Yesterday evening at sunset, I brought Zamindar onto Isla Clementina, her
new home in the centre of Mahon harbour for the winter. It's a floating
island that takes about 25 boats, with a large area in the centre with
seats, a barbecue, and a shower, and supposedly it's one of the most
sheltered places to berth in this part of the Mediterranean. The sea is
about 2.5 miles away to the south-east, and the harbour has cliffs on either
side. There was a barbecue in progress when I arrived, and once I'd tied the
boat up I was invited over, so I joined them and enjoyed some red wine and
something that had been barbecued, though it was too dark to see what it was
I was eating. It was just as well really as I'm beginning to run out of the
pasta that Nina made for me before she left. Not trusting my ability to
create a balanced diet, she very kindly made some chicken pasta last
weekend, and I've been heating it up and working my way through it this
week. Maybe a week's a long time to be re-heating chicken for, as it does
seem to be, how should I say, developing a new flavour, as time goes on.
It is, however, quite exciting to be in a marina, and I hooked the boat into
shorepower this morning and all the luxury that brings, namely unlimited
electricity (or actually up to 1000W). So now I can put lights on, listen to
music, use the espresso machine, or even blowdry my hair into a bouffant
quiff to resemble my passport photo should I desire to, with all the power
on hand.
It's just after midnight, and it's really calm, but I've just been outside
twice as I keep hearing a banging noise. But every time I go out, it stops.
Then I sit down again, and it starts up again. It seems to be coming from
underneath the hull, and so the only thing I can figure it could be, is a
fish or something continually banging into the boat. Or maybe somebody's got
pissed and fallen into the water (when we were in Palma we saw a body
getting pulled out of the harbour).
I'm currently walking around looking like a cripple; which is a word not
used much nowadays as it's not very politically correct, but it's true, and
I will not be offended when, walking down the street, families now point at
me and call me a cripple. In addition to smashing my right foot up with the
wakeboard last week, I leapt onto deck the other night, and booted the genoa
track car (i.e. something very metal and sharp) as hard as I possibly could
with my left foot, and in the process sliced it open in three places. The
only consolation was that I'd had a couple of drinks at the time and hence,
the pain was not too bad, though, of course, on the other hand, if I hadn't
had the drinks then I may have been more coordinated, and chosen not to kick
it.
It was a scorching day today and there was hardly any wind, so we loaded the dinghy up with all our gear and extra fuel tanks, and set off on a mammoth 20 mile dinghy trip around the south west coast of Menorca, stopping off in many of the Calas (coves), going snorkelling and swimming.
The fridge yesterday decided that it didn't want to keep our beer cold any longer, so when we returned today I worked on that. We now have cold beer again, which is nice.
On Wednesday we got up at 0630 and sailed out of Portocolom as the sun was rising. The wind was forecast to be behind us, but as always, it turned out, although light, to be in front of us all the way to Mahon. Nina and I were taking turns on watch, and I was sleeping in bed when she woke me up shouting "Dolphins!" Just to starboard of us was a pod of about 30 dolphins hunting some fish and closing in on them in a big circle. One of the dolphins jumped out of the water then some of them swam over to the boat and played in our bow wave and around the hull as we motored along.
A little later the wind dropped completely and the water was so clear and blue that we couldn't resist stopping the engine and diving off the boat for a swim. Mallorca had disappeared by now and we could just see Menorca distantly on the horizon, so the closest land was the sea floor about 1.2km beneath us. We arrived in Mahon about 1900 and anchored in Cala Taulera, which is about 2miles from the centre of the city. It's a lovely, quiet anchorage surrounded by green hills and the only way to Mahon is by dinghy, which is fine for us but takes some of our neighbours about 30 minutes with their slower engines.
We've been completely surprised by how attractive Mahon is. It has a long harbour with steep hills on either side which looks quite Caribbean, and the port itself is lined with cafes and restaurants which give it a very Cote D'Azur feel. We're almost certainly going to leave Zamindar here for the winter because as well as liking the place, we've managed to negotiate a very good rate with the port office and the harbour is extremely well sheltered.
Dolphin swimming in Zamindar's bow wave
Today Paul & Susie from Ballena left to sail around to Santa Ponsa. In the meantime we've decided to keep Zamindar in Menorca over the winter and so we're planning to head in the other direction over to there tomorrow. It's about a 55mile sail so we'll probably make an early start if we can manage to get up.
Now that all of our guests have finally left, Nina and I have been getting
things sorted up onboard Zamindar to go sailing, and researching where to
leave the boat for winter; currently, we're thinking about either Menorca or
sailing over to mainland Spain. Tomorrow we're off to Palma for a Big Day
Out with Paul from Ballena, who we often end up drinking and solving global
problems with in the evenings.
To add to the list of recent breakages on the boat, the outboard on the
dinghy overheated the other evening while I was having a trip around the
harbour in the dark. I'm hoping that the water intake just got blocked by a
floating plastic bag or something and that caused the impeller to burn out,
which wouldn't be too difficult to fix, and that it's nothing more serious.
Tomorrow I'll try to get a new impeller in Palma and see if that fixes it.
It's normal for things like that to happen, but I feel quite frustrated
right now as they all seem to be happening together. Nina arrives here
tomorrow evening and I'll be very happy to see her as it's been 5 weeks
since I left Denmark. Although I don't really get lonely on my own, I'm
beginning to feel the effects of the last weeks of solitude and not knowing
anyone here, so I'm glad that's ending.
