04/03/2012, Grenada
WE ARE HERE in one piece.
(Image....Horizon blows another sail)
Well we arrived at long last after having to reduce all sail and drift at 4knots across the sea from Tobago to Grenada so we would arrive at dawn. The buoyage here leaves a little to be desired so discretion was the better part of valour and we anchored safely in Prickly Bay on the south coast of Grenada at 0700 on Sunday the 01st April 2012 for an extended stay.
Customs and Immigration were very easy and friendly and we were soon having a cold beer to celebrate yet another landfall and new country.
Mail was waiting and so were Gill's schoolbooks much to his delight. Plans are to get out of the water and do some much needed work before we tour the islands by sea and by tour bus.
The Grenadians are very friendly and nice people and we will have good memories of our stay here. We have made good friends with Jo the Taxi man here and will take him and his family sailing when we get back into the water. He is also a pastor and trying his hardest to get me to find a God of some kind. I wish him luck but seriously if you come to Grenada call him on 4165332 and tell him Ian sent you if you need a cab.
We will stay at the "Flamboyant Hotel" at Grande Anse Bay while we work on the boat. Hopefully get a few pictures for this web.
Hope all are well.
Ian, Jo Gill and Keely
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Comments [2]
03/23/2012, French Guyana
5-4-3-2-1......Kourou....We have Liftoff...........
It's Friday afternoon at about 1pm and we have just completed a mini-provision in Kourou, French Guyana and come back aboard for fresh bagette, fruit and salad. A change from Dad's homemade bread and about a kilo lighter.
Life is tough for the French with those lovely bread sticks. We have not had them since Mauritius and it was nice to get stuck into them again. Our Friends, Arne, Karty, Emily and Lennard from Iemanja arrived and we all had a pleasant evening with the kids really enjoying themselves. We will spend a few days together before parting company again. They to St Lucia and us to Grenada where I will return to Oz for a few days in June for a 30th Antarctic Mid-Winters reunion
We tried to enter the country yesterday but everything was shut for a siesta so we tried again this morning by visiting every public service organisation we could find. We did find a nice policeman who told us that the Customs and Immigration offices had closed and everything was now done from Cayenne airport south of Kourou. "Don't worry, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Whenever you get the chance".......said the lovely policeman. We will try to get there soon.........................................
Last night was a great experience. We are anchored off the fishing boat piers and at 0130 this morning the Arienne Space Launch took off for places unknown but with minimal gravity. It was the first space launch for all of us and it was both a sight and a sound extravaganza. First the sight as the night sky lit up and the space ship hurtled into orbit then the sound which followed at a truly respectful distance like a series of loud explosions sounding kind of like a V8 on steroids. After a few minutes the boosters (is that what they are called?) parted from the rocket and fell back to earth followed by helicopters.
It all happened very quickly. Back to bed to dream the dreams of the exhausted. Back ashore at 2pm for a tour of the Guyana Space Launch
facility but we only managed the museum. Lots of photos and learning later we made it back, exhausted and brought the dink back aboard ready for a departure to Iles du Salut tomorrow at 'OMG its early'. The space base is used by the French, The Russians and also the Italians as a joint Euro facility.
You have seen the movie "Papillion"; well Ile du Salut is where it was
based on Ile Diablo "Devils Island". We intend to spend a few days relaxing and checking out the history before departing for Grenada, about 700nm further on. The trade winds are blowing a constant 12 to 15knots from the ENE so we expect a 5 day sail max.
The next story will be Gill's as he describes his South American adventure with his friends Emily and Lennard from "Iemanja".
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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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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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