Atlantic Passage

Here I am again in the Yacht Club cafe cooling my heels, surfing the net and drinking coffee.

The weather, specifically the swell and winds, were not good for our passage to Brazil so we have stayed at anchor. The “current” plan is to leave tomorrow morning but who knows.

Yesterday an American submarine came into port and tied up alongside the wharf across from us. This morning a bunch of us went over when we got a shore and brazenly asked if we could get a tour and lo and behold they were happy to give us one! It was really interesting and there was surprisingly enough head room in most of the crew compartments for me. The crew was really friendly and open and we even got to have lunch in their mess, mmmm chicken nuggets and fries

I’ve added some pictures of the sub to the Sao Vincente album linked in the previous post.

More later…

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Went ashore on the first skiff run yesterday and had a good wander around this nice town.

On the way into to the yacht club wharf we passed a defunct Russia hydrofoil that is anchored out in the bay. It looks like something from Buck Rogers. The Soviets donated them to various small islands during the eighties and most are now sitting due to a lack of spare parts.

The town itself was very quiet as it was a national holiday of some sort. This morning (the 23rd) is much noisier and busy with traffic and lots of people about.

Bruce and I wandered around and criss crossed the town just to see what there was to see then I headed back to the Cafe we found (the Yacht Club) that has Internet access and a reasonably priced restaurant.

Today my primary objective is to get stocked up on snacks, pick up my laundry and do this

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been aboard for nearly 2 and half months already and that tomorrow we head out to cross the Atlantic ocean! I’m excited, and a bit anxious to be honest, to finally be doing the “big crossing”. I hope I will get my sea legs back quickly. I should be OK since the anchorage is fairly rough so the ship has been moving a lot which will help.

It is very unlikely that I will be able to do any Internet stuff for the next month or so. Unless the island of Fernando de Noronha off the coast of Brazil has Internet, anything is possible these days I suppose.

The crossing will take anywhere from 10-20 days. We head South from here then angle SW across the equator to get to Fernando de Noronha. Crossing the equator has a lot of rituals associated with it and each ship has it’s own so I have no idea what to expect. One must pay his dues to Neptune that is for sure for it is his realm that we travel in after all.

Wish me luck and send good vibes and I will update you all from the other side of the Big Briny Atlantic Ocean.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

There are pictures of Mindelo here.

Well it finally happened, I had galley duty when Donald the cook was ashore. Luckily Corey was with me and he can actually cook

Yesterday after we arrived here in Sao Vincente my watch was able to go ashore and all I did was find Internet and hang out. Simple needs for me

Otherwise it was a pretty calm day. We are using the three watches even at anchor so there was only one watch aboard the other two were ashore. It wa pretty quiet with only 10 or so people here.

The weather on this island is odd. The mountains are high enough to cause clouds but not quite high enough to cause rain, just the odd sprinkle in the wind gusts. The gusts are very strong but because the anchorage is sheltered we only hear it in the rigging. We have both anchors out just in case however.

I get the next two days off so I will be doing internet stuff and wandering around the town. On Saturday I will hookup with the 4-8 gang and maybe head out of town for a look at more of the island.

I also want to stock up on snacks and stuff because once we leave here on Sunday it will be nearly a month before we get to shore and that wil be on the other side of the Atlantic!

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Just got back aboard ship after a very nice day ashore on Boa Vista, cape Verde.
John and Spencer and I walked about 3 miles down the magnificent beach here past one of the fanciest resort I have ever seen. The place even has a restaurant shaped like a giant crab.
They also have grumpy looking guards at the gates. It is afterall an all inclusive place so we can’t have any riffraff wandering through can we.

Just past this place was a geocache that John had the coordinates for, one of two on Boa Vista the other was 60km away. The geocache was in the ruins of a pottery factory which looked quite romantic half covered in sand dunes.

We then took a cab back into Sel Rei as the thought of walking back along that beach into the teeth of the force 7 wind blowing across the and dunes.

Once back in town we had a nice lunch at a pizzaria in the town square, that didn’t have pizza even though most of menu was pizzas of various sorts. Then we went to a resort that had wifi, the one I had found before actually, and did all my emailing and blog updates.