A few days ago I looked into the bilges on the boat to find them rapidly
filling with water. I started to pump the water out and began looking around
for the leak, but couldn't find anywhere that water was coming into the
boat. After a lot of searching, I managed to track it down to a leak in one
of the fresh water tanks we have on board, and was relieved to find that we
weren't sinking. The tank, of course, had to be sorted and I spent the
following day removing the table and a section of the floor so that I could
get it out. I then spent the last two days driving around Mallorca with it
in the back of a rental car, trying to find somewhere that could repair it.
In the end I found a stainless fabricator, and so I attempted to explain
what I needed from them with my very limited Spanish (which previously
consisted solely of 'Una cerveza' and 'La vida loca'. Eventually, they
brought forward someone who could speak German and I barely managed to
express my need for a repaired water tank to him. As it turned out, it can't
be fixed, and so they're going to make a new one, however, nothing happens
too fast in Spain, so they think it'll take about 3 weeks. Such is life on a
boat.
Today I finally got out of Palma marina, and sailed down the coast to a lovely bay called Cala Portals. On the way out of Palma I passed a huge superyacht called Limitless which I haven't seen since St Maarten in the Caribbean. It was supposedly the biggest yacht (130m?) around at that time and rumour had it that it belonged to Mr Gates. I have a blurred recollection of going over to it one night after several beers and asking to speak to Bill to complain about Windows but the crew aren't very friendly.
It's really pleasant to be anchored again and away from the town. Cala Portals is a small bay surrounded by low cliffs which have tombs from Phoenician times cut into the caves. It's a very attractive anchorage, and there's only one other boat here tonight so it's nice and peaceful.
Chart of today's route
Cala Portals this evening
Nina left for Copenhagen yesterday, and I'm going to meet her there in a few weeks. I'm still on Zami' in the Real Club Nautico of Palma de Mallorca, but we rented a car at the weekend and drove around some of the island, checking out anchorages on the way. Portocolom looks like the most sheltered one on the island so I plan to head there soon. Mallorca really is a beautiful island and surprisingly little of it is spoiled by tourist developments. We drove all the way along the north west coast on winding mountain roads cut into the cliffs and hardly saw any red people in football tops at all.
Palma is a big base for superyachts, and there's a row of multi-million dollar boats moored next to us running their generators all the time to keep me awake at night. They tend to spend winter in the Caribbean then cross over to the Mediterranean for summer, so you often see the same boats over and over again. One of them was on the same shipping as us from Port Everglades, up for sale for a cool $16m, and her owner has twenty Ferraris and three planes.
Our flights from Malmo airport were delayed for two hours, so by the time we arrived in Stansted it was after midnight. We spent a remarkably restful night sharing the only available bench we could find, then had breakfast and boarded the flight to Palma. On arrival here, the ship hadn't arrived so we booked into a hotel run by a strange Norwegian, went out for some food, then fell asleep in the comfort of our beds.
The following morning we awoke and took a walk down to the water to see Super Servant3 across the harbour with Zami' on board. We quickly grabbed some breakfast then caught a taxi over to the ship. Zamindar seemed to be fine after the crossing, and we wanted to do some painting on her hull, so we quickly changed and started working on it. The ship had already begun to submerge, so we only had about 30 mins as the water poured across the deck towards us. We cleaned the hull, taped it, and gave the bootstripe two coats of paint while we stood in water as the ship's deck flooded. Then we climbed back up onto Zami', and motored her off. She was now in the Mediterranean.
We motored across Palma's harbour and docked in Real Club Nautico, which is right in the centre of town. Palma is much lovelier than I'd imagined, and we've been spending lots of time walking around and drinking in the bars and cafes here. It really feels as if we've returned to civilisation after being in the USA.
I got an email last night from Super Servant3, saying that the ship is approaching Gibraltar, though conditions on board have been quite rough. It's good to hear that Zamindar is almost back in Europe. There will be things that I'll miss about the Caribbean, mainly the amazing snorkelling and diving, but on the other hand, I'm looking forward to the Mediterranean's culture, especially being able to order a beer in McDonald's, spend euros, and use my phone to check email while I'm sailing.
It's been sunny here in Copenhagen for the last week or so, which has meant that everyone has been sitting outside at the cafés wrapped in blankets as it's still just 7°c. It's very good of the cafés to supply blankets, but it does beg the question of why people are sitting outside risking frostbite when any other population would be inside with the heating up full. I'm starting to learn, however, that this is what it means to be Scandinavian. People here are so happy here just to see the sun that it doesn't matter how cold it is, and in a few weeks they'll be convinced that it's time to go swimming naked in the Baltic again, where it's still a frigid 5°c and anyone not wearing an immersion suit won't survive more than 7 minutes. I will of course resist doing all of these things, at least until Nina forces me to.
A shop sign in Copenhagen
The loading of Zamindar onto Super Servant3 went smoothly. We just motored her on and the crew tied her up. We were able to stay onboard until the ship left port, and I soon found out that I could have stayed for the entire crossing, contrary to what I had been told by the Dockwise office. We spent the evening drinking too much beer onboard 'Duva', a British yacht that was behind us on the ship, and animatedly discussing the reasons that we badly wanted to leave the USA. The following morning I was woken by the sound of bubbles, as divers positioned supports in place under Zami's hull. Chris and I had by now added ourselves to the meals list, and went off to the messroom for breakfast on the ship. By the time we returned, Zamindar was resting nicely on her stands as the water continued to be pumped out of the ship. Soon the deck was dry, and the crew began to weld the supports into place while we sorted the the boat up for her Atlantic crossing. The departure date was further delayed by a couple of days, but this meant we could stay onboard until the day of our flight, and in the evenings we drove down to Miami for dinner.
