Sailing around the world

figured out how to place google ads in opera blogs.

you need two <iframes> one with a style zindex of -1. one with position relative and both with and scrolling no.

still bugs with resizeing. see http://aboardthegap.50webs.com/index.html/

Charles

Tuesday 27th the wind totally disappears and the current too. Stopped dead. Mid ocean and the sea as flat as a millpond. Not a ripple or a sound. Deep blue water as clear as we have seen anywhere, though nothing to see in it. We are in water 2975 fathoms deep. That’s about 6 times the height of Table Mountain. We drop the sails – they’re not doing anything – I go for a swim. The water is a lot cooler than what we have grown accustomed to in the Caribbean. I hoist James up the mast to check the wind indicator that has stopped spinning. The wind is so light it seems to have seized up! A breeze comes though towards evening and we are off again. Heading due north now for a bit more wind. The radar picks up a large area of something on the horizon and there is no boat there but the binoculars show loads of dolphins and whales thrashing about. We sail almost through the pack but they are all intent on chasing fish or having fun jumping high out of the water and pay us no attention. Watching the sunset with our chill out glass of Pina Colada ( although it is not as good at these latitudes as it used to be) we see the last rays of the setting sun turn bright green even colouring the nearby clouds green.
Lorna and James

23rd June 2006 was another memorable day for our record books. Out there mid Atlantic, nothing but horizon to horizon sea, At least 1500 miles to the Azores and Bermuda many miles behind and we had guests aboard for lunch. Are they guests if they brought their own freshly caught wahoo and cooked for us? What a treat! Craig’s an excellent cook too.
It was like having our own staff appear on call and once they had done the cooking and entertaining, disappearing again.

Craig and Stuart aboard Cavorca

Sailcavorca.com.

Lorna and James

Wednesday 21st June

We have rested, been sightseeing, restocked the larder, done the laundry and yesterday watched the England v Sweden football match at the pub on the waterfront and now we are ready for the next leg.

We plan on leaving Bermuda today. We have waited a day or two for the favourable winds to settle in and blow us along steadily to the Azores but it still looks very light out there. An Aussie yacht of similar size is intent on leaving and they would be good sailing buddies. It will be good to have another yacht fairly close by, at least in radio contact if not in sight for our longest sail yet. 2-3 weeks depending of course on the weather. It’s all very well looking at the 5 day forecast but we have to deal with whatever comes after that Today the Newport to Bermuda race yachts started arriving having added two extra days to their expected finish time. A 9 million dollar yacht was hoping to break the record with a race time of 33 hours but found themselves stuck out there in 40th position with as little wind as the rest of the fleet.

We survived a couple of days on a Bermuda scooter. Or rather I did. James enjoyed it immensely. I’m sure the scooter has never leant so far over going around corners as it did with James driving. Took him back to his days with the big and powerful Kawasaki, well kind of, you can’t really compare the two. The island is full of scooters and what a great way of getting around instead of clogging the roads with umpteen cars and parking areas.

Bermuda is something special. The whole island so neat and tidy. Houses all painted in happy colours. Nice pastel shades gentle but not too washed out and all have sparkling white roofs. The water is crystal clear and the rocks and underwater plant life as easily seen as a trifle under a sheet of clingwrap. I just wanted to get in there.

Take care all
Lorna and James

Finally reach the beautiful island of Bermuda with its reefs all round and sparkling clear water. Call up Bermuda Radio for permission to enter St George’s harbour through The Cut and are answered with a strong Scottish accent. There is a clearly marked channel through the reef and a very narrow deep water Cut between rocky headlands. Permission is very necessary as the cruise ships squeeze themselves through here and you don’t want to meet one of those in a tight spot. It felt narrow enough with just us.

Bermuda is fabulous. So neat and tidy lush and green. Hedges of flowering hibiscus, Ficus plants ferociously cut back and large beds of Agapanthus (I have yet to see a display that can compare to Dad and Moms front border of hundreds of those large blue flower balls at 39 Newton Drive but here were the best attempts). Asparagus ferns carpeting the pavements. I remember trying to grow one of those as a houseplant. It had a couple of brownish stalks with a few yellowish leaves and I always thought it was starting to flourish. How wrong was I. Poor plant.

Bermudians are very friendly and will always have time for a chat. We spent an enjoyable time with the Newport to Bermuda Yacht Race’s local welcoming party at St David’s lighthouse. All set up to watch the boats crossing the finishing line out to sea in front. However with the extremely light winds there wasn’t a yacht in sight, they were all drifting another 2 days worth of sailing away.

