Atlantic Passage

We have arrived in BVI.
This is a continuous post so read down for the latest.

Sunday April 26,09

Our watch was on duty today, which was just as well as I suspect that everything ashore was closed if yesterday is any indication.

First thing after breakfast we shifted the ship into the middle of the bay to give us a bit more swing room as the winds have been variable making the ship swing almost 360 degrees!
Last night the on watch had taken in about 10ft of chain because our stern was only 20′ or so from the rocks!

Surprisingly we had a normal Sunday, ie there was no official ships work, which made for a fairly relaxing day.

I was safety lookout for several of the crew who went snorkeling along the cliffs that surround this little bay we are in. The Sun was bright and there was a really strong wind blowing out in the channel between the islands which brought some swell into the bay. The water is incredibly clear and you can see the bottom from the taffrail.

This evening we had another fancy dress dinner which was fun.

My anchor watch is 1:00am to 2:00am tonight and the plan is to hoist anchor as soon as we can tomorrow morning so we can get cleared out and underwa to the British Virgin Isands which is 250 some miles to the North.

The trip should take 2-3 days.

Odd to think that Jost van Dyke in the BVI is the second last port of call before we get back to Lunenberg and the end of my passage. Lots of sailing to come but the end is less than a month way.

Hmmmm….

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Monday April 27,09

Lynsey and Nicki went ashore this morning and caught a ferry over to Terre de Haut to clear out.

I am on galley today so spent the morning doing the dishes and cleaning out the veggie lockers on the Aloha deck.

Since we will soon be heading North where it is cold(er) we also were told to clean the ship inside thoroughly. This is because as we get into colder climes moisture will condense inside the ship and if the surfaces aren’t pretty clean they can begin to mildew and smell. Lovely…

We got our anchor up and began sailing North around 2:00pm. We have a strong force 5 breeze on our Starboard quarter to move us along North. We are currently sailing briskly towards Guadeloupe wit all sails but the Royals and Flying Jib set. I suspect that once in the lee of Guadeloupe we may need to motor but the consensus on the lower deck is that we will only motor if we really have to. This would be just fine with me I prefer to sail

I went up to loose sail today and helped to loose the Mizzen Staysail as well. My hand is doing much better and it felt good to go aloft again.

My tattoo is doing pretty well, it hasn’t been itchy and the colour hasn’t faded much even though I’ve been in the bright Sun pretty much continuously since I got it. Some of the other people’s tattoos haven’t fared so well. The finer lines have disappeared on some of them and others have faded a bit.

Current guess is that we will reach Jost van Dyke in about 2 days or so.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Tuesday April 28,09

Our night watch was gusty and damp with a couple of big squalls as we passed the islands of Montserrat, Nevis and St Kitts. The wind was gusting up to Force 6-7.

I had first helm and the ship steered beautifully only a few spokes to a full turn needed to keep her on course. We are heading North by West (and 1/4 west to be exact) with topsails, t’gallants, foresail set plus the outer and inner jibs, fore topmast staysail and main topmast staysail.

I hear a rumour that Jost Van Dyke may not have any Internet connectivity so not sure when you will get to read this as the next stop is Bermuda about halfway back to Lunenberg.

More later…

Just got off the afternoon watch which was relatively uneventful. The wind is steady and the skies basically clear and sunny with some high puffy white clouds.

Earlier this afternoon we changed course towards the high volcanic island of Saba and just as we were getting ready to go on watch we entered the lee of this cliff girdled high island. There followed the alarm and the call of “This is a drill man overboard port side”.

These drills are organized chaos but everybody knows pretty well where to be and what to do. Today’s drill was a bit different because we were; A) under sail and B) the wind and sea conditions were gusty and lumpy respectively. The drill went really well, the overboard object was in the rescue boat in 3 minutes! The rescue boat itself was launched in about 1 minute. The requirement is that the recovery be done in 9 minutes.

Once we got all the equipment stowed we headed back on our course to the north now under a reduced sail plan, no t’gallants, so we don’t arrive in the middle of the night.

We should arrive in the BVI tomorrow sometime, rumour has it we will be stopping for groceries at another island in the BVI before going to Jost Van Dyke.

Thanks for reading
KJ

We were supposed to leave for BVI today but when the Captain went ashore to clear out there was nobody around to do it. While we were waiting we worked on several small projects including the Grenada Boat, now known as “Mr Bones”, and getting stuff in the hold lashed down ready for sea.

Just after lunch the Captain came back and announced that we would be shifting over to the largest island in the Saints, Basse Terra, for the weekend then clear out on Monday.