The trip back to the ship started with a splash. Just as we were loading up the skiff got turned broadside to the beach and got a wave broadside. We were using an anchor to hold th bow aimed into the waves and it came off the bottom. Once underway the ride back was pretty dry so it looks like the wind may be moderating a bit.

Tomorrow we leave for Sao Vincente and the town of Mindelo. This town is much larger and should have more “amenities”. The passage should take two days.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

There are pictures from my run ashore in Boa Vista here.

Woke up this morning to find that the wind had increased to a steady force 7 directly offshore into our anchorage, that is the lower end of Gale force. There is not much wave action which is good although the odd swell does sweep in from the Atlantic.

Spent the day doing ship work that included splicing and whipping a couple of lines. Some “sailorizing” stuff that

In the morning the Alexandre Humbolt steamed in and anchored as well as another freighter making a total of 2 tall ships, and 3 freighters in the anchorage. The wind has been steadily pushing us back so we have both anchors out and a lot of chain to go with them. Leaving this anchorage on Monday will be a real workout!

About mid afternoon I came up from my splicing to see that the new freighter had been dragging her anchor and was now about a ship length away from the Humbolt. Apparently the Humbolt radioed her and said “you are dragging” to which they responded “no we aren’t” !?!
The freighter shortly thereafter fired up their engine, hoisted anchor and steamed ahead back to where they were before and dropped anchor again. It appears two hours later that they are still dragging but much slower now.

We appear to be holding OK although we are “plowing” a bit downwind at the moment, but we are on notice that all hands may be required sometime during the night if conditions change.

Tomorrow I should be able to go ashore again so hopefully I can find some way to send this so you can read it in a bit more timely manner.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

P.S. It is now 8:30 in the evening and the wind has moderated a bit but is still near gale force. Deb came down a few minutes ago and mentioned that both the Humbolt and the dragging freighter have up anchored and headed for sea. I can see the lights of the freighter h she seems to be standing off and on just off shore but there is no sign of the Humbolt.
On the plus side I used John’s cellphone to call the mysterious Internet provider and now have a place to go to get access when I get ashore (if I get ashore) in the morning.

An early all hands wakeup had us scrambling for the Windlass around 6:30 this morning. We got the anchor up and used the engine to get turned around and heading South. Then it was aloft to loose all sail and we had her sailing along close hauled on the Port tack at 8.5 knots in another half an hour.

It’s a beautiful clear day for a sail! The Sun rose over the island and lit up all our sail in a bright golden light. The seas are not that high in the lee of Sel but they will get lumpier once we pass Sel and head down to Boa Vista.

Boa Vista is 36 miles away so at this rate it will only take a bit more than 4 hours so we may be anchored before noon.

The ship is running with the usual sea watches but all hands have to be ready to do sail handling so we have to be ready to jump at a moments notice, no snoozing allowed this morning.:-)

More later…

It’s later and after an exciting bit of sail handling and motoring we are anchored off a small town on the island of Boa Vista in the Cape Verde. This island is also very dry with large sandy beaches and dune fields fronting the sea. The wind is blowing a stiff force 6 with force 7 gusts from the North making the water very choppy even in the lee of the island. They are trying to get a local to do the boat runs as it is a bit rough for our skiff.

There is a wifi signal out here in the anchorage, surprisingly strong. It looks like the town is covered in wifi as my little laptop finds 5 access points with the same name. They charge for downloads here and restrict the access based on time. Hopefully I can get to some free access ashore, if we get ashore.

We sent the skiff with 4 intrepid foul weather gear clad crew members to to scope out the (code named Falcon Team) landing and see if they can hire a local top do the runs.

Stay tuned.

The boat they hired was the same size s the skiff. When I went ashore this afternoon we got soaked.
Luckily my camera and laptop were in plastic bags in my pack so didn’t suffer.

The town is quiet and very clean, a welcome change from Senegal.

Tried to find Internet access but was unsuccessful hopefully I’ll have better luck on Sunday. Had a really ice dinner of grilled tuna steaks, rice and french fries(!?!) washed down with a nice red wine, in a little hole in the wall restaurant in the square, very nice way to end the day.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

We upped anchor and motored out of the anchorage of Dakar at 2:45pm Jan 12. We were sailing under topsails, main topmast staysail, spanker, fore topmast staysail and inner and outer jibs by 3:00pm. The fastest transition from engine to sail yet!