Our return flights went fairly smoothly, apart from the pilot obviously being pissed as he tried to land in Atlanta, and Chris and I having to sprint across one of America's biggest airports to catch our connection from the opposite side. Chris and I said goodbye to each other in London, and after 27 hours and 6 airports, I arrived in Copenhagen where Nina was waiting for me. It was very nice to be back.
Thirty-six hours later I began being violently ill simultaneously from every imaginable orifice, and I've spent the last three days in bed recovering from the exertion that this required. This is the first time that I can remember being ill since caughing up blood while sailing from Trinidad to Greneda a few years ago with Chris, who was being equally ill. Just when we thought that life couldn't get any worse, a US Coastguard frigate with a helicopter on the back appeared next to us and decided to give us a 'routine check' in case we were drug smuggling. We finally made it into Prickly Bay, Greneda, after much vomitting, and Chris asked me to go ashore and find him a hospital.
Yesterday morning, we arrived in Fort Lauderdale after sailing down from Titusville. The wind was in front of us all the time, so we had to motor down the Intra-Coastal Waterway all the way. Last night we went out for a celebration dinner; when the food finally arrived, they didn't give us any cutlery or plates, and when I asked a waiter for them, I was told to get them myself. We then moved onto a bar, but they refused to let me in as I didn't have any ID!
The shipping is allegedly happening on Thursday, and so I called Dockwise this morning to get confirmation as they have asked everyone to do. However, there was no-one in the office apart from the secretary, who knew nothing, and then hung up on me.
Have a nice day.
Chris & I are just about to drive down to London, where we're spending the night before flying out to the boat in Florida tomorrow. The forecast for Florida is a north-easterly gale with a front moving in, so that sounds great.
Zamindar is booked onto a submersible yacht carrier in ten days or so from Port Everglades to Palma, Mallorca. The ship carries fifty or so yachts, and you sail on, they pump the water out, and carry you across the Atlantic. I've been thinking about bringing Zamindar back to Europe for a while, mainly because...
Half the year in the Caribbean is hurricane season when you can't sail
Its difficult to go over there to the boat for a short trip
There's too many Americans in the Caribbean
Now, I know that I'll probably get thrown out of the yacht clubs because I'm not sailing back across the Atlantic, but the people I'd like as crew can't spare two months off work to stare at the sea. Also, when you work out the cost of preparing the boat, provisioning, and wear and tear, shipping starts to look quite attractive. Apart from that, I've already sailed it and don't have anything to prove. I'm using a company called Dockwise, which is supposed to be the biggest, but their Florida office has so far given me nothing but problems and has been very poor at keeping in touch.. We have to sail from Titusville to Port Everglades, which should take four days or so, and they're supposed to be loading on the 21st March, though they're very likely to change the date again without telling me.
I've spent the last two weeks in Bristol because they've been moving around the shipping date, but it has been an enjoyable time. Bristol still seems to be worse than Bombay for people stopping you in the street and asking for money, and today someone from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) stepped out in front of me. I told him that I just wasn't interested in wrestling. I also seem to have begun setting off those alarms they have at shop entrances to stop you shoplifting. The strange thing is that I'm also setting them off from outside the shop when it's closed! It must be that chip in my neck again. Talking of which, I have no idea if I'll even get into the US this time. They were reluctant to let me in last time and gave me a long interrogation, so I'm expecting to be handed an orange suit and sent down to Guantanamo on this visit.
We’re anchored off St Barths tonight, and Chris and Chris are on board. It was really good to see Chris when we arrived last week and so we've all sailed over to here for a couple of nights. St Barths is a lovely French island, though it used to belong to Sweden and there are still lots of Swedish characteristics about the place.
Well after two weeks of getting the boat sorted up in Trinidad, relaxing, and doing a bit of sailing, we now find ourselves approaching Sint Maarten, to join up with Tayo again. It’s been a long, and an exciting trip since we left them four and a half months ago in Tenerife, and we’ve done almost 5000 miles I guess. At times it felt like this moment was far, far away, but now I’m glad to say that there’s only 6.1 miles left to go. I’m really looking forward to seeing Chris, and we’ve got a bottle of cranberry Finlandia chilling as I speak. The lights of Philipsburg are ahead of us now, so I’m off to play some party music and keep watch while we make landfall.
It’s dark outside now, but the moon is full tonight and has just risen behind us. We’re 46.5 miles from our first waypoint off the north-eastern tip of Trinidad, and we’re picking up a bit of current which is hurtling us along at about 8 knots. It feels strange to finally be close to arriving in the Caribbean, like the poem, Ithaca. Will it live up to my hopes? Will it be how I dream it will be when we make landfall? Soon I guess the Caribbean will become home; for how long? Who knows? The water has been becoming a brighter shade of blue every day as we’ve been heading north; here it looks truly artificial. As the sun set off our port bow this evening, the sky had a bank of cumulus clouds stretching behind us. These were coloured pink by the setting sun, and stood out against the sky in true three-dimensions, and were clearly very deep. The sky behind them was a blue-grey the colour of steel, and in front of this floated a purple cloud that floated there simply to contrast against the pinkness.