Our watch was off today so David and I went ashore and had a quick look around. This is a very quiet island! The town is very small with only a couple of bar/restaurants and a couple of souvenir shops and a small grocery store. No ATM, or Wifi to be found

Unfortunately in my rush to catch the skiff I forgot my camera so I doon’t have any pictures of this quaint little place.

We arrived jut as a funeral was being conducted so everything was shutdown completely. Just to add to the atmosphere it poured rain, in those huge drops only a tropical rain squall can bring. I tried to shelter under a tree but got soaked anyways, I also forgot my rain coat, blah.

Bill found a small hotel for the night which also had a restaurant so we were able to have a nice dinner, which as an added bonus was pretty cheap.

The anchorage here is a bit dicey so we may have to move the ship in the morning.

Thanks for reading
KJ

Monday Apr 20,09

This morning was really busy.

First thing after breakfast we hoisted aboard the dory and skiff. Then we got all the sails ready to set, fired up the engine and hoisted the anchor. A little light exercise to start the day

While we were doing that there were lots of yachts sailing by heading for the start line of the race.

We set our fore lower topsail and outer jib and backed around. Then, once facing the right way, we set all sails and headed out just to leeward of the course. We could see many of the smaller boats racing along to windward of us. There was a collision between two of them and one yacht was completely dismasted! An expensive day for them.

As we approached the “mark” we hove to and watched the fun for 20 minutes or so.

As the big “J”s were coming up we tacked and headed back along the line so we got a really good look at these magnificent thoroughbreds racing with spinnakers set. In fact we set our flying jib just as they were setting their spinnakers The two big schooners were there as well with their spinnakers set a well. Very impressive.

The big French schooner was sailing with a replacement mainsail so they mut have had a spare.

After they passed we tacked again, set all sails and are now heading South(ish) towards Guadalupe and Ile des Saints which is part of Guadalupe.

More later…

Just got off of our afternoon watch.

We sailed close hauled on the port tack towards Guadalupe all afternoon.
As we were sailing Full N Bye my trick at the helm was fun

As we approached Guadalupe it became apparent that we could not weather it and had to tack just after dinner. We are no sailing North back towards Antigua and will tack in the morning some time and try to get around the Eastern side of Guadalupe again.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Tues Apr 21,09

Had a fairly calm night watch.

We wore ship sometime before I came on watch and have been sailing to leeward of Guadalupe. I had second lookout which was just at dawn as we approached the island. The sky slowly brightened and with a thi crescent moon low in the eastern sky it was beautiful to watch.

The Western side of Guadalupe is high, very much like Dominica and has a cap of clouds as well. As we sailed into the lee the wind dropped and we started to take in sail preparatory to motoring when the wind actually picked up again. We reset the foresail and mainsail and we are still ghosting along to the South.

If we end up motoring we should arrive at the Saints this afternoon.

More later…

We motored through the afternoon and got pasted with some really sstrong rain squalls as we passed Guadalupe.

We arrive at the Iles des Saints around 3;00pm anchored in the little harbour and got cleared in without too much fuss. Our watch is off this evening and tomorrow so we went ashore to check out the place. It is like a little chunk of France very neat and tidy and pretty laid back.

I’m going with David and our new doctor Rick to rent some scooters to see the island tomorrow. I’ll fill you all in on how it goes.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Today Nico and I had galley duty and being Donald’s official day off we had to cook.

The key to that is planning, as Bruce and I found out on the crossing

Once we had a plan for what to do for lunch and dinner it was just a matter of coordinating the timing around the vagaries of our old diesel stove. For the record lunch was onion and tomato soup with bread and jam and dinner was “bubble and squeak”, corn beef and cabbage, bacon and corn meal dumplings quite yummy actually.

One advantage of being on galley is that you can stop to watch what’s happening around the ship. Which today meant watching the fleet of beautiful classic yachts parade out of the harbour to get ready for today’s racing. Like watching a parade of very expensive peacocks that.

Just as we were getting dinner ready the big French schooner came in with her mainsail torn in half. What a mess! That one sail probably has almost as much area as all of ours together, or so it seems. Th noise it made when it ripped must have been tremendous and frightening.

Tomorrow we plan to join the fleet for the racing, heh :-), at least until they go upwind then we will head off to Ile de Saints which is an overnight sail apparently.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Had a great day racing on board the Charm III captained by Richard West. We actually beat the one schooner the skipper was most anxious to beat which was the Astor.

I have never been in a sailing race before so this was an interesting day.

