03/13/2012, North Atlantic Ocean
We entered the doldrums about 4 degrees south of the equator in about longitude 27 degrees west of Greenwich and so began our sojourn into the intricacies of light wind sailing.
The spinnaker had been flying for about 8 days and nights of beautiful 10-12 knot SE'ers giving us 5.5 to 6 knots headway in relatively calm seas. when it just started to "hang". We did haul it in a few times for squalls but otherwise this was the first time it had been pulled as non-effective and the starboard engine started to give us 4 knots at 1400rpm. It should be 5 but our prop and bum are a bit foul.
4 degrees latitude near the equator equates to 240nm but as our course is WNW it actually was 620nm and on day 5 of none or very little wind we crossed the imaginary great circle back into the northern hemisphere. It was nice to back down in the lower half of the world again. For those that believe the northern hemisphere is on top of the world how can you be sure of this illusion? How does an astronaut know if he is upside down or right side up in space?
Anyway we have begun to look forward to the NE'ly trades and although it is early yet we still have no wind and the engines are clocking up the hours and the fuel tanks are sounding a tad hollow.
It is a good time to check everything and we have replaced the topping lift as it was about to fail. All other lines are quite new and have no chafe apparent to the eyes of this fella. The rigging , standing and running is checked every day when we do a breakfast run for Tizer around the decks. He loves his fresh flying fish and screams the cabin down until the checks are done.
Making lists and reading books is the order of the day. We have a very extensive e-library for the Kindle and PC-Kindle with over 5000 assorted books. The kids get to watch lots of movies as the engines are on providing power and the PS3 works overtime. I make work lists..........Grenada will see us out of the water for a fortnight making good repairs and servicing the saildrives and antifouling the hulls.
The shipping has been as slack as the fishing with zero fish landed and 5 lures lost to giant tuna and marlin. We did cross a shipping lane 2 nights ago and recorded 5 ships in the log during the evening. Yesterday a catamaran came within 1nm of us but did not respond to our hail. Perhaps they were asleep (or French)
While we were in Thailand I altered the groundplane of the MF/HF radio and it operates really well for an amazing distance (It always did, thanks Gavin!!) and because of this we are the "Atlantic Second Fleet" Net Controller and conduct skeds with all sailing boats and record positions etc and provide weathers for all. Keeps boredom at bay....
The GRIB files show wind for tomorrow...............................yep I believe that as much as you do and am not holding my breath just yet....We just had a 20knot squall and it was such fun scooting along at 10 knots again...........Give me more wind, I am doldrummed out!!!!!!
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Comments [1]
03/08/2012, Atlantic Ocean
Want to Join us?
Ian and Jo school Gill and Keely aboard Chaotic Harmony with Australian standards based texts and loosely based on Australian curriculums .
We would like to offer someone the opportunity to join us to assist in the schooling and tutoring of both kids. The position would necessarily involve sailing around the world or parts thereof and visiting countries and cultures with our family.
There is no salary. However the position does include all accommodation and meals aboard Chaotic Harmony and the opportunity for travel along with your own professional and personal development.
As the position is primarily for Keely who is a special needs child we would prefer a female of 25 plus years but all applicants will be considered. We have educational and therapy programmes for Keely aboard.
Criteria
Experience working with children with special needs as Keely has speech dyspraxia and some developmental delay
Willing to help, teach and be part of our family (if you can tolerate us)
Be able to also tolerate a six month old African hell spawn kitten with views of global destruction/domination
Can play UNO, Monopoly, card games and Scrabble
Has a well developed sense of adventure, fun and humour
Wishes to sail the world in a safe environment ( we don't tolerate bad weather)
Tolerance and patience essential
Willing to join in the family dynamics and be a part of the adventure
A valid passport that remains valid for a minimum of 18 months.
Interested ? Please send a note via this web with your email and we will contact you. The note will be sent by HF radio email so please keep it brief.