We had some problems anchoring on Thursday night. We were in about 16 metres of water & when we dropped the 80m or so of chain, we discovered that it hadn’t dug in, and so we had to bring it back in. Just as we were hauling in the last of it, the thermal cut-out on the windlass activated and shut it down for about twenty minutes. Then, of course, a rain storm came through as we were trying to put the Fortress out, and then, that seemed to be dragging. Finally, however, it dug in and we relaxed as the rain poured down. Jack came over once things began to dry up, and invited us over to eat on Lola as it was Amy’s birthday. Chris had made her a chocolate cake so we took it with us and went across.
The following morning we literally had to haul the anchor up, but then we were off, and it was a beautiful day. The sky was blue and the water was calm as Zamindar cut through the reflections on her way upriver. We watched as locals approached some of the huge barges that ply the waterways, in their dug-out canoes, and threw lines onto them as they powered along, perhaps trading with them as they caught a lift upriver. At lunchtime we stopped in a town called Curralinho, which was really little more than two streets. Jack and Antonio picked up some fuel, then carried on, while Chris and I had a huge lunch outside at a waterside bar. The girl there cooked us fried fish, beans, rice, salad, manioc flour, and spaghetti and it only cost £2 each, but I gave her a good tip. We took the dinghy back to the boat, and decided to relax and wait there until the tide changed in our favour before continuing. As I sat on deck reading, a pod of five or six Boto dolphins came over and swam around the boat for half an hour or so. They were amazing to see, bright pink in colour, and looking totally unlike any dolphin you’ve ever seen, they are only found in the rivers of South America, and are thought to have evolved independently of oceanic dolphins. I was delighted, as they were one of the things that I most wanted to see in the Amazon. As dusk descended, we left the anchorage, and continued upriver. The traffic was busy, and one of us had to stay in the cockpit all the time, altering course and checking for logs or floating grass islands with the searchlight. We spoke to Lola on the VHF, and motored into the anchorage purely on radar.
The following morning, we took the dinghy over, and Chris, Antonio, and I, went up one of the nearby rivers exploring. It was amazing to pass native people living in huts along the waterside, who had apparently never seen a rubber dinghy before. It was equally amazing to pass a satellite dish next to some of the houses. We continued up this river as it became narrower and narrower, until finally we were forced to row and pass under overhanging trees and bushes. We took some stunning photographs, and we were all amazed by what we saw. At one point, I looked down to see a small branch next to my leg, but then it moved. Shocked, I realised that it was a six inch long stick insect, and everyone thought that this was hilarious. As we made our way back, we passed a huge spiders web, and a humming bird, but unfortunately we didn’t see any crocodiles.
In the afternoon Antonio, Jack and I travelled up another tributary, and soon we found a town. It consisted almost entirely of a six foot wide boardwalk that stretched along the riverfront with wooden houses on each side of it. We tied the dinghy up to a timber pontoon, and asked some guys if there was anywhere that we could get a coffee. They sat us down in a bar, and although it didn’t sell any coffee, someone soon turned up with a thermos full for us and refused to take any money for it. All the children in the village surrounded us, and we took photographs of the scene, as the adults watched on. We took a walk through town and everyone seemed amazed to see us. A young boy of maybe five or six offered to carry my camera case for me as we walked along, and my sandal strap broke, and he and the other children took great delight in trying to stand on it. It was late afternoon by now, and a rain storm struck, drenching us as we tried to put our waterproof jackets on. I gave the young boy a Real for carrying my case, and he was deliriously happy. I watched as he ran and skipped away down the boardwalk in the rain, jumping with joy. I stood on the pontoon and looked with marvel across the river as whisps of smoke rose from huts along the edge of the rainforest. It was unbelievable to be here and to have discovered this. We were just about to climb back into the dinghy to go, when the main bar in town opened and we agreed to stay for a game of pool. The bar consisted of a timber walled building that stood on stilts above the water, and we sought shelter there whilst the torrential rain fell outside. We had some rum and cokes, and I prompted Antonio to ask one of the men, who was in fact the town’s mayor, if they had many visitors in the town. Sure, he replied, telling us of some Americans who came in a ship. We assumed that he was talking about something that had happened in the last year or so, but as he explained that they had bought the whole island that the town stood on, he vividly recollected how he had seen them as a child. Suddenly we realised that we were the first foreigners that this town had seen for over twenty years. No wonder everyone was fascinated by us. Antonio had been talking to some other guys who had given him some very serious warnings about pirate attacks in the area. We’d been away from the yachts for some time now, and we decided that it was probably a good idea to get back to check that things were all right.