The schooner Charm III is a staysail schooner, this means that instead of a gaff rigged foresil she has a staysail on a boom. Above this she carries a Fisherman’s Staysail. The advantage of this rig is that it is essentially self tending in tacks and is supposed to be marginally faster upwind. This schooner was designed and built in 1923 so she is a bit older than the Picton Castle actually. She has the distinction of having the oldest masts still afloat on their original hull

She sails really well and ha a very friendly and fairly laid back crew. Which was good cause I’m not sure I was all that useful a hand. Shackle and Sarah and I were the Picton Castle crew that were aboard for today’s race.

We headed for the starting line about 9:30 this morning. We got the sails and lines sorted and ten tacked back and forth waiting for our class to start.

One of the schooners in our class is called “When and If” I believe. Her owner planned to sail her around the world when and if he had chance. He died before he could do it. His name was George Patton.

We crossed the starting line bang on time which was met with much rejoicing. This is not an easy thing to do apparently.

The race was on a course that had two downwind legs and a couple of up wind slogs, very cool, lots of room for tactical sailing.

On one of the downwind legs we set a massive sail called a “Gollywobbler” that fills the space between the fore and main and is used as a downwind sail like a spinnaker. Setting this monster is quite a process. We first had to douse the Fisherman, un shackle and stow it, then set the Golly and take in the staysail. When we rounded the bouy we had to do the opposite.

During the race the giant “J” Class boats roared by. They sail like giant fish more than boats. They are very impressive and they create quite a wind shadow as they go.

Watching all these classic yachts, gaff riggers, schooners of all sizes all churning along in the beautiful tropical blue seas was wonderful.

The last leg is upwind and here the tactics get tricky. Our skipper elected to do a bunch of short tacks really close to shore and this made all the difference. Although we got very close to shore at one point.

Once the race was done we motored into the dock and stowed away the sails. A couple of Gin and Tonics to celebrate our victory and a nice lamb dinner prepared by one of the crew ended a fabulous day.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

There are some photos of the race here.

We were on watch today so spent the day doing ship work.

In my case I spent the morning spot painting the breeze way overheads “tropical blue”. This was interesting actually cause the last time I did this was April last year and it was rainy and cold!

I spent this afternoon sanding the starboard quarter deck rail in preparation for it being varnished. The day was sunny and hot so the breeze through the bay was very welcome. While we were working a whole bunch of boats from small dragon class sloops to the giant “J” class racing yachts and several schooners and ketches of various sizes sailed past heading out to sail in the strong alongshore breeze. Our dory with it’s gaily colored gaff sail joined them and made a brave tiny splash of colour far out amongst the giants.

Once we were finished working we went for a sail in the dory, my first, and just as we passed the headland out to sea and had gibed back into the harbour the tiller broke! A mad scramble ensued as we doused the sail and shipped the oars to row back to the ship. An exciting end to the work day that

Dinner tonight was really good. Gunner and Susie were on galley today and they cooked up a great meal of Spaghetti Carbonara, green salad and mango cobbler. To make it special Lynsey ordered the watch to “dress for dinner” so we all put on clean and fancy clothes and ate in the salon accompanied by wine and ice water. The ipod was playing big bang music, Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong. Lovely.

Currently the watch is hanging on the welldeck listening to reggae and I’m chilling below typing with both hands for the first time

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Sunday April 12,09

I hope Eostre’s Hare was good to you all and you didn’t overdose on chocolate

We had a busy day today.

This morning we cleaned up the ship, re-lashed all the stuff that had been unlashed over the last few days so the on watches could paint the topsides. We also stowed a lot of stuff preparatory to getting underway for Antigua.

We up anchored and motored away from Martinique at 3:30pm this afternoon. We kept motoring using the fore and aft sails until we passed out of the lee of the island then took in the sails and motored North East until around 6:00 when we set all sails.

The plan is to sail North towards Antigua on the Windward side of the islands. This will mean some tricky steering as we will have to steer really close to the wind to make the Northing we need.

We finally had some luck with the fishing lines. We caught a Barracuda and a pretty big Marlin within a half hour of each other.

Just as we were getting ready to go off watch at 8:00pm a big rain squall came in and thoroughly drenched us before hitting us with strong wind gusts that necessitated taking in the flying jib in the pitch dark and rain. A damp but effective way to get everyone back into sailor mode.

My tattoo looks good still, which is a relief frankly as I was afraid of a bout of “buyers remorse” this morning There were lot of tattoos done while we were in Martinique something like 20!

The trip to Antigua will take a couple of days so we should get some good if tricky sailing.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Mon Apr 13,09

Just got off our very wet night watch.

