water is nice and warm. If you expect to get wet you wear swimming trunks so
there is not so much to dry out. This was not the first bit of sail damage we
have suffered on this trip but it is the first that will require the attention
of a sailmaker. We did a repair to the same area a few days ago but had to
completely rethread the leach line before starting the repair. A few days later
we took the mainsail off to do a repair to a reef point where a sail tie on the
1st reef had ripped into the body of the sail. Another rip has been caused
nearby by the Genoa sheet, and this still awaits our attention. So as you can
see there have been a few things to keep us busy at times.
As in previous trips of this length when other boats are doing similar things
communication by radio has taken some time and has added some interest to the
daily routine. Herb (2000GMT on 12359kHz) has been giving us daily weather
routing advice and Trudi (1300GMT on 21400kHz) has taken our details and read
the Radio France International forecast. We have also been talking to the other
yachts "Do It..." and "Iona II" on a regular basis and have become aware of
other radio nets in recent days.
My crew John (the Horseman) adopts a striking pose when dosing in the cockpit on a sunny day
Sat 17th Dec Dawn occurred today at 10am GMT. When sailing these distances I
have the obscure habit of leaving my clocks on GMT (British, Portuguese and
Canarian winter time) rather than putting the clocks back 1 hour for every 15
degrees travelled West. This has the advantage of not having to fiddle around
with clocks quite so much and reminds myself and the crew that our clock time is
what we humans have divided time into, and is also a useful navigational tool.
George the weather (at 1115 GMT 7421kHz LSB for the Caribbean Maritime Mobile
Net) said that there was a dominant High Pressure ridge extending down to the
Eastern Caribbean and this would give us a nice fine day and there would be few
and insubstantial showers developing over the region - this should have served
as a warning for the shower prediction in the tropics generally is a very
inexact science. At 1300 GMT I was trying to speak to Jack (AA3GZ - for the
transatlantic Maritime Mobile Net) and the wind got up and John took over the
steering - very soon we were in a squall of around 25 - 30kn Force 6-7 and we
took the staysail down to bring her under control. Soon the wind eased off and
after a bit we got the staysail back up and the low cloud ahead cleared and the
cry of "La-a-a-a-nd Ho-o-o-o"
was heard to echo around in a Neddy Seagoon voice. Barbados in sight at a range
of 15 miles after 16 days at sea. This was at 1415 about an hour and a half ago
and we have had a beer, had fried eggs on bread and had 2 shower squalls since
then to celebrate and we are about 7.5 miles closer. The staysail has been down
and up and down again. John's sleeping bag has been out to air, got rained on,
almost came in again then stayed out to dry off, then come in again to avoid
getting even more wet in the next shower. John did mention earlier that it was
getting a bit hot. Well at least it was good enough to rain a bit and cool us
down! This is perhaps what Caribbean cruising is all about (even though we are
not there yet!) especially when a weather man tells us we can expect a fine
sunny day! What we can expect at the end of this day had better wait until we
get there.
This is what a first sight of Barbados looks like from a
safe distance - South coast near Oistins
Sunday 18th Dec - arrived yesterday afternoon in Bridgetown (around 1600 ECT) in good time to visit Customs, Immigration and Health. Bridgetown harbour has no suitable place for yachts and in the low swell it was still an uncomfortable place to leave Ramprasad even with John to look after the fenders on board for the hour or so of filling out forms for the officials. That done we got out of the harbour and motored round here to Carlisle Bay just as it was getting dark and anchored in much more pleasant surroundings.
The dock/jetty belonging to the beach bar called the "Boatyard" in Bridgetown - very little use of this facility was being made by visiting yachtsmen as a result of their new charging policy
Julia flew out and joined us for Christmas - John couldn't get the flight he wanted so when we left on Boxing Day he stayed behind to fly back home from Barbados on New Years Eve.
The largest square rigger in the world - the 5 masted "Royal Clipper" was in Bridgetown harbour when we checked out
We sailed on to Le Marin, Martinique, then Anse Mitan and St Pierre. Then we sailed over to Roseau in Dominica where we did a taxi trip to the Trafalgar Falls and enjoyed seeing in the New Year at the Evergreen Hotel restaurant.
One of the many views of the jungly Trafalgar Falls - not far inland from Roseau
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