Back at the boats we ate, but I was thinking that the prospects of going back to the town and seeing it again were definitely worth thinking about. Antonio said that he was happy to go back, but we were unable to talk Chris into it. So we motored off in the darkness at high speed back towards the town. Antonio was driving, and we strained our eyes searching the dark water for any sign of a log or debris in it. It was exciting, but frightening as I knew that hitting something at this speed would be very bad news indeed. Suddenly I saw something in the water, but Antonio couldn’t avoid it in time, and we sped into a floating log at around 20 knots. Instantly the engine flew up, revving wildly in the air as the dinghy crashed over it. I jumped over to kill it, and we inspected the damage. The dinghy didn’t seem to be punctured, and the engine didn’t appear to be in too bad shape, but in the torchlight we could clearly see the smashed end of the log. We were maybe three or four miles from the boats, and the prospect of rowing back to them was somewhat daunting. Hesitantly we tried the engine, and much to our relief it started. We were close to the town by now, and we motored over, and tied up next to the bar. Hearing an engine, everyone ran out, and hugged us and shook our hands as they realised who we were. They were all very drunk by now, and they led us into the bar, and forced glasses of beer into our hands for us to drink. I was taken over to people who put their arms around me and danced, and more people crowded around, amazed at the visitors who were in town. Everyone wanted us to drink their beer, and realising that they seemed insulted when we refused it, we drank in turn from everyone’s cups in the bar. Some were not even glasses, but bottoms of plastic coke bottles that had been cut to use as cups. The music played, it was the first day of carnival in Brazil, although the town itself did not have any celebrations. Everyone came over, repeatedly asking me questions in Portuguese as I told them that I did not speak any, but it didn’t put them off at all. Suddenly, the lights went out in the whole town, and the music stopped as the power from the town’s generator stopped, and the music was silenced. Antonio had gone off somewhere, and as I stood in this pitch dark hut in the jungle surrounded by natives, scenes from Zulu flashed into my mind. But a flame appeared from behind the bar as someone lit a tiny candle and placed it on the pool table. Now I realised why there was a stereo system sitting on the table’s felt next to a car battery. The guy who owned it turned it on, and once more we had music. Although I did feel some concern about drinking from the same glasses as everyone else in the village, I was struck by how everyone shared everything, for all the people in the bar were sharing their beer with each other. Although these people were frighteningly poor they still shared whatever they had with all of their neighbours and with these two rich strangers. Soon though, it was time to go, as we had to leave quite early the next morning. We said our goodbyes to everyone, and took another white knuckle ride in the dinghy back to the boats.
It’s a very grey, wet evening here in the river, and we’ve only an hour or so left of the daylight that does exist today as we close in on our anchorage for the night. We’re motoring at about 6 knots, with Lola up in front of us but invisible in the rain. It’s only a few hours since we left, and it’s easy going with the boat hardly moving at all, one of us on deck, and the other down below doing whatever they like.
I got up at 8am and took the dinghy over to see if anyone on Lola wanted to go exploring around the river system. They all bundled in and we set off to have a look around. The new outboard seems to be going through quite a bit of fuel though, and we soon had to head back as we discovered that it was half empty. Jack & Amy decided to stay on board, and so Antonio and I set off with the other fuel tank as well. It of course had no problem planing and we thundered down the rivers, stopping only to take some shots of villages and huts on the way. I’m not so happy with myself because yesterday I discovered that my Canon batteries are almost flat, and I have no spares. This coupled with the fact that I lost my Yashica last week when Lola’s dinghy went missing means that I am beginning to run out of cameras. It was, however, wonderful exploring some of the narrow, tree lined rivers, and worth coming to Brazil for alone. Soon though, we realised that our fuel was getting low, and we were forced to turn around and head back towards the anchorage. On the way back we stopped at what seemed to be a hotel with a timber yard next to the river. Antonio chatted to the guy there, who showed us around. Out back, they had just killed a pig, and two women were busy cutting it up next to the pen where the remaining pigs still were. We went back to the boat, collected everyone else, and took Amy back to this place for her birthday lunch. We sat down and asked for food for five people, and they went off to get us some. Antonio began chatting to someone else there who warned us that there were a lot of pirates around the river system, and told us that we have to be careful of them striking at day or night. This, we were not too happy to hear, and we wished that we had managed to buy the guns we were after in Belem. The guy then told us that we were not in fact at a hotel but actually at his family’s weekend home, and asked us to come into his dining room as the food was now ready. We were a bit embarrassed to discover that we had just stopped at someone’s house, tied up, and asked them to cook us some food, but they took it so well that we guessed that it must be the normal thing for people to do here. I suppose that if someone is travelling on the river, and they have no food, then they must just go to a nearby house, and the people accept this. Anyway, they were all very friendly, and we paid them for the food, then carried on our way.
Back at the boat we hauled anchor and left. The tide was with us by this time, but we realised that we would only manage to do about twenty miles before dark. Soon the rain started, and Chris collected some and managed to almost fill the water tanks while I took a shower on deck. We’re only 1.2 miles from the anchorage now, and I have an SSB schedule to try to contact Chris and Walter in 10 minutes.
This morning, Jack came across & woke us up at 06:20 to help Lola get fuelled up at the fuel barge. This we did, then nipped back upriver to the yacht club for a quick swim in the pool before Lola reappeared & we slipped our mooring and motored off. The plan was to get as far upriver as we could, but first we had to make a stop at Isla de Curtejuba to wait for the tide to change. We arrived there and went ashore to take a shower and have a coke in the bar while we waited. Then, as the boats began to swing around, we went back to Zamindar and set off again.
We didn’t have as much tide with us as we’d expected, so our progress wasn’t as good as we’d hoped for. I spoke to Jack on the VHF and we agreed to head into a bay called Passagem do Mandii, or Mandi’s Passage to anchor for the night. When we arrived, Lola was already anchored, but it really was a lovely place; one of the places that I’d dreamed of anchoring my boat long before I had it. There were no houses or villages around, just a bay in the middle of deep green rainforest. We settled in and took the dinghy over to see everyone on Lola. Amy said that she was sure that she’d seen a crocodile, so although it was dark by this time, I set off in the dinghy with the spotlight to look for some, but didn’t have any luck. I went back to Lola, and we were just about to start having dinner when the boats were hit by a huge squall. Rain poured down, and the wind steadily increased until their new deck cover was buckled and bent. We watched as the wind climbed to 40 or 50 knots and waited to see if either of the yachts would drag. The squall carried on for almost an hour, but finally it began to ease and we realised that the boats were going to be ok. I guess we just have to expect these squalls to come through at any time here and try to be ready for them.