Sailing experience is not necessary You can be taught to sail if you wish to learn
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03/02/2012, Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Voyaging
It is day 6 of one of the longest ocean passages on the planet that we will probably ever attempt as a family. There is currently bugger all wind and a raging storm 2 miles away bearing down on us at 0300. All in a night watch for the crew of Chaotic Harmony.
The trip across the Southern Atlantic Ocean from Cape Town in South Africa to Grenada in the West Indies is a tad long at over 5300 nautical miles but we have broken it down with a stop at St Helena Island to soak in its olde worlde charm, friendly atmosphere and history after the first 1800 nm. There is still 3500 nn to go from there to Grenada.
We were going to break it down with a stop at Ascension Island but there is nothing there for any of us except hull cleaning fish so we altered course for the West Indies. We do not have visas for Brazil, (Australia is demanding visas so the world is increasingly visa needy of Australians) so we cannot stop there or if we did we would be looking at stiff fines so we continue on our way to the West Indies.
How long does it take to sail 3500 nm ? Depends upon your boat, the way you sail it, the wind speed and direction and the sea conditions and of course the safety aspect. The wind is light, or has been most of the time and is below 15 knots and is right along our couse line. That is we want to go north west and the wind is coming from the south east. Great if you are a square rigged vessel but pathetic if a fractional rig catamaran and do not want to tack down wind for 3500 nm so it is up spinnaker to use as a square sail. OK thats everything except the safety aspect. It is a waxing moon and light night winds with thunderstorms as we enter the areas of storms south of the doldrums. Do we keep flying the kite or do we motor or what do we do if we want to keep moving at night? We go against our instincts to provide safety and fly it at night and keep a double watch on the weather.
We become expert at gybing the spinnaker at night, feeling the cooler winds before the shower and storm to douse the sail and prepare the genoa and even main if needed. Believe me these are big, tiring and stressful jobs at night.
So how long will it take if speed equals distance divided by time. We go along at 7 to 8 knots on a spinnaker run but fall down to 2 at night for a few hours so we average 5.3 knots at present. (Down a lot from our 8.5 average in the Indoan Ocean) So 3500 divided by 5.3 equals 27 and a half days. However we know we will get moderate north east trade winds when we cross the equator this time of year so we make allowance for that as CH loves it on the nose and we give her an amended average of 6 knots giving lets say 24 days. We need tio take it easy though as "Momo" was dismasted there 2 days ago so give in 24 hours for reefing and the trip will be a possible 25 days so we are now officially 1/5 of the way to the rum soaked, bikini strewn beaches of Grenada.
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02/25/2012, St Helena Island
St Helena Island
We leave St Helena for Ascension Island at lunch today after 9 days on the lovely paradise. It first looks like a barren rock but is full of exceptionaly friendly and interesting people and the history is to be marvelled at. It goes back to the 1600's and most recently was Napolean's exile after Waterloo.
The locals are a mixture of people with what appears at first to be English accents and which were originally but it has evolved into something worse than the Australian dialect and very difficult to grasp.
St Helena is expensive but worth the stop. No beaches, just rock and history. The RMS (Royal Mail Ship) St Helena is their only form of transport into and out and it arrives every few weeks bringing cargo and mail. No airstrip so no flights. Not a good place to get sick. There is a hospital and a dentist that we used and several shops winding into the narrow gorge that is Jamestown.
The main source of foreign income seems to be visiting yachts although a cruise ship arrives today swelling the population from 5000 to 6500. Should be interesting.
Ascension is 700nm further on so we are planning on stopping there before the Caribbean as we need visas to land in Brazil. Only Americans and Australians require them so I guess the Australian beaurocracy has up set these people at some stage.
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02/12/2012, Atlantic Ocean
Hi everyone, We made it to the Western Hemisphere while at 20.7 degrees south latitude. So far the South Atlantic ocean has been very good to us with no storms or even gales of note. We are a few days away from St Helena Island where we will stay for a few days to soak in the atmosphere left by Napolean then onto Asom there to cension Island about 650nm further NW as the turtles are laying.