An expensive stopover though. Everything was so much more than at the other islands. Had a good rest up and a buzz around the island on their famed Bermuda scooter. Such a good way to get about. Our time was up and it was back to that other form of transport. Sailing.

Lorna and James

At 14:30 on 7th June we up anchor, and on the outskirts of Simpson Bay, Sint Maarten, in a variable 10 knot easterly wind we hoist the main sail, or rather James does while I have the far less strenuous task of holding the boat head to wind. It’s a long hard haul more so now that our enthusiastic visitors are no longer aboard and eager to show their manly strength. With first Charles then Bob and later Brian giving James a hand the two man power pulled the main almost to the top requiring the winch only for the last meter or two. Now there is a necessary breath catching pause or two even though James is fit and lean now after all the years of sitting behind a desk or in front of the telly.

We sailed around the rocky point of Simpson Bay and within 20 minutes the island was no longer visible. Totally obscured by a dense rain cloud headed our way. Another yacht beating back to the bay had passed 100 yards astern of us moments before now only the top half of their sails were visible. The next minute it was a tropical downpour, the rain falling in sheets. Ducking under cover but still getting wet we were glad of the fresh water rinse the boat was having, even ourselves, think we were right humming. We’d been rushing about like whirling dervishes the last 10 days. Since Brian and Rachael left the time has gone in a blur.

This is it now. We have to take the weather whatever. We are heading for the Azores with a stopover in Bermuda, all going well. As night falls we are west of Anguilla sailing between Dog Island and Prickly Pear Island. Heading due north for approx 800 miles.

James takes the first shift and I start mine two hours later around midnight. We prefer to keep whoever is on watch sort of company by sleeping on a sofa cushion on the floor of the saloon. Close enough for a quick call especially while we get into this long distance sailing lark. Believe me a narrow, sloping, slightly too short cushion on the floor has never been more welcome and comfortable than after yet another shift on yet another day at sea

On Radar I watched a large black area moving west towards us. It was a few days short of full moon and I could see it was an enormous rain cloud and figured I would get a bit wet before my shift was over. We’d waited in Sint Maarten to get the radar installed, now all it would show was no good! I popped inside to get the kettle on and immediately felt an increase in speed. Went back out to see that the direction had changed slightly and altered course by pressing a button on the auto-pilot. (Life aboard is made so much easier with this fantastic mechanism that keeps us on whatever course we set.) We, or James rather, sets the sails for the course we want to sail then barring a major wind shift we sail to that angle to the wind. The wind cranked up a few more notches within seconds and threw in a few direction changes again to keep me watching the guages.and pressing buttons trying to keep our angle to the wind steady. The sound of the boat roaring through the water woke James who came dashing out the saloon to see what I was up to with a “What’s going on?” I’d managed to see the wind speed guage display 35 knots and later when the gust had past we could see the top speed was 12.7.Our record so far. However the instrument is not calibrated correctly and we should add half a knot to that but I don’t like to labour the point that I hold the record and it’s even faster than it shows. James is still very competitive.

At the end of 24 hours we have done 182 miles and figure we’ll be in Bermuda in no time at all. And by now, we must be ahead of the other yacht that left St Martin (the French side) about 8 hours ahead of us so we decide to put in a reef and take things easy. We make a mistake and end up putting in 3 reefs giving us a tiny mainsail but are taking it easy and don’t want to re-hoist the main.

Lorna and James

Hi All,

I cannot believe it is the first of June already and we with that the start of hurricane season out here in the Caribbean. We will be out of here by Wednesday coming (8th June 2006) at the latest.

We have been flat out again since Brian and Rachael left on Sunday and are still waiting (can you believe it) on parts of a radar. This time entirebox waiting collection and a quick install only for us to discover no guts in the display unit!!! Back to waiting, in the hope that the correct parts arrives post haste. If not we sail without radar and will see what we can do further fitting along the way.

Hoping to stop briefly in Bermuda before picking up the trades to the Azores. Haven’t had a moment to study the route yet, but thanks to Charles and Fung Yee we have the whole caboodle on the computer. Have some paper charts too. Brian was amused with our large map of the Atlantic Ocean with not a lot to see on it, just a lot of sea.

The water maker is up and running, slow and steady with a lot of noise but outputting good water. Battery monitor installed, new ropes threaded and tied up to the necessaries, windows resealed , and cupboards getting stocked up. Oh, and a radar bracket fitted up the mast after a lot of huffing and puffing winching James part way up every half hour for a couple of days. Time to go and sort out fridge gas, laundry, bits of wire and connectors for oojigoogies and stuff.

Take care all.

Lorna and James