We’re now only a few hours from the entrance to Rio Para, one of the subsidiary rivers of the Amazon. I’ve just been looking through the Autotide program and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was able to calculate tidal data for entrance and interim ports on the river. I was even happier to find that according to those times we should be going upriver with the tide. We still seem to be having some problems with seawater not coming through the exhaust outlet. Chris again stripped the engine down this evening, and changed the impeller once more and then it seemed to work, but whether this has fixed the problem or not remains to be seem. Anyway, we have the engine running right now and we plan to keep it running until we arrive at Belem. I’m not too happy about entering the river at night, but there’s a moon tonight and I think we should be safe enough, especially with these tidal predictions.
It’s Sunday evening & we’re bound for Belem. I’ve been lucky enough to find Steve Wright on World Service tonight, and apparently it’s raining heavily in London this evening. It feels a million miles away as Steve describes the view out of Bush House on the Strand.
We’re bound for Belem tonight. We were bound for Sao Luis, but just as we were about to enter the river last night, the engine started overheating, and unable to rely on it in the strong currents we would find, we had little choice but to skip Sao Luis and head onto Belem. Unfortunately to get out of the bay, we had to sail close-hauled into a force 6 for eight hours, which was not pleasant when we were all prepared for a day ashore. We both felt a bit seasick as Zamindar crashed through the waves. Now, though, we’re back to civilised downwind sailing, and it finally feels like we’re making progress along Brazil’s coastline. In Belem, I have to decide whether or not to head up to Trinidad in time for carnival. We’ve got almost four weeks left, so we could make it, but Antonio wants us to go up the Amazon with him, and then he’s invited me to go racing on his racing yacht in Mexico… so let’s see what happens.
It’s been quite a pleasant day today. Although I didn’t get back from partying in town with Antonio until 6am, I didn’t feel too bad when I got up in the afternoon. By then, of course, Lola had left for St Luiz, but it did mean that I could manage to get some things done. I took a taxi to the launderette to collect our washing, then Chris & I went for a McDonalds & paid a visit to the Internet access place they have here. It’s the cheapest that I’ve ever found, only costing the equivalent of one pound an hour. I couldn’t stay too long though as I had to get back for a massage in the hotel at 8pm. Although it was by a guy, it still felt good to be pampered as he massaged me with soap and got me really clean.
In the evening, Chris & I took a taxi into town and had dinner in an Italian restaurant. We decided to walk back to the hotel, but on the way all the streetlights went out as Fortaleza got hit by a power cut just as we were going through one of the dodgier parts of town. We met a couple of people on the way, but they were too friendly to want to mug us.
We spend most of our evenings with Antonio & Jack nowadays, either having dinner or going out drinking. On Saturday night the four of us went out to party after Antonio cooked us a Spanish omelette on board Lola. So we’re all getting quite drunk in some bar along the seafront when Antonio disappears off looking for women. Unknown to us until early the following morning when he appeared on the boat to ask us to pay for his taxi, Antonio had gone to a bar with some girls he’d met, they’d stolen his money, and left him. So unable to pay the bar bill, he went in to see the manager. The manager calls the police, who turn up, handcuff Antonio, and proceed to give him a beating. They steal the Swiss Army knife he has in his pocket, but leave the expensive Omega he’s wearing thinking that it’s crap.
We arrived here in Fortaleza yesterday, and after trying to reverse onto the pontoon for close on an hour with a side wind, finally warped the boat in. Chris & I were a bit disappointed to find that the Marina Park Hotel didn’t quite live up to our hopes. Lola was already anchored outside when we arrived, and Jack called us up on the VHF. Later we helped get Lola into the berth next to us so that they could wash the decks and fill up with water. Jack really showed us how to do it. He dropped anchor short & we took a line with the dinghy over to the pontoon and I winched her in.
I’m sitting at the chart table this evening & we’re bound for Fortaleza. Chris is sleeping, or at least trying to sleep, and we’re happily motorsailing along at 7.5 knots. We met up with everyone on ‘Lola’, the Swan 651 again in Natal, and we’ve been spending quite a lot of time with them. Today Antonio, the owner, offered Chris a job on board, as he seems to be planning to get rid of Jack and Amy (his current crew), and fly down his racing skipper instead. I half expected it, and told Chris that if he helps me get the boat up to Trinidad, he should fly back & take the job. I don’t know if he will though, or if Antonio will have changed his mind about the whole thing, or what. But either way, I’m not worried. Things have been a bit stressed between Chris & I lately, mainly because we’re spending so much time together, but we spoke about it a bit today, and things seem to be much more relaxed between us now.
So here it is… the start of a New Year… or rather it was four days ago. Zamindar is anchored outside Iate Club do Natal, after sailing here from Jacare overnight. Chris and I brought New Year in on Boa Viagem beach in Recife. We almost didn’t even make it there as a Swan 65 anchored nearby us earlier in the day, and we did of course have to go over to borrow some brown sugar. I did of course introduce Chris as my engineer, and the skipper instantly gave him something to fix whilst I got to know the people on board. I introduced myself to Iona who was on deck & the very rich owner instantly informed me that I was talking to his wife! Later, of course, we discovered that she was really just his girlfriend, and in time, she and the owner disappeared off to have dinner, & Chris I found ourselves on the beach with beers amongst the population of Recife. Midnight struck as fireworks exploded over our heads along the coast, and we toasted in 1999 and sang the words we knew of ‘Auld Langs Aign’ dancing in circles. After a few more beers we decided to start walking back towards the yacht club and I guess we called it a night fairly early at about 02:30, but it was good.