From there to Fernando de Noronha on the NE tip of Brazil before hitting the Caribbean Islands for some fun in the sun. Fernando de Noronha is reportedly one of the prettiest spots in South America and our only stop in Brazil as we will spend the most time in Venezuala, Panama, Mexico and Columbia for the big places and thousands of little islands in between.
We are currently sailing with a brand new Leopard 46 going into charter in the Caribbean. have not seen them yet as they are 15nm away but we will meet at St Helena and gain some cruising info on the Caribbean.
Will try and send photos into the web from St Helena
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02/09/2012, Atlantic Ocean
My Journal of Africa.......Gill
We arrived at Richards bay from Mauritius on 04th November 2011 and found the mall where I bought a rubber snake and a slingshot to scare off the monkeys which were going onto peoples boats and stealing food. The snake was green. Dad hung it
up in the cockpit and it actually worked! Our boat was the only one that did not have monkeys aboard.
"WHISKERS", the catamaran tied up next to us said the monkeys stopped coming onto their boat as well.....
My slingshot fired jellybeans and dried soya beans at bits of bread I put in the water and also at Marnix from "INO" who chased me and gave me a Doctor Shock. I had just shot him in the butt and ran like crazy but he caught me.
After a week in Richards Bay we left at midnight for Durban.
During the sail we were kept company all day by Humpback whales and schools of dolphins, plus Dad got snotted by a whale.(that means he got squirted by whale snot)
We arrived in Durban on 11th November 2011 11/11/11, (Rememberence Day) and the next day I went up to the yacht club and found a games room called the youth room where I met a kid called Sheldon from "Robins Nest", another kid called Lennard
and his sister Emily. Later on I met two sisters (Aussies) called Millie and Ella from "MUNEERA".
after a few weeks in Durban we went on a trip to a safari! Where we stayed in cabins and saw Rhinos, Giraffes, Buffalo, Buck and a Elephant's butt.
One Saturday we all went to the market with Gerald and Dianna from "WHISKERS" and I adopted a kitten called TIZER (his original name was Tiger). The rest of the time in Durban was spent going to Braai's (BBQ's) and then there was Christmas. I got
two PS3 games, a new laptop, a blue sailing knife to wear on watch and a photo frame plus a heaps of other stuff.
While in Durban we hired cars and went to game parks and the Drakensberg Mountains and I patted a Cheetah. All in the rain. Durban had lots of death, robberies and order issues.
We left Durban on 04th January 2012 for Knysna which only took about 2 days and nights as we found the Agulhas Current and got an extra 5 knots of boat speed. We were lucky with the weather and made it in one hit as sometimes it takes weeks to
get around the bottom of Africa. The weather is very bad here. On the way we saw more whales, dolphins and lots of birds. It was like a documentary movie. Going into Knysna was tough. There were breakers and huge waves of water. It was horriffic
but when we got in it was calm. We tied the boat to the visitors wharf and went and had breakfast in the yacht club with Joseph and Marci from "HORIZON" and Steve from "ROVER of TACOMA"
Later we went out to anchor and I spent lots of time at the Internet cafe in town. A week later we left for Hout Bay.
Knysna was very pretty. At Knysna we hired a car, I went cycling up a moutain with "INO" and I talked to the elephants at the park and it rained again so we had pizza.
Two days at sea and boom; we arrive at Hout Bay after going around the Cape of Storms as well as Cape Agulhas, where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet. Dad, Keely and I jump from one ocean to the next. wow.
At Hout Bay the smell is horrid because of the fishing fleet and the African Fur Seals. They gave us the very end berth (which sucked because it got windy at 68 knots). We had power and water here and ate at some fish restaurants and Dad and I had
our birthdays here then after two weeks we left for St Helena Island in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean. So here we are now. It's good to have birthdays.........
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