The wind had shifted a bit to the East and consequently it was filled with reddish dust from the Sahara. It was so thick it was like fog making visibity pretty poor.

I picked up a stomach bug in St Louis so I wasn’t feeling very good and hit my bunk for a snooze as soon as I could. This turned out to be bad idea, when I woke up 4 hours later we were out in the steady tradewinds close hauled on the starboard tack and really rolling in the big swell. As a result I got seasick and spent the next day being pretty miserable from both ends! Blah.

The sailing is fantastic however. The sky out here is only a little hazy mostly bright blue and the seas are a beautiful dark blue with very bright white foam caps. The swells are easily 10′ or more in height and rolling down wind this means we are sailing across them at an angle which makes for a roller coaster like ride!

There are lots of flying fish here. I didn’t used to think that they flew, more glided like a flying squirrel. They actually do fly for a lot farther and under a fair amount of control than I thought. I watched one go for several wavelengths up over a wave crest and down the trough! Pretty cool to see. So far we haven’t had any land on board much to Chibley’s disgust (apparently she likes them rawwwww and wwwiiiiggling precious).

Steering this ship is fascinating. Different people have different styles I’ve noticed. Some people move the wheel a lot back and forth, essentially “hunting the course”, others tend to make small adjustments, just enough to start her moving and then wait till she goes back and then they undo the adjustment. I favour the latter approach myself. I tried once before to make big changes in order to speed up the corrections but ended up getting into an over correcting feedback loop. Nasty. Note this only applies to sailing of course, maneuvering is another matter entirely and I have not had to do that yet.

We are now, Wednesday the 14th, over half way to Cape Verde and should arrive sometime tomorrow morning.

I’m on galley duty so will not have to get up for my night watch which will be nice.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Thur Jan 15,08
On galley duty today.
We arrived at Sel Island in the Cape Verde islands around 9:30 this morning and anchored beside the Alexandre Humbolt, she of the green sails. The Captain has gone ashore to clear in and if he gets back in time we will up anchor and head for Bona Vista (sic) rather than stay here.

Sel is very dry and dusty looking with at least 3 volcanic cones looming up in the haze. apparently Boa Vista is nicer and has a nicer anchorage as well.

The Captain returned but says that we won’t have time to get to Boa Vista today so we will head out early tomorrow morning. All hands are e to be awoken at 6:00am to get underway shortly thereafter. It is only about 36 miles to Boa Vista so we should get there by 10:00 or so.

The Starboard watch went ashore and from the reports of those I’ve talked to since there isn’t much to see or do here on Sel. Not even any Internet, although Corey did mention he saw an Internet Cafe that looked more like someone’s living room than a business.

Not sure when you will get to see this, if there isn’t any Internet here you might not see this till we get to Grenada!

Thanks for reading.
KJ

I’m sitting in the courtyard of the Hotel La Poste in St Louis, Senegal. This is the oldest hotel in St Louis. The courtyard is in the center of 4 stories and has palm trees in it, very nice.

The trip here was quite the adventure. It took 4.5 hours in a small station wagon that held 7 people and the driver. In order to get this car we had to go to the main transport hub, which is a large parking lot filled with cars, vans, buses and lorries. None of them will leave until they are full so buses don’t run on any regular schedule and are packed with guys even riding on the back bumpers. We managed to get this car so we didn’t have to wait which was good. Of course everybody needed to get a cut before we could even get out of the parking lot. That poor driver must have paid 5000 francs just to get on the road.

The road was in pretty good shape but getting out of Dakar took an hour and a half in stop and go traffic. The traffic jam was swarmed by people selling everything from oranges to inflatable beach balls and sunglasses. It’s a kind of slow moving market.

Once out in the country we were moving along pretty well.
The towns along the road all pretty much look the same, dusty and half built, half destroyed cinder block buildings. Each one also has a drift of garbage surrounding it. Blue plastic seem to be the most obvious but it looks like most of it is plastic, the smell is awful.

St Louis is a much lower key place than Dakar and definitely shows more of the French Colonial architecture. The people are less pushy and they seem to speak more english but they still all seem to have an angle of some sort.

Tomorrow we are heading even further North to the National Park so with any luck I’ll be able to get some pics posted before we head back.