We’d decided that the next day would be our last in Recife, so we got up & began getting the yacht ready to leave. It took us about two hours to clean the bottom of the dinghy, then we took Zami’ down to the other yacht club to fill up with fuel and water. It was only when we arrived and tied up, though, that we discovered that it was totally closed and even the water was turned off. So back to Pernambuco Yacht Club we went & Chris made a couple of dinghy trips of water. We paid a visit over to the people on the Swan and half arranged to meet them for dinner, then went off to try to find Armando, the yacht club manager so that we could say goodbye to him.
Later in the evening, Chris & I find ourselves in an expensive restaurant, Porcao’s, eating lots of food, and getting drunk on Caipirinhas while I drink near frozen Stoli’s! We finish our meal and Chris pays the bill on his visa card, about fifty pounds, then we go over and join the Swan guys. The owner dude, who is a bit mad and crazy is listening and we both agree to having the same careers. He says, “I have nothing else to do so I’m just sailing!” Apparently, he was a publisher, and he sold all the educational books to Mexico’s schools. His girlfriend asks me if I know how to play dominoes. Afterwards we all share a taxi back to the yacht club where their dinghy (a big Avon supersport I think with a 40hp Yamaha) is and they thunder us downriver to where ours is tied up.
The following morning I waken to hear that Chris is up early, hours early in fact, and is probably getting things ready to leave. I stay in bed until my alarm goes off though. The crew from the Swan come over on their way to the shopping centre to wish us a good trip while telling us how perfect the wind will be. We’d prepared everything the night before, and we simply start the engine, uncleat the mooring buoy, and we’re off. Armando appears, racing along the breakwater in his pickup as we motor gently out of Recife and our home for the last five weeks.
By night-time we’re entering Cabedelo, and finding our way along the channel. We anchor once inside the river, and go to sleep. We awaken late the following morning, and slowly, after coming to life, we haul anchor and begin to motor upriver. It feels a bit like being in the Amazon, the low banks and the thick green vegetation clinging to them, as we pass white sandy shores with palm trees. We find Jacare Yacht Club, and after anchoring, head ashore for a coke and some lunch. One of the reasons we’d come to Jacare was to find a guy called Brian Stevens who is English and owns the boatyard there, and we wanted to pick his brains for harbour information up the coast. It was Sunday, however, and my hopes of finding him working weren’t too high, but my luck happened to be in. After lunch we soon found the boatyard, and after asking some employees I was walking towards someone obviously un-Brazilian. What he gave us in harbour information turned out to be less than I was looking for, but he did let us check our e-mail on his PC (one from Walter, and one from Andrew urging me to go up the Amazon). Chris and I were very low on cash as we hadn’t managed to make it to a cash machine before leaving Recife, but nonetheless we decided to go to one of the waterfront bars for a beer and watch the sunset. This did not turn out to be as simple as we had hoped though. The sun had long since faded and we were still very thirsty. Though the bar was fairly packed, I was in a duff seat with some irritating, possibly faggot, guy trying to practice his English seated next to me. We voted and went back to the boat, enough was enough. I sat down to look at the nav for Natal, and soon realised that if we left in daylight we would arrive in darkness. I’d seen enough of Jacare, and got what I was looking for, so I suggested to Chris that we leave three hours later, at 10pm. He was up for it. I grabbed some sleep, and we found ourselves motoring down river under a full moon bound for Natal.
Bound for Bermeo at the moment, with about 8NM to go. I wanted to get some sailing done today & the forecast was for NE 3-4, but it’s been either on the nose or virtually calm since I left San Sebastian this morning. I didn’t really want to go to Bilbao very much & it was quite a long detour to get into the harbour so I thought that this place would be a nice midway stop before Santander.
Here I am in Spain at last! It was quite a good trip down here, if a bit long, but it feels like an achievement to have made it. San Sebastian is really quite lovely. It’s set in a bay surrounded by hills, and feels quite like Rio, partly due to the large Holy statue looking down on the town from a nearby hill. There’s an island in the bay, in front of which I’m anchored, and this and the hills are floodlit at night. Some of the houses on the seafront are supposedly amongst the most expensive properties in Spain, but I sat on deck this evening having dinner & thinking, “Well, I’ve got a better view than all of you”. I sat & watched a Spanish guy rowing his girlfriend across the bay, something that a British guy would be unlikely to do. A passing thunderstorm lit up the sky & silhouetted towers against its light.
Today was lovely, with sunshine all the way through. The kind of days that I’m beggining to take for granted. Before lunch I dived off the back of the yacht & swam around it. I spent some of this afternoon trying to tighten my stern gland to stop the drip that was coming through. The problem was that my large adjustable spanner was too big to fit into the space that its in. Motorboats passed & increased the roll that the yacht had from the swell. Eventually I lost it & broke down crying. Something I probably haven’t done for about a year. I was fed up of the mechanical problems, lonely, & at that moment had had enough. Soon it passed. I started to feel better. I left it dripping. Nothing else I could do. So I took the dinghy into town & checked my e-mail. I was having a problem logging onto the Spanish machine so I dialled up the French server across the border. I’d got a message from someone I didn’t recognise... it was Kevin, mailing me from his office, where he’d just discovered a machine online. It was good to hear from him. Now I can stay in touch with almost all of my friends by e-mail. I picked up the shipping forecast; it was good. Tomorrow I would leave & head on to the next place. Although I would have quite liked to have stayed longer in San Sebastian, it was best to leave while the weather was good & before I got bored of the place. I took a seat in a cafe in the old square, had a coffee & some cake, & read through my e-mail. I liked San Sebastian with its picturesque bay & its old town with its maze of small citadel-like passages. I bought a frozen lasagne for dinner & took a walk along the seafront before I got back into the dinghy & motored back to the yacht. It was about 20:30 by this time, but it was still 25c. I appreciated how lucky I was. I had a look at the stern gland, mainly to see if it had got any worse & was surprised to see that it wasn’t dripping as much. I’ll see what it’s like when I’m motoring though.