I woke up around 3:00am to the sound of heavy rain beating on the deck over my head. Just before we came on watch the squall passed bringing with it a big wind shift. e came up on deck just as the order to brace the yards around came. Nothing like starting a watch off with a bang

A half hour later we braced them again as the winds returned to their pre squall direction.

About midway through our watch the skis opened up and I spent my lookout in the pouring rain.

By the time our watch ended the winds had dropped and shifted such that we were pointing directly at Dominica. So we fired up the main engine and took in all sails and are now motoring North off the eastern shore of Dominica. FWIW you can see the steam from the boiling lake, like a cloud stuck in the forest, cool.

My hands are a mess, even my “good” one is a bit torn up. Callouses and water don’t mix.

More later…

Just got off a very busy watch.
We tacked this evening at around 5:00pm ad it went very well.
Since then we have been sailing full and bye but in the wrong direction. That leads me to believe that we will be tacking again. Possibly even later tonight which mens we would be doing it in the dark. Fun fun that!

One of the islands we have been sailing slowly past is Marie Gallant (?!?) this island is NE of Dominica and is actually the edge of the Caribbean tectonic plate thrust up over the Atlantic plate. The volcanoes of Dominica are the molten remains of the Atlantic plate melting as it descends. This is the classic plate edge volcanic system but normally you can’t see the edge of the overriding plate so clearly.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Tues April 14,09

Had a good night watch, pretty uneventful.

I had first lookout which was wonderful as the skies were pretty clear and the mostly full moon was bright.

Last night at the change of watches around midnight they tacked ship. It was nice that they didn’t have to wake us up When we went on watch this morning we were again sailing North towards Antigua.

Paul caught two more Baracudas this morning, one of which he threw back because it was small.

We may arrive in Antigua later this afternoon.

More later…

We arrived in Antigua and anchored next to a very large yacht in Falmouth harbour at 6:00pm.
I’ll be off tomorrow so will have a chance to check out the lay of the land.
Many of the crew are looking forward to crewing on some of the classic boats in the races here. I’m happy to be looking on I think

Thanks for reading.
KJ

This morning after breakfast and domestics we began the process of heaving up our anchor and the three shots of chain hanging almost straight down from the hawse pipe. Pulling this up with the windlass was a lot harder than normal because we had to lift the whole kit ‘n kaboodle. Normally the chain is laying on the bottom and we drag it along only lifting the part that goes up to the ship.

Once the anchor was up we motored away from the shore and set all sails as we got out of the lee of Dominica. We were under sail by 11:20am.

We are now sailing along at about 5 knots headed south towards the French island of Martinique. I mostly know this island for the destruction of the city of St Pierre by the volcanoe there. Many of the crew are looking forward to this stop because they want to get a tattoo. I may do so as well but haven’t decided for sure yet

We will be in Martinique for at least 3 days probably 4.

More later…

Just finished cleaning up from dinner.

I had first helm on our afternoon watch. We were motorsailing towards Martinique and ran into a rainstorm with gusty winds. I had my fowlie jacket on but hadn’t done it up yet. I ended up standing my trick at the helm with my jacket open. Luckily the rain was fairly warm

We took in all sails around 5:30 and motored into the anchorage at St Pierre and dropped the starboard hook. The Captain says the holding is not great here but the anchorage is fairly sheltered so we should be OK.

St Pierre never really recovered after the eruption of 1908. From a population of 40,000 there are now only 7,000. The current city is built inside the ruins of the old city. There is a good museum here which I intend to check out.

I have looked at the picture taken the day after the eruption so many times that my mind overlays that scene of utter desolation over the current lush green countryside. We are anchored near to the point where the photo appears to have been taken so it’s almost like a temporal shadow. It is a very odd sensation.

Our watch is on tomorrow and I have galley so it will be a long day.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Spent the morning doing osfo and doing spot painting of the starboard bow topsides.
It was nice and cool, sitting on a plank suspended off the rail, as that was the shady side of the ship. This afternoon we are going to be doing the same but on the port side which is facing the sun which will be really hot.

The schooner Spirit of Massachusetts was anchored here. Her captain was 2nd mate on the third world voyage of the Picton castle and came alongside for a visit. When she was leaving she sailed across our bows and saluted with a shot from her cannon and a proper dipping of her ensign. We responded with a good horn blast. Very cool.

David and I went ashore yesterday and wandered around the town of Roseau. The town is beautiful and still pretty much as this area was 50 years ago. The buildings are mostly two story with the lower story stone and the upper story wood.

The current crew hangout is a fabulous bar/restaurant called the Ruin Rock Cafe. It is built inside the ruins of an old building and serves an amazing variety of flavoured rums that they make themselves. The Guava was definitely “dangerously yummy” They also have things like coconut pineapple, ginger, tamarind, lemon and other fruits as well as very exotic ones like snake and centipede ?!?.

