This picture was taken the first evening it got cold on our passage North to Lunenberg.
Nate,the assistant engineer, has a “Pea Jacket”, a heavy duffel coat, which Lynsey suggested I wear and this shot was the result.
I couldn’t resist doing a little antiquing for effect.
KJ
Found the site of Tim Wright who was taking pictures at the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta.
From his site:
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Tim Wright
In 1993 Tim Wright was living on his 34 ft sailing boat in the Caribbean and started to photograph yachts as a means of survival. Today he still spends most of the year afloat in the Caribbean where he is now considered the leading practitioner of marine photography in the region. Over recent years he has become increasingly active at regattas in the UK and the Mediterranean.
Many sailors will instantly recognize his unique style. Where other photographers shoot from larger boats Tim works from a tiny 12 foot inflatable which serves double duty as his yacht tender. This gives him incredible maneuverability, allowing him to get frighteningly close to the action.
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There are some amazing pictures there including some of the Picton Castle
Check them out here: http://www.photoaction.com/clas09/clas09.htm
After a great week at home in Calgary, I’m on my way back to Grenada to join the ship for the next 2 1/2 months of warm sailing through the islands of the Caribbean.
I should arrive back in Grenada on Saturday evening at 7:00pm. This assumes that all my flights and connection work properly 
Stay tuned!
Thanks for reading
KJ
A nice little compendium of scenes from aboard the ship taken by Spenser’s Grandfather Hal while we were at anchor at Mindelo.
I was on galley duty setting up the dishes along the rail as you can see
Here is a video I took from the Focsle head just before we got to Fernando de Noronha. That’s Marie on lookout and you can briefly see David hanging out at the end of the bowsprit taking pictures. Notice the color of the water!
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Here is a video I took from the bridge looking forward as we romped along in the trade winds towards Grenada.
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This one was taken shortly after from the main deck. It gives a feel for the size of the waves.
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This video was taken back in November on the way to Morocco. Unfortunately I took it in portrait mode so it’s sideways. That was the last time we had to rig the safety nets. We had just passed through those gale force squalls and this was the morning after. You can see how wet the main deck is in a seaway.
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Here is the video rotated. Thanks BIZ!
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
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.
I’ve managed to upload some pictures from Christmas.
Check them out here.
I’m going to upload some more shortly if this internet connection holds up
The connection is brutally slow but I got some more uploaded.
New Years Eve
and
My first day in Dakar, Senegal
Enjoy
KJ
So it’s Boxing Day, a holiday celebrated by about 50% of the people on board apparently. I’m on galley duty which is sweet because I didn’t have to get up for my night watch.
The little Christmas Tree is still on the hatch and the decorations are still sparkling in the light but we are back to normal ship routine today. There is a change in the weather coming. This morning we still had the same light winds and long slow swell from the NW but awe also had high Cirrus clouds, Mare’s Tails alsso coming from that direction. by midafternoon the wind has dropped almost entirely and the sky is covered with a haze that malkes it look quite “brassy” it’s bright but you cannot see the Sun.
Hmmm. Hopefully we will get a fairer wind out of whatever is coming because at this rate it will take 20 days to get to Senegal!
Thanks for reading.
KJ