I feel quite contented & happy right now. Maybe crying this afternoon helped to get a lot of things out of my system
I’m about 34NM NNE of San Sebastian, which I’m bound for. It’s a beautiful sunny day & there’s blue sea & sky for as far as I can see. There’s only about 7 knots of wind, but Zamindar’s moving along at 4-5 knots which is a welcome relief after running the engine all day. Feeling a bit down, and a bit bored now though; I started to feel that way earlier when I was looking at the engine & wondering how much I could rely on it, then I noticed that there is quite a bit of water coming through the stern gland now (maybe 4 drops/second?), & this worried me a bit. I’m glad to finally be bound for Spain (for the second time of course!), but I guess I do get lonely & sometimes I wonder why I’m doing this.
I miss friends too. Ged & my friends in Scotland, Chris, Mark, Dan, & my friends in Guernsey. Sometimes I feel very alone. It’s much more peaceful & relaxing with the engine off. Yeah, much nicer. Although I do feel sad sometimes, is there anywhere else I’d rather be right now? I mean I miss lots of things, but maybe I’m just not appreciating what I have. I’m glad that I’m doing this, no matter how far I get or how long it lasts, & I’m sure I’ll look back upon these times with fond memories.
I’m starting to feel better now, & looking forward to making landfall at Spain. It in itself will be an accomplishment - a whole new country to explore & cruise around. At least I can stop practising my French! Though I am still bound for there & have 32NM left to go!
Sunday
We're in Arcachon now, I'm sitting on deck with the sun going down, at anchor just west of town. Fred is lying on the settee below & Chris left this morning to head back to Guernsey. Not that I think he really wanted to though.
Fred arrived in La Rochelle early on Tuesday morning & woke me up by screaming, "Get up you lazy mother f***ker!!", through my open hatch as I lay sleeping.
I had spoken to Isotherm about my faulty (well flooded) fridge & they proceeded to send parts down to their dealers in La Rochelle until Chris (onboard mechanic & refrigeration engineer) got it working again. It's such a luxury to have cold drinks! Things seemed to be getting somewhere, & we were just about to leave for Arcachon when Chris noticed a crack on the heat exchanger in the engine. It looked like a fairly simple welding job, so we unbolted it & took it to be repaired. It wasn't long before we'd found somewhere & they asked us to come back about 6pm. We spent the afternoon getting some shopping, then I headed back on my bike to collect the heat exchanger. As I was cycling over, I tried to signal that I was turning left, got cut off by a car, lost my balance slightly & pulled back on my brakes. Unfortunately, only my right hand was on the handlebars so my front brake slammed on, causing me & the bike to somersault over. Luckily I managed to land on the grass & didn't get hurt. So off I went again, & went in to collect the heat exchanger. As he was giving it back to me, showing the weld he had did, he pointedto the end of it... I couldn't beleive it! He must have clamped it in a vice & had smashed in both ends! It was useless! I screamed at the guy in English & walked out. I returned to the yacht to find Fred & we went to the Volvo dealers to price another part. I was shocked when they told us it would cost 9000FF - almost £1000 pounds!! Anyway, after a not very happy evening, we spent the next day trying to get it repaired, failed, told the guy we would sue him, he said we had to get it analysed by a marine specialist & eventually Volvo dropped their price to 7000FF. In the end the marine specialist told us over the phone that it was corroded & would have needed replaced soon anyway, but I've got a sneaking suspicion that they knew each other. Chris, however, fitted the new heat exchanger, which Volvo remarkably had in stock (!!), & we left La Rochelle.
The trip down to Arcachon was pretty good, apart from the fact that the autopilot broke down as we left La Rochelle. This of course meant that Chris & I had to helm right through the 17 hours or so that it took us to get down here, although when Fred got up after his full night's sleep it turned out that he can helm pretty well too! We sailed quite a bit of the way down & Zamindar was storming along, breaking 8 knots at times. This, however, meant that we were too early to get into D'Arcachon Basin so we anchored off a very busy beach full of semi-naked women to wait. When we got to the marina we spent about an hour looking for a berth (which included some very nifty reverse chez moi), then we decided just to pick up someone else's bouy & spend the night on that.
Saturday night or Sunday morning depending where you are.
I'm sitting here in the cockpit of the yacht, having a beer & reading my e-mail in the old town harbour in La Rochelle. Yes, I admit that life is good. Finally now I feel that I'm making progress. It's warm, sunny & definitely foreign here!
Friday morning I think.
We're in Concarneau tonight. Chris & I came across to France yesterday, but couldn't get to Camaret so we stayed in a hotel in Brest overnight. Within about 90 minutes of arriving on board we set off, originally for Audierne but changed our minds & carried on until Concarneau. Great progress - 65 miles! Chris got seasick approaching the Raz as it was quite rough, but I didn't (thanks to Stugeron partly!). Concarneau seems quite pleasant - it has an old walled town.