I’m hoping to go on an around the island tour when we get ashore tomorrow.

More later…

It’s later and I have a very sore left hand. Blah.

I’m going to file the following under the “It seemed like a good idea at the time” file or maybe the “20/20 hindsight is a bitch” one.

After lunch I shifted the scaffold over to get at the last spot on the starboard bow. In doing so I tried to position it such that I could reach it from the rail. Well, as I tried to lower myself down I realized that the plank was about a foot too low! Unfortunately I didn’t find this out until I was so far over the rail that I couldn’t get back up!

Then I made my big mistake. I figured I would just hand over hand my way down the rope to the plank, it was only 1 foot after all right? Wrong! The line was too thin to hang onto and before I could get both hands onto it I slid down the rope, missed the plank and ended up hanging off the end! I also badly rope burned my left hand, ripping most of my callouses off and giving myself second degree burns on my index finger and the palm of my hand! Ouch.

So there I was hanging over the brilliant blue sea by my fingertips feeling like a right great goof. I tried to climb back up onto the plank but because my weight was on the end it kept swinging away from the ships side. I yelled “On deck!” and got an immediate response and then yelled “Help!”. There wasn’t anything anyone could really do and in hindsight I should just have dropped into the drink to swim over to the ladder. Ben and Susie were working alongside in the skiff and they came over to see if I could clamber into it before letting go but I ended up swimming anyways.

To everybody’s credit nobody laughed, which was nice

David, helped me bandage my hand, fresh water rinsed my gear and hung it all up for me while I found some dry clothes. Thanks David!

It’s a good thing I have a couple of days off to let the blisters break and get a start on the healing process. Hauling on lines is going to be a pain for a while.

It’s also a good thing I mostly type with one finger

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Mar 30,09

We up anchored and sailed off the hook this morning and went from 8:00am muster to sailing under all plain sail in about one and a half hours.

Just as we were preparing to get underway a small tanker came into the anchorage which made things a bit crowded. We also had an inter island freighter anchored beside us. As the anchor came up we backed the outer jib and set the fore lower topsail aback and we spun around on our heal quite nicely.

The winds have shifted around more to the East which means we will be heading into them going this way as we were going into them coming North. The Captain says we should be able to sail most of the way however which will be good.

Yesterday while I was ashore I spent some time reading up on Dominica. There are 9 volcanoes there many of which have been active in the last 10,000 years. Dominica is probably island that has the greatest concern since it is overdue for a major eruption. My kind of place Since we will be there for about 10 days I hope to get a good look at some of it.

More later…

It’s mid afternoon and I go on watch in an hour or so.

The weather is fabulous with a steady Force 4 wind blowing from the East and we are sailing “Full and By” as close to South as we can get. The water is an amazingly luminous blue to windward. I noticed on the way North that it changed from the green that was common around Grenada to blue. Going this way the bright Sun in the almost cloudless blue sky is making the seas practically glow to windward of us. I’m continually amazed at the range of colours that the surface of the sea assumes. Sometimes it depends on the weather or the depth of the sea but other times there doesn’t seem to be anything obviously different from the day before but the sea is definitely a different colour. Today is one of those days. Beautiful!

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Tues Mar 31,09

I can’t believe it’s nearly April already.

Well the nice weather didn’t last through our aftermnoon watch resterday by 7:00pm it was squally and raining pretty heavily. After we got off watch the ship really started to roll for a while but settled down by the time I went on watch at 4:00am.

Our night watch was good. My helm trick was from 6:00 to 7:00am this morning just as the Sun was rising above a bank of clouds in the East. We are sailing “Full and By” trying to head as close to South as we can get. I always have trouble sailing that way because I tend to over steer a bit when correcting which causes us to fall off farther than we need to. Also today we didn’t have the royals set so we have to use the leach of the T’gallant to determine our closest windward course. It is more sensitive to the rolling of the ship which mimics the luffing which means we are as close as we can get to the wind. I think I did OK as I managed to keep the course close to SSE on average which was pretty good. If I do say so myself

We are heading SExE under all sail, except for the Mizzen staysail and gaff topsail, and we may be able to get to Dominica under sail alone.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Wed April 1,09

We took in our sails and fired up the engine midway through our watch.

We arrived in Dominica at 9:30am this morning and am now anchored “stern to” just off shore The shore is very steep here our stern, which is maybe 40′ from the shore, is in something like 20′ of water and our bow is in more than 70′! We are waiting to get cleared in currently then I will be going ashore to check out what there is to see.

More later…