The current plan has the ship leaving for Cape Verde on Monday sometime and the trip should take 3-4 days.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

P.S. It is now 9:00pm on Sunday night and we finally made it back to Dakar after a 6 hour drive back. We went to the National Park this morning and that was pretty cool. The park is setup to protect wildfowl primarily.

There are a set of waterways and lakes behind a series of dikes that have been used to keep the sea out and allow the rains to wash out thensalt from the soil. It is a major Pelican rookery. We also saw many different kinds of birds, Egrets, Storks, Ibis, Ducks, Spoonbills, Eagles, Cormorants and Terns. I’ll try to post some pics before I head back to the ship on the 11:00pm skiff run.

Next stop Cape Verde in a few days.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

The pictures of the new Dory paint job and my trip to St Louis are here.

The Captain has decided that we will not be going to Gambia as the strong Northerly winds will make it a tough slog to get up to Cape Verde. This means that we will be in Senegal for another 4 days. It also means I get another two days ashore. A bunch of us are planning to head out of Dakar into the countryside, maybe up North to the city of Saint Louis which is near the National Park and sounds interesting.

I spent the day today sanding and painting the 18′ Dory that we have had stowed on the top of the galley since Lunenberg. It originally was buff coloured with green trim but now it is considerably more brightly coloured.

The outside is hot pink, red and sky blue and the interior is yellow a kind of light olive green, blue and red. They say this is to get her ready for the Caribbean…yah man!

We will also we setting up her rig so she can be sailed, which will be interesting to play with.

There are several of the crew with various ailments at the moment. Some are flu like others seem to be food poisoning. So far I’ve managed to avoid both so fingers crossed I will continue to do so.

I’m reading a very interesting scholarly treatise on the merchant seaman’s world in the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries. It mostly talks about the seaman as a “free wage” agent but by putting his labours into the overall economic context and the unique environment in which the seaman lived and worked, he shows how the culture, superstitions and customs of the sea came to be formalized as much as they were.

The book is “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” Merchant Seamen ,Pirates and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700-1750 by Marcus Rediker. If anyone is interested

More later…

It’s now evening of Friday the 9th of January 2009. Still odd to write that year out.

We will be off for the next two days so the big debate is what to do. I think the consensus is to try and get out of Dakar and see the countryside. The issue is how. Apparently the trains no longer runt to the second largest city, St Louis, which was one possibility. so who knows.

I’ll let you all know how we make out.

Please keep reading for more.
KJ

Went ashore yesterday on the first skiff run.

Went into town to a very nice hotel, the F’aidherbe, and got a room to use for the night. Then after doing the obligatory internet updates we headed out to take the ferry over to Goree island.

This island off of Dakar was the original capital of French West Africa, it was also the largest slave transport center in West Africa. It has along and bloody history. Originally occupied by the Portuguese, then the Dutch, the English and finally the French. For 300 years it was the main point for sorting and shipping “black ivory” to the New World. In all nearly 20 million men and women passed through this little island. Of these 6 million or so died by disease, malnutrition or harsh treatment.

In the “Slave House” on the island there is a small doorway that opens out onto the sea it is called the “door of no return” once a slave passed through that door they never returned. They were either loaded onto ships for tranport or tied and tossed into the shark filled waters for disposal, if they were sick or undersized! The other name for this island in slave times was “shark island”.

It is a moving and horrifying place.

There is also a big fort built by the French after slavery was abolished and the area became a colony of France. It is a massive structure with huge guns. In 1960 when Senegal became independent the French destroyed the fort (nice of them huh). The biggest set of guns are still in their position looking out over the sea although the barrels and mechanisms are destroyed.

Interestingly they were only ever fired once and that was at a British merchant ship just offshore during WWII. It seems the French were worried that the Brits were going to try and take the island from the French after France fell to the Germans. The British ship was sunk and is marked by a buoy. Every ferry that comes into Goree needs to make a swing around the wreck.

The island has many baobab trees. These trees can live for a thousand years and grow with trunks almost 9 meters across. They store water when it rains. Big ones can hold almost 100,000 liters of water.

By the time we got back it was rush hour! Amazing that anyone would want to drive here but they sure seem to move along.

There are pictures from my trip to the island here.